On Tuesday 24th April 2012 (earlier this week) I got to meet my mentor since I do the SMF programme (Social Mobility Foundation), he's a consultant in emergency medicine. So that was cool. We spoke a lot and he gave me a lot of information on what happens after you graduate. Its now put in perspective how medicine is a lifetime career (but you can leave anytime you want) but its exciting to see what lies ahead in the next couple of years!
Plus exams start in 2 weeks - yikes! So I'm getting nervous, I'm working really hard at the moment, I'm seeing a lot of good grades I'm happy with, so hopefully my August results can reflect that. So I'll be off here for quite some time!
Plus UKCAT booking open next week!! So I will be booking my UKCAT for the end of August, so if all goes well on results day, I'll continue forth to do the test, if all doesn't go so well then I can cancel it and hopefully get my money back. Plus more time to prepare!!
So yeah, thats pretty much it for the update. Just few more weeks til exams season gets here. I'm going to work immensely hard. Hopefully its all worth it!!!
Good luck with any exams you have! (if you have any)
Happy Revising! =)
Follow a young person's journey in medicine...
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Update - 11th April 2012
So just a quick update before I go and revise.
Right, so half term is nearly done - I'm really sad to see it go. Meaning that exams are coming and time is running fast! Exams start in just under 3/4 weeks - absolutely terrified on the inside, calm on the outside. I need to make sure I work really hard to get and secure those grades so in September I know whether medicine is a definite and accessible option for me. I honestly have no back-ups if everything goes wrong, I really can't see myself doing biomedical sciences, so they would be no point in applying to university this year and paying 9K fees for a course I don't enjoy.
So 10 exams to prepare for and the first is on the 15th May, I need to be prepared. Totally dedicate time towards my studies. So afterwards I can relax and par-tayyyy! *cringe* - but realistically probably start preparing for the UKCAT, making sure I ace that too.
So I'm going off now, just a quick update from me.
Be sure to leave comments, I love hearing other opinions and tips.
Good luck with any exams (if you have any)
Happy Revising! =)
Satta
x
Right, so half term is nearly done - I'm really sad to see it go. Meaning that exams are coming and time is running fast! Exams start in just under 3/4 weeks - absolutely terrified on the inside, calm on the outside. I need to make sure I work really hard to get and secure those grades so in September I know whether medicine is a definite and accessible option for me. I honestly have no back-ups if everything goes wrong, I really can't see myself doing biomedical sciences, so they would be no point in applying to university this year and paying 9K fees for a course I don't enjoy.
So 10 exams to prepare for and the first is on the 15th May, I need to be prepared. Totally dedicate time towards my studies. So afterwards I can relax and par-tayyyy! *cringe* - but realistically probably start preparing for the UKCAT, making sure I ace that too.
So I'm going off now, just a quick update from me.
Be sure to leave comments, I love hearing other opinions and tips.
Good luck with any exams (if you have any)
Happy Revising! =)
Satta
x
St George's Medical School - A Taste of Medicine Yr12 Spring School
Its only now I've managed to find time to make a post about the last two days of the taster course so the 4th and 5th April 2012 so this post is about a week late! Didn't manage to take pictures so this is a text based post I'm afraid!
4th April 2012:
So we had a later start (10am - Hellz yeah!) and we had some interesting sessions that day. We had a pathology practical, where basically we had stations where we had a "patient" who had died and we had to work out the cause of death using the history of the patient and some clues lying around them. So a woman who had died of skin cancer had some tanning lotion bottles around her, a picture of her and her husband in a tropical country, all hints leading to the skin cancer causing her death. I suppose I really loved the investigative side to it because you are supposed to use your brain and think outside the box of how someone could have died. So a very interesting session.
Later, we did medical ethics. So when I saw "medical ethics" on the timetable, I was like "ughhhh, I hate ethicsss" because I do RS as one of my subjects. But I really enjoyed that session as it made me questioned my opinions and beliefs which is why I chose to do it at AS level. That session made me enjoy ethics and has motivated me to work harder in the RS exams in June. So one of the cases that came up was Tony Nicklinson, who suffers from locked-in syndrome which is where the patient is awake and concious but cannot move or communicate because their whole body is paralysed. Nicklinson thinks his life isn't worth living anymore and would like the option for an assisted suicide. So one of the questions we had to debate was "Should physician assisted suicide be made legal?" - Ah, now this is a tough one to debate! We also had other dilemmas such as you're a GP and a 14 year old girl comes to you and tells you that she and her boyfriend are contemplating having sex and requests the pill, do you give it to her? And the usual organ donor - who do you give the organ to. How it usually works for the organ donor is on the basis of who is the most likely to survive after the transplant and who has been on the waiting list the longest.
