Pink Mondays

"Welcome one and all to medical school. Now, the GMC requires (as stated in Tomorrow's Doctors Outcome 1, Section 10) that, amongst other things, before you leave here you should have a good grasp of sociological concepts of health, illness and disease. All with me so far, cos this is tricky stuff? Right, good. Now, we are aware you have all of the systems of the body to learn, as well as several completely new practical procedures, but we think you will pick all that sciency stuff up in a jiffy. So, and stop me if this is difficult for anyone, we thought it would be a fabulous idea to take up about 20% of your working week with a lovely double module called Health in the Community".

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pink Mondays. Pink, as in "pink and fluffy". Now, before any sociologists reading this (and why would you be doing that? but anyway...) get offended, I have no problem with sociology as a subject, and you are very welcome to sit and study it for three years, but it is most certainly NOT what I signed up for. I put my name down for medicine, y'know, blood and bones and stuff like that? If someone walked into your sociology lecture room and started discussing mucosa, submucosa, muscularis and adventitia, you might well be slightly miffed perhaps?

Furthermore, these lovely sociologists are a breed apart when it comes to teaching their delightful subject. The introductory lecture included the statement "you're all going to hate this module". Hmm, well I had planned to give it a fair go, but if you are prepared to make my mind up for me, it saves me bothering. Next, a variety of newly qualified doctors were wheeled in to convince us that, actually, it's a really useful module and we will use what we have learned in it every day. Indeed. I'm sure I will use my stethoscope every day, but we haven't got a double module on that. And ultimately, they refuse to countenance that anyone in their audience has any life experience or common sense to bring to the party. Plumbing new depths in condescension, the standard assumption is that we are all spoilt, rich, inexperienced oiks that point and laugh at "poor" people.

So, what a way to kick off our weeks: reiniforcement of tired old stereotypes interspersed with periods of meandering around urban Warwickshire pointing at the locals. We are Tomorrow's Doctors. God help Tomorrow's Patients.

It begins!

"You've got big dreams? You want to be doctors?

Well, medicine costs. And right here is where you start paying... in sweat"

Ah, showing my age there :) But, surely this is what Lydia Grant would have said to us if she were the Dean of WMS. It's going to be tough. You have to work hard. Some of you will fail. Yikes.

So, many weeks have passeed already, but the fun of being a medic has yet to diminish. At the end of the day, it's been busy (hence the lack of postings) but it still remains the best thing I have ever done. And, while I have been away I seem to have gained another follower, so I will try very, very hard to update this a bit more often.

It's the final countdown!

Ok, so excitement just about reaching boiling point now... it's med school next week!!!

It's been a funny few months. It all seemed so far away, and then I had an attack of the jitters about a month ago. You know the kind of thing... why am I doing this, how am I going to afford it, I'm too old for this, why have I given up a perfectly good job, what if I don't like it, what if nobody likes me... etc etc. Any more of that and I would have talked myself out of it!

Fortunately (otherwise this would have been a very short blog!) I snapped out of it in the end. I am now safely enrolled, I have bought a new pencil case, and I am ready... bring it on!!!

It's evil, I tell ya....

Good heavens above, those lovely Americans are at it again! So, we have an "evil" and "Orwellian" healthcare system, while across the pond everything is roses. Hmmm.

Anyone who has applied for med school will (or should!) know both sides of this debate - it forms part of a popular interview question. So, in short, the US system is based on private sector provision with the poor being treated by the state, although it is generally accepted that this state provided healthcare is far below the standards of our lovely NHS, which is free at the point of care to all citizens of the UK regardless of their financial status. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I would be happier to be in a system that treated me according to my needs than according to my insurance coverage.

It's not perfect by any means... there are a lot of problems with funding, especially for certain drug treatments. There's also a lot of unnecessary wastage - perversely there is a fortune being lashed out to "consultants" (ie the non-doctor type) advising the management on how to save money! There is a problem with staffing (hands up anyone who is short-staffed this week?), and the gaps are being plugged by agency staff that cost three or four times as much as permanent staff. There is a problem with morale in a lot of hospitals, as frontline staff try to deal with an ever increasing workload in the face of shrinking resources and ever more impossible government targets. But, after 60 years, it is still holding true to its founding principles - a comprehensive heath service available to all, with treatment based on clinical need and free at the point of delivery.

Now I've heard a lot of tosh spoken today about "shiny private hospitals". Yes, the bricks and mortar are jolly nice, but have you seen some of these lovely new PFI-built hospitals? And as for the people inside, the large majority are also NHS staff, or at least were trained by the NHS. The point is that in this country, "going private" in most cases means moving up the list, rather than receiving significantly different treatment, and even then, you will not be put ahead of those in most need of attention. Yes, you might get a nice en-suite room to yourself in a private hospital, the nurses might smile a bit more, the view might be a bit better out of your window, but the fact remains that if it all goes horribly wrong the NHS will be there to put you back together again, and that makes me very proud to be a part of it.

