How to prepare yourself for Medical School (from experience!)

It's almost September now, and some of you are about to embark on the most important 5/6 years of your lives - I couldn't be more excited for you. This time last year I was in your exact position, and having 1 year of uni under my belt I feel like it'd be valuable to share some tips (most of which I have discovered the hard way) to help your transition from A-Level to medical student as smooth as possible.

1. Don't go in with any expectations.
This is possibly the biggest life lesson I've learnt this year - very few things are going to turn out exactly as you expect them to, not just in freshers and your first year, but in life in general! Everybody talks about freshers and everybody tells you uni will be the best years of your life, you'll have friends who will start before you and they'll look like they're having the most amazing time...it is really difficult to see and hear that and not formulate expectations. Also, it's the start of a whole new life and who doesn't have hopes and stuff they want to happen that ties in with that? It's just really important to not expect anything that you're not sure of, I mean don't expect to make a certain group of friends or to find a certain situation very hard or easy - you'll thank yourself in the long run!

2. You are not going to have the 'normal' student experience.

As much as I've just said don't have any expectations, one thing to expect is that your uni experience is not going to be the same as that of most students. Medical, Veterinary and Dentistry students have an entirely different schedule, with entirely different hours and responsibilities. The likelihood is that a lot of your friends will have much fewer contact hours than you, and if you're very into partying and going out, in the long run you might find it difficult to keep up with them (if you don't at first, you will after a while!). Also, you're expected to act a little differently, we were given a talk about professionalism in all areas of our lives and didn't think much of it, but then on the Medics' Bar Crawl a group of 5th year medics had an official complaint lodged against them by a member of the public for drunken antics, and they were referred to fitness to practice, so it's definitely something to consider next time you're vomiting into a shower (definitely 100% not something that I did that night..)

3. Not everyone doing Medicine is going to be like you.
This might sound a bit weird but it's so true - I thought going into medicine that medics would all get on and be fairly similar, and I could not have been more wrong. Walking into that lecture hall for the first time was like walking into my VI Form common room. All types of people are represented, and although that's great in that you are sure to find someone you like, you're not going to identify with everyone, as much as you might want to.

4. Do not let yourself be intimidated by any other students, no matter how much it looks like they know.
I'm sure that you will know exactly what I mean by this when you start, as there is always that one person in the first lecture that sticks their hand up to answer or ask what feels like a ridiculously advanced question with words that you don't understand. In my first week we had an introduction to renal medicine in which one guy stuck his hand up and said something endlessly convoluted about stenosis and fistulae...I swear I saw every student in that room get out their pen and write down 'stenosis' to google later, haha. That guy was known as 'stenosis guy' from then on, but he was not the person who ended up winning the 1st year prize. The people who got it this year were quiet people I know vaguely who are not part of the sizeable cohort of students who love preaching at length about how much work they've done. :P

5. That said, do not let yourself fall behind.
Right before I start, let it not be said that uni isn't for enjoying yourself, because a part of it is. It's so important to have a social and extracurricular life, but don't make the mistake I did in my first term and let the work fall by the wayside. By that, I mean that coming to the lectures and tutorials and practicals is not enough. Nowhere near enough. You NEED to consolidate everything you've learned that day in the evening. You NEED to go through and write up your practicals BEFORE you do them. If you can, it will help you IMMENSELY to thoroughly pre-read for all your lectures, but if you can't you should at least look at the slides at least twice. Seriously, from experience, you'll thank me and save hours of time if you do this.

6. Don't be tempted to hang out only with medics, but don't neglect them either
I sound a bit like a hypocrite here, as I'm living with only medics this year, but it's important not to totally neglect your first year flatmates (the likelihood is they won't be medics unless you're not at uni). On the other side of the coin, as medicine is such an immersive course that will take up the majority of your time, you need to make medic friends that will help your through the course, that you can bounce stuff off. It's a difficult but important balance to get right.

Finally, make sure you enjoy every moment and involve yourself in as much as you can.

Good luck!

Work experience - how much to have, and when to stop!

I thought I'd write briefly about this as I'm about to start another set of experience this summer, and remembered how clueless I was about how much to do and what I needed to get out of it. A girl in the year below me at my old school lost out on the chance to do midwifery this year because of a lack of experience, which makes the topic even more pressing.

I'm sure a lot of you who apply to medicine come from big schools where there are lots of other people in your year that are wannabe medics too, so you might have some idea of what's expected of you by listening to them - but at the same time there are probably a few of you who, like me, were the only person applying; perhaps, like me, you live abroad and don't know what options are open to you.

In terms of experience, I find that everyone differs in what they've done and how much, so it's hard to define the adequate amount - to be honest in terms of your personal statement and interview and stuff, it's more about what you've got out of it rather than how much you did - they understand that not everyone has the same set of opportunities! I mean, some people pay out hundreds to go and watch midwives in Tanzania and that sort of thing and to be honest, although I'm sure it's an incredible experience and it's completely valuable in terms of enriching your own experience and further motivating your desire to do medicine, it's not going to make your application stand out - just because some people have the money to pay to do stuff like that doesn't mean they show any more potential and effort than someone who spent a week in their local hospital! If you want your application to stand out it's all how you present your experience in a healthcare setting to the interviewers and in your statement in terms of how it's changed your views/what you learnt/comparing and contrasting different situations and relating it all to your interests.