Then lunch (Yum!), then we had a surgical session where a brain surgeon gave us a talk and showed us a couple of videos of brain surgery and heart surgery. Really interesting, nearly convinced me to become a surgeon! Then we had a practical where we had a fake wound and we had to stitch it up! Good fun, but I think suturing on a real person might be quite difficult!
5th April 2012:
This was the last day :( . Not much to talk about on this day, it was very relaxed.
Had a talk from the student mentors about research, one of them even got her work published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) - Amazing! Then I talk from Professor Julian Ma about medical research, this was really fascinating I found myself contemplating doing research when I'm older. Found out some interesting facts too, like how they are currently doing research into putting vaccines into food such as potatoes so vaccinations are easily accessible in developing countries which is really cool. I feel research puts forward very intelligent ideas that can potentially change the world so I am very interested in doing research when I'm older.
Then a reflection, just had to put down some ideas down on how the spring school went and what we learnt from it because of course, reflection is a very important skill in medicine.
Afterwards we had a talk from a neo-natal doctor and a tour of the paediatrics department at St Georges Hospital. Seeing all the cute little babies made me want just cuddle them and treat them so they can lead healthy, happy childhoods.
End of the day, we got certificates and letters to prove that we've done the spring school and have completed all four days! - SWEET!!!
4th April 2012:
So we had a later start (10am - Hellz yeah!) and we had some interesting sessions that day. We had a pathology practical, where basically we had stations where we had a "patient" who had died and we had to work out the cause of death using the history of the patient and some clues lying around them. So a woman who had died of skin cancer had some tanning lotion bottles around her, a picture of her and her husband in a tropical country, all hints leading to the skin cancer causing her death. I suppose I really loved the investigative side to it because you are supposed to use your brain and think outside the box of how someone could have died. So a very interesting session.
Later, we did medical ethics. So when I saw "medical ethics" on the timetable, I was like "ughhhh, I hate ethicsss" because I do RS as one of my subjects. But I really enjoyed that session as it made me questioned my opinions and beliefs which is why I chose to do it at AS level. That session made me enjoy ethics and has motivated me to work harder in the RS exams in June. So one of the cases that came up was Tony Nicklinson, who suffers from locked-in syndrome which is where the patient is awake and concious but cannot move or communicate because their whole body is paralysed. Nicklinson thinks his life isn't worth living anymore and would like the option for an assisted suicide. So one of the questions we had to debate was "Should physician assisted suicide be made legal?" - Ah, now this is a tough one to debate! We also had other dilemmas such as you're a GP and a 14 year old girl comes to you and tells you that she and her boyfriend are contemplating having sex and requests the pill, do you give it to her? And the usual organ donor - who do you give the organ to. How it usually works for the organ donor is on the basis of who is the most likely to survive after the transplant and who has been on the waiting list the longest.
Then lunch (Yum!), then we had a surgical session where a brain surgeon gave us a talk and showed us a couple of videos of brain surgery and heart surgery. Really interesting, nearly convinced me to become a surgeon! Then we had a practical where we had a fake wound and we had to stitch it up! Good fun, but I think suturing on a real person might be quite difficult!
5th April 2012:
This was the last day :( . Not much to talk about on this day, it was very relaxed.
Had a talk from the student mentors about research, one of them even got her work published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) - Amazing! Then I talk from Professor Julian Ma about medical research, this was really fascinating I found myself contemplating doing research when I'm older. Found out some interesting facts too, like how they are currently doing research into putting vaccines into food such as potatoes so vaccinations are easily accessible in developing countries which is really cool. I feel research puts forward very intelligent ideas that can potentially change the world so I am very interested in doing research when I'm older.
Then a reflection, just had to put down some ideas down on how the spring school went and what we learnt from it because of course, reflection is a very important skill in medicine.
Afterwards we had a talk from a neo-natal doctor and a tour of the paediatrics department at St Georges Hospital. Seeing all the cute little babies made me want just cuddle them and treat them so they can lead healthy, happy childhoods.
End of the day, we got certificates and letters to prove that we've done the spring school and have completed all four days! - SWEET!!!
