Wannabe Medic

Trust my group to be the one that gets to be on clinical placement the morning of our results. We all had a quiet agreement before hand not to make a big song and dance about it, that those of us who wanted to check would do so quietly and there wouldn't be this "but what exact percentile did you get?" shit that goes on. This was fortunate because even when I looked at my results, I got to pretend I hadn't yet, to allow me some time to process it before anyone else impounded their reaction onto me. I am becoming increasingly aware of how decisions you make can largely be influenced (or entirely) by the people around you and so (a bit like as I question my very decision to apply to do medicine in the first place) how do you really know what are 100% your feelings or decisions? When I glimpsed down at my iPhone for all of 0.2 seconds just to read "Satisfactory" I didn't want the whole, "OMG, Congratulations!!" or "You must be made up!...

I had 2 exams in January and they were both over within 4 days. I only arrived back at University the Friday before my Monday exam. I am not a crammer. I am not someone that can sit revising at the very last minute before an early morning exam scrambling through pages of notes hoping I'll read and memorise something crucial that will help me... I find those individuals make me so uncomfortable. They seem to relish that panic, that last minute "but oh my god, what's the name of that thing that Professor X said we really  must learn about, oh my god I've completely forgotten, oh my god I'm going to fail this exam and have to leave and then bring shame on my whole family and it's livestock and..." - no. Shut your face. I may have taken it to the other extreme, by barely doing anything the weekend before the exam. Not because I was quietly confident or knew I'd done as much as I could but actually, (and it's only now in hindsight do I realise this) ...

She died on NYE. 4 days before they said she had a couple of weeks. 2 weeks before that we were all optimistically singing on a few months at least. We were at college together and only for a year. But due to the nature of the college and the size of it, you got to know people quickly and intensely. She tried 4 times to get into medical school - but there were problems bigger than her academics, big life issues she was facing and then bang, here's something else to deal with. She was 21 years old. I'm not going to pretend we were best friends but when you're in a college who's population probably couldn't fill a quarter of a gym hall and classes with no more than a handful of people, they sort of become your life for a while. We didn't stay in touch well... she had bigger shit to deal with and I was spending 40 hours / week in a hospital and the rest of it trying to get into university. I've seen people die, i've been in the room when they've t...

I love A-levels. Everything is in a textbook, there is a clear specification, what you need to know is laid out and all you have to do is read it enough times to understand it and memorise it. Then there's the fact hardly any of it is MCQ. You are graded on what you understand about a concept and what you write. Sure, it has it's faults - every examination system does, but I felt like it was fair. Or did I? Am I looking back with my rose tinted glasses firmly pushed up on my nose? My point is, I'm so lost this time around. It's been 2 years since I had January exams, that familiar unease and daunting dread preventing you from really enjoying any christmas break. That's not the bit I mind, I love learning, I love revising and I love feeling like I am making progress with something. That's the problem this time: I have no idea how much progress I'm making, if  I'm even making any progress at all. The formative exams we're given to "give us an ...

It's December all ready! I say that like this term has gone quickly... I guess it has as a whole but actually because I've done and felt so much, it really doesn't feel like it. It feels like a year of my life has been crammed into 10 weeks? The passing of time is so weird at university. It's a bit like waiting for your school day to end so you can go home, except it never ends... A couple of things to mention: 1. About a month ago I hit a really hard place full of insecurity, self doubt and wallowing. Somewhere I knew it would get better because if there's anything I've learnt over my 19 years it's that it always  gets better but I struggled to see that at the time. Now here I am, far more sure of myself, happy to be here and I already know, this is my time, yeah it's on (to quote Drake himself) 2. You have to keep making an effort. It's easy to get to uni, think you've made it and ask why aren't all the good things coming to you? Y...

Read it It's a fantastically written post that sums up my thoughts and feelings in an eloquent understandable manner. I am glad I am not alone.

I read back on my last post and saw how negatively I ended it. That's not an accurate depiction I promise, just a bad evening! We've had my second clinical week (thank god) which is a week where you spend time on your portfolio and attend hospitals / GP clinics once or twice in the week. The idea is to get you used to speaking to patients and ease you into it... but after spending a year in a hospital, as a HCA, making light conversation while log rolling a patient as you desperately try to save the incontinence pad you've placed underneath them - I am 100% in my comfort zone. Praise the lord that I feel confident in some thing. In reality this clinical week is actually catching up on the previous weeks work that you've had to skip because you've just not had the time to cover it. Clinical weeks are the times to get your shit together, fill in the blanks, file your stuff away and try to keep positive about the next 4 weeks not being quite so much information. ...