And if you don't believe me, ask an American: http://tinyurl.com/lf2ywm

No one likes us, we don't care.

Crikey, really ought to update this blog, especially as I seem to have gained a follower!

Trouble is, I haven't exactly been up to much, now that I've finished moving house, done all the unpacking etc, I am now just twiddling my thumbs waiting for med school to start. Ahem, of course what I mean to say is that I'm working my way through my reading list in preparation. Honestly :)

So, the topic for today (as I have no student antics to report on yet) is people's reactions to hearing that I am going off to med school. I have to admit, on the whole the reactions have been pretty disappointing. Obviously my Mum is over the moon, practically stopping strangers in the street to tell them the happy news!! Also, my very good mates have been happy too, although lots of them have been in on the whole process and know how much of struggle the whole thing has been. The rest of my friends and family have been... shall I say lukewarm? And then there's my former workmates who have ranged from unimpressed to downright hostile, with some of them accusing me (not to my face) of making the whole thing up!

It seems I am not alone in receiving this peculiar response - chatting to other new med students online, I have found that many have the same or worse situation. One person said their family were totally negative, criticising how much it was going to cost and saying that they would not provide any support. Other people have lost best friends and/or partners over it. That is terribly sad, as applying to and getting through medical school is really tough, so you need all the support (not just financial) you can get.

So, my sage advice to anyone reading this is that if you go through this process, you will really find out who your friends are! But even better, you can look forward to making lots of new ones when med school starts :)

Getting in to Med School

This time last year it was all still a dream...

It occurs to me though that a lot of people don't get in to med school because in many ways it is a bit of a lottery. There is a huge amount of applicants for every place, so it's easy to see how some perfectly suitable applicants get "binned" due to the massively complicated and/or slightly bizarre application and selection process:

Criteria: Like you need a 2:1, but really they mean you need a first, or a 2:1 in science, but if you have a 2:1 and also a previous 2:2, then you are disqualified, or you need a PhD to make up for it, or you should have got better A levels 20 years ago when you weren't even thinking about medicine but rather wanted to be an astronaut or prime minister instead. Simple.

Entry Exams: The dreaded GAMSAT and completely unfathomable UKCAT. The GAMSAT is some kind of horrible endurance test based around several hours of physics/chemistry/biology exams all crammed into one hellish day. Sounds perfectly delightful, which is why I avoided that one like the plague. The UKCAT on the other hand is a multi-guess "aptitude test" which you can't revise for and if you poked blindly at the buttons you would probably end up getting a decent score, so a trained monkey could do it. (In case you're wondering I got a decent score)

UCAS: Simple form, fill it in online, all hunky-dory until you get to the bit titled "personal statement". So, sum yourself up and describe why you want to be a doctor and what qualities you have that will make you a good doctor, and what experience you have of medicine and medical environments, and also your extra-curricular activities in 3000 characters (including spaces). Well, that last sentence alone was 269 characters, so you can see how quickly you run out of room if you have actually had a life.

References: What is it about referees, even when you ask them miles in advance, they like to wait until two days before the form is due to be sent before they finally send you the reference??? Terrifying.

Interviews: It seems totally random as to whether you get called for interview or not. Example: I got interviewed by Oxford and Warwick, yet got a straight rejection from Leicester. No offence to Leicester, but I don't think anyone would classify them as a better (or harder to get into) university than Oxford! Furthermore, if I had gone to Leicester for an interview, it would have been a 20 minute chat, Oxford's was 3 30 minute interviews spread over 2 days, Warwick had a selection centre that lasted 4 hours. There's a massive variability in interview type and difficulty, therefore some candidates may be disadvantaged if their choice interviews in a way that does not play to their strengths.

In the end, clearly most people that get a place deserve it on merit, but the point is that many other good candidates (whom would go on to make good doctors) face rejection through no fault of their own, and ultimately may never enter the profession. The process should certainly be more transparent to ensure that selection is fair and level, and so the chosen candidates will be more likely to succeed at med school and make it all the way to becoming a doctor.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome aboard!

This blog is all about my journey to and through a UK medical school, but I hope to bring a different perspective to the subject. I have successfully gone through the process of applying to Graduate-Entry medicine, thus achieving a dream I have held for many years.

So what makes me different? Well, I left school with frankly rubbish A-levels, and I never thought it would be possible to go to university at all, let alone med school. But here I am, 15 years and a lot of hard work later, on the threshold of a new adventure that I can't wait to begin!

Mind you, having just received my pre-course reading, I'd better get started...