Medical Student Blog

Thumbs-up to the NHS’ job application website, not only is it user-friendly but it also saves and updates your details from each application so you can apply for multiple jobs without having to fill-in the form each time.

So far I have applied for three positions:

• Health Care Assistant (Department of Medicine for the Elderly)
• Voluntary Community Responder (Ambulance Services)
• Clerical Officer/MLA (Pathology Department)

The MLA position I applied for was on the 12/12/08 and I’ve yet to hear anything. The website states if you haven’t heard anything within four weeks then to take that as you haven’t been successful. Hmmmmm…. I desperately need to get a job at the Hospital soon, otherwise I’ll be pushed to achieve my six month health-care related setting for access to medicine. If all else fails I will start applying to health-care homes etc, though in truth I was hoping for a Hospital environment as I would have a greater chance of becoming friends with doctors and other specialists and possibly asking for some shadowing etc. We’ll see.

On a separate note, I have made some changes to the homepage today to reduce the page real-estate of journal entries. The idea being to allow me write more frequently smaller updates without over-shadowing the pre-med and other articles.

It’s a question all mature pre-med students are likely to ask themselves and it’s understandable for many reasons. For me personally, I already had a very successful career in IT which provided me with a nice sports car, my own rented cottage and a host of other luxuries that I wasn’t sure I was willing to give-up. Besides which, many people thought I was mad to waste ten years of career experience in an industry, it didn’t help that I wouldn’t be able to earn in medicine my previous salary for another fifteen years (minimum), of course however, it was never about the money for me, so this wasn’t a really an issue. But I had other questions and concerns going through my mind…

• If I get in to Medical School at twenty-seven, followed by five years training before foundation years, how many years am I actually going to get practising medicine?
• How old will the other students be at Medical School and will I be singled out as the ‘oldy’ or simply just not fit-in?
• Can I financially and socially adapt to the change of becoming a full-time student?
• Academically, after so many years in the ‘real-world’, will I be able to cope with amount of work required and what about the assessments and exams?

The list goes on and on and we’ll all be able to add and remove different questions that concern us individually. I think the first thing to remember is that you’re not alone and the internet is a great place for finding like minded mature pre-med and medical students. The other thing to remember is that many medical schools are now keen to recruit maturer students.

“Mature students bring a breadth of life experience,” says Peter McCrorie, who runs the graduate entry course at St George’s, “Some school leaving students have that too, but people who are older have more life experiences and that’s a very useful thing to have in medicine.”

We also have many other things going for us, admitadely we might not be able to drink as much as our fellow younger students, but we make-up for that in that we tend to work harder and often achieve better grades, we have life experiences that we can apply to medicine and our studies also.

I recommend reading the following article on Student BMJ, Does age matter?

Around about 12:00 this afternoon, I received a direct message on twitter from @goldensky, admittedly at first I thought it was spam and just ignored it, however, for some reason curiosity got the better of me and I followed the link in the message which took me to goldenskye’s blog. The name of the game is to post seven random facts about yourself, then select seven other friends from twitter and request that they do the same. It’s similar to all that chain mail stuff you mark as spam, but … what the hell, it’s good fun and I’m waiting for the party to start down the pub.

1. I’m currently dressed as a vicar whilst writing this and I’m confused as to whether it’s a sin to embellish the truth whilst dressed as a member of the cloth.
2. My favourite cartoon whilst growing-up was Fraggle Rock and I still have a Gobo cuddly toy from when I was four years old that I keep on my desk. To-date, I think it’s the oldest thing I own and probably the only thing I cherish other than my Porsche.
3. Next week, my Porsche is being taken back by the finance agency, as two weeks ago I quit my IT job in London so I could get a full-time job in the Hospital, to meet my required health-care experience to get into Medical School. I’m also having to move out of my little rented cottage and back in with my Mum. Roll on 2009 eh, isn’t there a book about the monk who sold his Ferrari, perhaps ‘the wannabe medical student who sold his Porsche’, has a ring to it?
4. I actually have a phobia of taking/giving blood and I’m currently reading different books on CBT and NLP as well as watching multiple blood test videos on you tube, on repeat — desensitisation and all that… I think it’s working… I’m not going to be the medical student who passes out during gross anatomy due to feeling a little squeamish, besides which I have a passion for emergency medicine – work that one out! *sigh*
5. Today I was in a shop buying some beers for tonight and an old lady came-up to me and asked what Parish I was based in (she assumed I was a priest/vicar), and I told her London and smiled kindly, somewhat as I imagined a vicar would. Oh did I not say? I have actually been wearing my vicar outfit all day, including when I went in to town .. but the party doesn’t start until 20:00 tonight.. (I’m so going to regret writing this list)
6. I bought myself an engraved stethoscope for Christmas and sometimes I wear it around my neck whilst reading, but I make sure no one is around first
7. The last time I was doing volunteer work for the Blind Society as a befriender, I had gone around this house to help some old-guy fill-in his will, within ten minutes the police were knocking on the door and I had been arrested and put in their squad car. Evidently one of the resident old-ladies had seen me arrive and thought I was a burglar, what made it worse was I couldn’t find my volunteer ID to show the police so had to go down the station while they verified I was who I said I was. I didn’t do anymore volunteering for them again.

