MY MEDICAL SCHOOL STORY
Hi peeps! Sorry I have been a bit MIA...sadly life and study gets in the way! Today's post will be a general overview of my medical school (and postgraduate) journey. I plan to do posts about each section (e.g. pre-application, interviews, intercalation, etc) so bear with me! In the mean time, if you have any questions after reading this post then comment, email, send a pigeon, etc, etc!
Ok, so basically, all you need to do Medicine is a good, consistent academic profile, hard work and persistence. You do not need to come from a rich family or go to a top of the range school or anything like that - with the three basic ingredients I mentioned, anyone can do Medicine.
I did my GCSEs at a pretty normal school. I worked hard and passed fantastically!
Next I did my AS and A Levels. This was at a pretty good school (the best school in the UK at the time!) My school was a grammar school so we had to do 5 AS Levels and 4 A Levels. My AS levels where in Maths, Psychology, Chemistry, Biology and General Studies. I dropped General Studies for A2. I did pretty well at my A Levels.
In the UK, most people apply to university with predicted grades. This means they apply in Year 12 (the year before the final year of sixth form) with predicted grades. Any offers that a person gets will be conditional on them attaining their predicted grades.
I chose not to apply in year 12. I wanted to do a gap year before med school so I waited to apply till I got my A Level grades. This also made sure that any offer I got for med school was unconditional because I had already attained the necessary grades.
In my gap year I worked and did some travelling.
In addition to good GCSEs and A Levels I had to do two aptitude tests - the BMAT and the UKCAT. Each medical school has a different requirement of either the BMAT or the UKCAT. As far as I know, all medical schools in the UK require you to do either on of the aptitude tests. I did both because I applied to medical schools that required either one (in the UK you apply to four medical schools plus one non medicine course via UCAS).
I got good grades on both the UKCAT and BMAT and was invited to interview.
After interview I received unconditional offers so I could pick which medical school I wanted to go to!
After the first year of medical school, due to family reasons, I took a year out. In this year, after everything was sorted, I worked in hospitals, etc making sure my medical knowledge didn't diminish.
I went back to med school and did my Years 2,3 and 4. For my elective at the end of Year 4 I went to Birmingham Women's Hospital and did Obstetrics and Gynaecology and to Tygerberg Hospital in South Africa where I did Trauma Medicine and Surgery (in addition to lots of fun stuff!).
After finishing my fourth year I intercalated (took a year out to pursue further study) to do a Masters degree in Medical Microbiology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a three month project placement at Cambridge University.
I am currently still doing my Masters and have 6 more weeks until the end and then I'll go back to final year!
So, as my story goes, life in medical school can be unstable. Personal life also unfolds at the same rate as medical school life so I've learned to balance both.
Hopefully you've understood a little bit about me from this post :)
See you next time!
Sam
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MEDICINE
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