UCL Open Day 26th March 2012

So went for the UCL Medical School Open Day today. Really good. I actually fell in love with UCL so I'm definitely applying to UCL regardless how "hard" the BMAT is.

First there was a talk from Dr Brenda Cross (Faculty tutor and Sub-Dean). We found out out the course structure and such. You get patient contact from your 3rd week at UCL! Amazing! The earlier the patient contact the better in my eyes! She told us a little about the entry requirements, tips for UCAS and qualities they are looking for in their students:

• Intellectual ability
• Commitment/realistic attitude to medicine
• Interest in scientific basis of medicine
• Conscientiousness, enthusiasm and resilience
• Time management and organisational skills
• Communication skills
• Ability to take responsibility (leadership)
• Ability to co-operate with others (teamwork)
• Empathy
• Tolerance and integrity
• Flexibility
• Confidence without arrogance
• Problem solving and decision making.

So they are asking for a lot. But to be honest it actually isn't a lot because I'm sure any good doctor or future doctor will have these qualities anyway! Also she told us about the BMAT (Bio-Medical Admissions Test)

Then we had a question-answer session with 3 current medical students, what they said made me fall in love with UCL even more. The fact that Camden is really close and the social life is buzzing and there seems to be a LOT of extra curricular activities such as sports - a wide variety in fact.  

Then we went off for a tour of UCL with a current medical student, I just love how everything is in walking distance from each other!

Beautiful building

Even met Mr Bentham himself!

Even gave us little sweets that said "Get set 4 MBBS 2012" obviously not applicable to us but still cool!

Medical Roadshow!

So on Tuesday and Wednesday (20th and 21st/3/12), I had to go to my college's other site. Here BSMS (Brighton and Sussex Medical School, one of my options) ran a medical road show. During these two days, we learnt how to take history of a patient (this is where you get the patients medical history such as symptoms, presenting complaint, history of presenting complaint, family history etc to be able to diagnose the patient), we also had a lectures at undergraduate level detailing how hypertension (high blood pressure) is caused and a neurology lecture. From this I learnt that the human skull has 22 bones. Again, we learnt about the heart! But I did the heart in the earlier part of my AS biology course, but it never hurts to remind yourself the key components of the heart. We did this activity where we had to imagine we were the deoxygenated / oxygenated blood and show the route of the blood through the heart. (As you can see in the last photos)

We also learnt a few clinical skills like learning to take blood pressure and learning how to check the heart with a stethoscope. BSMS showed us a way they teach anatomy to their students. This is called living anatomy. This is where they get the students to be interactive with each other and draw on each other, showing the anatomy of each others bodies. I found this way of learning really interesting and unique and I absolutely loved the idea of it but instead of drawing on each others bodies we drew on t-shirts which were still fascinating and I learnt a lot about our chest region. Well the basics anyway.

Another activity we did that I absolutely loved was called Playing the detective. We were handed a patient called Mark Beaton *He wasn't a real patient* . He came in confused and a present complaint of not being able to see straight. We had to pick categories such as history, bedside tests, imagery etc to gain more insight to what was wrong with Mr Beaton in order to diagnose him. So in the excitement potentially being able to diagnose someone everyone forgot that the basis of being able to diagnose well is taking a good medical history because this is where you gain important information about the patient and their medical history. Because we failed to take a good history we missed out on important information; the fact he had been in an accident earlier and hadn't been checked up after this accident. And due to this we potentially wasted a lot of money and resources doing unnecessary tests! From that activity I learnt the importance of history taking and a good doctor needs to be able to take a good history. I also learnt that I loved the investigative side to diagnosing a patient! So much brain power is needed and its an amazing feeling once you get the correct diagnosis.

Here are some pictures of the t-shirts we did:

University options

These are subject to changes!!
So the medical schools I'm interested in....

• UCL 
• Imperial (Maybe, they're quite strict with their standards)
• Kings College London
• Barts and The London (Queen Marys)
• Brighton and Sussex Medical School
• University of East Anglia

Update: 14th March 2012 - Busy Busy Busy

Just a current update as I am bored of revising.

Recently got my BSMS (Brighton and Sussex Medical School) and HYMS (Hull York Medical School) 2013 prospectuses. I really love the look of BSMS, I can really see myself there, but that will have to be confirmed when I visit them during one of their open days.

UCL sent their ticket for their open day which I'll be attending on the 26th March. Imperial sent a letter, which I'll be attending on the 25th April. Imperial is a risky decision as I'm not totally sure if I would like to go there.

Anyway, I've been really busy revising, trying to boost up my grades and prepare for the next set of exams which will be upon us in a few weeks time. I have to be prepared so I have to organised my time efficiently. I have 10 exams in the summer period, and I have to try and get As or Bs in those exams. So this is not going to be an easy time.

I also have to start preparing for the UKCAT. I'm really worried as it looks hard, so I will try and input at least an hour a day on it using the book I have. I really need to check if I could possibly get my hands on more UKCAT books!

Next, week is very busy for me. I miss 3 days of school. Two of those are spent with me visiting my college's other site and having a talk on studying medicine, this is run by students from BSMS (YAYYYY!!) so looking forward to that. Then the other is spent on the careers day, my college holds with universities setting up stalls and such to kind of "promote" their university, so looking forward to collecting more prospectuses!

8th March 2012 - Results Day

So today was results day for the Jan modules, here is what I got:

Decision Mathematics 58/100 D
Core 1 79/100 B - 1 UMS off an A! (so annoyed)
Core 2 70/100 B
Biology (Edexcel 6BIO1) 98/120 A
Chemistry (OCR F321) 61/90 C - 1 raw mark from a B! (annoyed again)
RS (OCR G572) 53/100 D

SOOOOO resitting Core 1 and 2,chemistry and RS!
I know if I resit these exams I can get A's! So working increasingly harder now.


On the plus side, my BSMS (Brighton and Sussex Medical School) prospectus came today!
Beautiful prospectus.
Loving the course structure! 

6th March 2012

This is just a mini post of what I did during my few hours of volunteering on the 28/2/12.

It was a fun day, I actually learnt some things. I shadowed a HCA (Health Care Assistant), he taught me about taking the patients obs like blood pressure, pulse, oxygen concentration in blood which is taken by a machine (can't remember what its called). I also learnt how to get blood sugar levels. After, I observed him get these stats into the patients' notes.

I also saw that when a patient first arrives at the hospital, they need to be tested for MRSA (meticillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, a superbug) so swabs are taken from the nose - both nostrils - mouth and between the legs (the groin area). This is because it is often carried on the skin, inside the nostrils and the throat and can cause mild infections of the skin, such as boils and impetigo.

If staph bacteria get into a break in the skin, they can cause life-threatening infections, such as blood poisoning orendocarditis (an infection of the inner lining of the heart).

Source

6th March 2012

This is a post about the Medical Careers Day held yesterday (5/3/12) at the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

The lecture theatre we was in.

A very informative day yesterday all about the journey into medicine so getting into medical school, the medical school experience and what actually happens after you leave! I really learnt a lot so it was an amazing day overall. The day started at 10am and ended at 4:40pm so a lot of information from speakers that were doctors, medical students and also an admissions tutor from UCL, even the Dean of the Royal Society of Medicine gave us a little insight too.