Well that’s that done, not too embarrassing I hope, now to the part where I tag seven people to take part:

• bramzo
• Berci
• bartcollet
• rosyblue
• sandnsurf
• kevinmd
• scanman

Rules as copied from goldenskye’s blog:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

One of the biggest concerns for a mature student considering medical school, can be their lack of academic qualifications.

With the majority of medical schools requiring a minimum of GCSE Maths and English at pass level or above (some even stipulating that they will not consider anything less than four As at GCSE), with many more also asking for at least Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English (Remember that GCSE double science will usually substitute for Physics, Chemistry and Biology but not Maths).

Then, there is AS and A2 levels! Most medical schools will require your A2 level grades to have a minimum of AAB, with the essential subject usually being Chemistry to A2 level (due to physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology and molecular pathology being highly dependant on a good knowledge of chemistry). However, there are some schools which put more weight on Biology than Chemistry, so it’s important to look into each individual schools prospectus and requirements.

I’m assuming at this point you’ve already given-up? Well, don’t give-up just yet because as mature students we have a trick up our sleeves and it’s called ‘access to medicine’. Access to medicine courses are developed specifically for those wishing to train as healthcare professionals and undertake a medical degree. You will be expected to have some work experience outside of the course, preferably in a healthcare setting. The course is designed for those who have achieved in other areas (not necessarily academically) and wish to re-train as doctors. The main subjects studied include biology, chemistry, psychology and maths for medicine, which provide a sound science education to underpin any future medical training. Assessment is through exams, coursework, presentations and research projects.

With that said, there might some of you out there who still wish to re-take a GSCE or A level or two (I am re-taking GCSE Maths before entering access to medicine). You have a couple of choices, one is to ring around your local schools and colleges and see if they’re offering evening courses, or, you can use one of the many distance learning providers (I have included a couple at the bottom of this article). The benefit of distance learning for me, was I was able to study in my own time, use the resources I had available at home, and I didn’t have to feel uncomfortable sitting in a class room full of students half my age! For some of you however, this might not work as well, you might prefer the tutor being present in the class room if you have any questions or perhaps you work better surrounded by people all working to achieve the same goal … it’s whatever works best for you!

Here are a couple of distance learning providers that I recommend.

http://www.icslearn.co.uk/ (I used them to re-take my Maths GCSE)

http://www.oxfordcollege.ac/ (Currently offers A Level in Biology (AS) where as ICS does not)

With many universities now offering graduate entry programmes, there has become an immediate need for a comprehensive and up-to-date guide on both gaining a place at GEM, as well as the other relevant aspects of a medical career, enter ‘How to Get into Graduate Entry Medicine’.

Topics of the book include reasons why to consider medicine, help with deciding which medical school to choose, the application process, obtaining work experience, entrance exams, interviews, financial implications and career paths in the NHS.

If you’re like me, you’ve read a dozen books by now on how to get into medical school, so how does this one differ? Well, it doesn’t really. If you’re thinking of buying this book because it’s going to offer some alternative insight into GEM compared to all the other books on the market, I wouldn’t — it doesn’t!

A particular chapter of interest for me, however, was obtaining work experience. For those of you who don’t know or recognise the importance here, the majority of medical schools and colleges all require work experience in a health-care related setting, this enables you to examine what it means to be a health-care professional and make sure medicine is the right choice for you. The chapter goes into great detail regarding what constitutes quality work experience and what experiences you should be seeking. There is also useful tips on how to make the experience tangible whilst getting the most out of it. If like myself you didn’t/don’t know where to start or which setting to look for work experience, there is also details included along with information on how to apply.

Overall the book was well written and worth buying if you can afford it, but please don’t expect too much GEM specific related content, because it just didn’t hold-up to the title. I give it 6/10.

Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/6hq9j2

Out of all the ‘getting into medicine’ books I have read so far, this has easily been the most comprehensive.

I think what stands it apart from its cohorts, is that it starts at the very beginning, the history of medicine. The book goes into detail about the progression of medicine from Ancient Greeks where illness was considered to be punishment from the Gods, to Hippocrates and his theories on humours, continuing with Ayurvedic medicine, The Egyptians, The Romans, The Middle East, The Renaissance and concluding with Modern Day medicine — This history of medicine was a wonderful and thought provoking chapter, one to which I will continue to come back and thumb through in the future.

The book continues with the expected entry requirements to medicine with a strong focus on sixth formers and their schools perspective, the role of the secondary school and where to get further information. There is also a detailed guide to medical school interview preparation and how to choose a medical school.

The graduate entry medicine chapter will be of keen interest to my maturer student visitors and for anyone with a degree who is considering entry to medicine through the graduate entry programme. The chapter goes into detail about whether GEP is right for you, by exploration of individual university courses and their content. One example is the degree of patient contact at early stages and the obvious disadvantages including a more intense work load offering less time to catch-up if you fall behind, along with generally shorter holidays and less time for part-work. There is also discussion of the differences between problem and course-based approaches to learning. All in all this chapter is very well written and covers everything a mature student would expect, including interview tips, financing options and a look into BMAT, MSAT and UKAT admission tests.

The final chapters include information on your medical years and how to survive them as well information on the foundation years and what to expect.

Overall this book is an excellent and easy read and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering a career in medicine. I give it 9/10.

Amazon Link: http://tinyurl.com/559b89