Wednesday 18th October

This is a late post! I've been so busy so I couldn't write on the blog


On the 18th, I went to a lecture held by Kings College London (one of my uni choices) about Paediatric Asthma. Its a part of a series of lectures called "The Worshipful Company of Barbers’ Science and Medicine in Action Lecture Series" held by Kings College, every fortnight. They last for about an hour.

So the doctor giving us the lecture was of course a paediatrician. He spoke to us about what is asthma and the effects on children.
Heres some of the things I learnt from it (or took notes of) :

• In 2005, 5.7 million children in England were diagnosed with asthma.
• And 3 million of those required recent medical treatment. 

(Data from QReasearch, from 422 practices which had 30 million patients from years of observation)

• Asthma affects 5% of children
• In the ratio of 3:2 (boys : girls at age 5 yrs)
• Its higher in 'westernised countries', in warmer climates than in Asia or Africa
• 40 children per year die of asthma
• Hospital admissions (in the year 2000) : 48 per 10,000 children less that 5 yrs, 16 per 10,000 children aged between 5 - 14 yrs
• 50% reduction in hospital admissions since 1990, why? There's a greater awareness of the problems and there's better management guidelines.

Also learnt about the causes, symptoms etc, but it was very brief. Its made me excited about what I'll be learning about in biology and of course, at medical school.

The next one I'll be going to is about emergency medicine, so looking forward to that!

Half term started today and I have a LOT of work to do, no rest for the wicked, eh?

I think getting into medical school is probably harder than med school itself!

Its not easy!

But I'll make it (by the grace of God) and everyone else that is interested in medicine and works really hard, shall too!

:)

Happy studying!

 

11th October 2011

I've started my voluntary work at a charity shop, close to my school last weekend (8/10/11)
I reallyyyyy need to get some work experience letters out!
ASAP!

Just a random post, not going to be writing that much on here because of my studies and stuff.
But, I will be writing as frequently as possible as soon as my January exams are over!

Happy studying!

An Introduction to Medical School.

So yesterday (6/10/11) I went to a lecture at Kings College, at Guys Campus about entry into medical school. Its part of a series of lectures they're doing for year 13. Anyway it started at 5 but me and a friend got lost on the way down there, but managed to find it! I love Kings College, its my first choice of medical school.
During the lecture, of course I was taking notes and what they were saying.

At Kings college they look at :

• Your eligibility
• Academic criteria
• Non-academic criteria

So in the non-academic criteria, you should have:

• Community activities - Do you care for others?
• Scholastic activities - Can you be a leader?
• General activities - Are you a joiner and a team player?
• Paid/voluntary work - Can you deal with the general public?
• Work shadowing/observation - Do you have a realistic view of what a career in medicine entails?

So in terms of those, I'm really close. I start my voluntary work at the British Heart Foundation tomorrow (8/10/11) hopefully to improve my communication skills and such. Community activities, I start to tutor year 11s on Tuesdays after school, starting (11/10/11) to help them with their maths GCSE exam coming up soon. I remember those days *sighs*. General activities thinking of returning to my drama group in a few months time, hopefully after the January exams, which I'm panicking for even though we are in October. 

Your personal statement should:

• Reflect your experiences, commitments and achievements
• Be truthful
• Be specific
• Not plagiarise
• Express your motivation, interests and experiences.
• Be in first person ("I")
• Have an active and direct voice. E.g "I organised two weeks work experience on the labour ward."
• Only use words you understand and can explain

AVOID:

• Using slang or jargon, write simply and clearly
• CLICHES - "I have wanted to be a doctor since I was two" "Medicine is a dream job" "I want to free the world from pain"
• Irrelevant quotations - any quotes must be explained
• Meaningless cliches - "I am fascinated by the complexity of the human body

Tips for writing your personal statement:

• Write a series of drafts
• Organise what you say logically, write no more than 3 or 4 paragraphs, don't write two line fragments of information
• Ask someone to proof read it
• Ask yourself: what would a stranger learn about me if they read it?
• Could you break your statement into headings? If not, organise it
• Line the headings up and ask if it makes sense.
• CHECK YOUR SPELLING!

So there are some of the points I took down at the lecture. I'm going down to some more soon! Kinda excited for those! Right now, I've got to motivate myself to actually study hard. I constantly find myself doing nothing. I really need to push myself!