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
St George's Medical School - A Taste of Medicine Yr12 Spring School
So this is a post about the spring school taking place over the spring half term between the 2nd April 2012 until the 5th April 2012.
This post is only about the first two days (out of the four so far) so the 2nd and 3rd April 2012.
So the 2nd April:
First we had the "welcome to the spring school" speech and an intro to the mentors and things. What I love about the mentors is that some didn't take the traditional path into medicine. One of them applied to med school three times before getting accepted the third time! Another did a biomedical science degree then transferred into the med school at St Georges. It taught me that if medicine is your passion you should NEVER give up on it. If you keep trying, you will get there, and I respect them for that. I have no idea whether I'll have the strength to pick myself up again and keep trying if I got rejected.
Oh interesting fact: Harry Hill studied medicine at St Georges. I knew he had studied medicine but not at St Georges! It just goes to show that you don't have to stay in that career you could always change!
Anyway we had a tour of the university. It is a pretty nice university I love the fact that it is directly connected to the hospital so if you're ever feeling stressed out, you'd just look at the hospital and remember why you're doing the course. Then we went to the Pathology museum - AMAZINGGG! - some of the specimens there are really fascinating. The ones that caught my attention the most were the ectopic pregnancies where you could actually see the foetuses still in the womb. They were so tiny. I swear just by looking at them I almost convinced myself to become a neo-natal doctor! But a girl will always change her mind! We also had some work sheets to do so I'll see if I can scan them in and upload them onto the blog.
We then had a workshop on how St Georges do their interviews - MMI (Multi Mini Interviews) so you have each question asked in a mini station just going round. There are 8 stations where you'll spend about 5 minutes each. I'll do a separate post on that as well!
Finally, at the end of the day we had a talk about getting in medical school from the admissions tutor of St Georges, Dr Muriel Shannon.
3rd April 2012:
Today was mostly clinical skills so the skills we did were:
This post is only about the first two days (out of the four so far) so the 2nd and 3rd April 2012.
So the 2nd April:
First we had the "welcome to the spring school" speech and an intro to the mentors and things. What I love about the mentors is that some didn't take the traditional path into medicine. One of them applied to med school three times before getting accepted the third time! Another did a biomedical science degree then transferred into the med school at St Georges. It taught me that if medicine is your passion you should NEVER give up on it. If you keep trying, you will get there, and I respect them for that. I have no idea whether I'll have the strength to pick myself up again and keep trying if I got rejected.
Oh interesting fact: Harry Hill studied medicine at St Georges. I knew he had studied medicine but not at St Georges! It just goes to show that you don't have to stay in that career you could always change!
Anyway we had a tour of the university. It is a pretty nice university I love the fact that it is directly connected to the hospital so if you're ever feeling stressed out, you'd just look at the hospital and remember why you're doing the course. Then we went to the Pathology museum - AMAZINGGG! - some of the specimens there are really fascinating. The ones that caught my attention the most were the ectopic pregnancies where you could actually see the foetuses still in the womb. They were so tiny. I swear just by looking at them I almost convinced myself to become a neo-natal doctor! But a girl will always change her mind! We also had some work sheets to do so I'll see if I can scan them in and upload them onto the blog.
We then had a workshop on how St Georges do their interviews - MMI (Multi Mini Interviews) so you have each question asked in a mini station just going round. There are 8 stations where you'll spend about 5 minutes each. I'll do a separate post on that as well!
Finally, at the end of the day we had a talk about getting in medical school from the admissions tutor of St Georges, Dr Muriel Shannon.
3rd April 2012:
Today was mostly clinical skills so the skills we did were:
- Blood pressure - How to get the blood pressure using a sphygmomanometer
- Organs - So just learning about organs in general
- CPR - Learning DR ABC
- Learning how to feel the location of a baby in a pregnant woman (Loved this one!)
- Bones
- Ultrasound to listen to the pulse.
I actually learnt things today! For instance, places you could get the pulse in; the carotid artery in the neck, the brachial artery near your biceps, the radial artery (your wrist), the femoral artery (groin area), the posterial tibia (near your ankle) and the dorsalis pedis (near your big toe). I can't believe I remembered it, but it was so fascinating!
Oh, plus I got a free stethoscope, and it actually works so the last two days have motivated me and medicine is something I DEFINATLY want to do!
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| The Hospital - You have to literally walk through the hospital to get to the medical school. |
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| Some of the freebies I've gotten from the two days |
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