No matter what it is you end up doing, make sure that you keep a notebook at hand all of the time so you can write stuff down as it happens - it's likely you'll forget stuff otherwise. If I could go back to the experience I did before medical school I would go home after every day of placement/when the placement was over and write a reflection of about 1000 words on the whole thing - that way it's a lot easier to fit into your personal statement, you remember and analyse the things you learnt, and you gain a valuable skill (the practice of 'reflection' is mentioned constantly in medicine and if your school uses the UMeP you will have to practice reflection in order to pass to the next year!). Mention what you did, what you learnt, what you could have done better and steps you could take to do better next time.

Tash x

Bristol University Halls - Stoke Bishop.

Okay so this has been a post I've been asked to do a lot, and before I start it's really important that you remember that the halls experience is what you make it - you are the one that needs to go out and make friends! Also, the halls cohort changes year to year, and a lot of your experience is determined by the people that live there - no 2 experiences are the same! In short - take what I'm saying with a pinch of salt, haha. I'm taking what I write here from my own experiences, the experiences of my friends, and what I've heard, so what I say might not necessarily be true for you, or other people that have studied here this year! Anyway, that said, let's begin.

The halls at Bristol can be broadly split into 3 groups - Stoke Bishop halls, Clifton halls, and City Centre halls. You'll be offered a first choice and a second choice hall when you apply (some halls can only be put down as a first choice due to demand), however you need to remember that you are in no way guaranteed a place at either of your choices - I know plenty of people who put down SB or Clifton halls as their choices and got put in City Centre.

We'll start with Stoke Bishop, as I lived there and know plenty about it. There are 6 halls in SB (listed in descending order down the hill): Wills, Churchill (& the Holmes), Durdham, Badock, Hiatt Baker and UH.

Let's begin with catered halls:

WILLS.
Wills gets a bad rep every single year for being the hall that's full of 'rahs'. It's on top of the hill and it looks like an Oxbridge college - it's absolutely stunning. In terms of this year's residents, it's true that they tend to be slightly posher than the rest of the SB lot, and in that sense they fit the stereotype, but to be honest apart from a group of dentists I met in freshers (who were sat near me on the bus and referred to HB as 'social housing'), literally everyone I have met from Wills has been polite and just generally really really lovely and not superior at all - some of the Wills medics were just the nicest people ever, so generous and well-mannered. Wills holds the Stoke Bishop Ball at the end of the year, which was just amazing this year - they had a ferris wheel and dodgems, loads of acts and a silent disco. Wills are also famed for having formals all the time - something other halls don't have; they sounded like a nice chance to get dressed up, and quite often they'd have big events like the James Bond night that other halls could go to. Wills also have tennis courts, basketball and squash courts that they share with Durdham. 

If I could apply to halls again, I don't think I'd choose Wills, because I can't afford it, haha. 

CHURCHILL (& THE HOLMES)I had quite a few friends in Churchill this year, and from what I could see the rooms were split into the quad rooms, which were big, modern and lovely, and the rooms in 'Shanty Town' block, haha, which were very small and nowhere near as nice. The friends I had in Shanty Town were all really close to the people in their corridors, though. Churchill is MASSIVE - it has a really nice bar and a biiiig JCR, I did first aid training this year and all of it was held in the JCR rooms; they also held the Stoke Bishop polling station in there for the European elections. Churchill is slightly outside of the main SB hub - it's the furthest hall away from the bus stop, and it's closest to Badock Hall. The Churchill stereotype is 'Wills rejects', but to be honest most people that come to Bristol are fairly posh anyway so I don't think it means anything - the people that I know from Churchill are just generally really nice - I can't say I met anyone that wasn't lovely from Churchill, but again it depends on the cohort. The Holmes is a gorgeous house set in the uni Botanical Gardens - I've never been in and didn't have any friends in there, but from what I can gauge from my Churchill friends they keep themselves to themselves - I think they tend to become quite close-knit.

If I reapplied would I choose it? No, just because of its distance from the bus stop...I'm lazy

BADOCK.Some of the best friends I made this year were in Badock. Its stereotype is the 'edgy' hall - a running joke amongst most of the people living there - but in general my impression of Badock was that it's filled with a mixture of people who want to live up to the stereotype and people who take it all with a pinch of salt - my friends from there are all cheerfully self-effacing with a sarcastic, intelligent sense of humour - they don't take themselves too seriously. Again, it depends on the cohort, but I know second-years that lived in Badock, and they too are laid back with a great sense of humour. On the other hand however, there is an interesting Badock sub-culture referred to as the 'jingly-janglies' by the other residents - one guy I knew in Unit 7 said he lived above the 'head jingly-jangly' - who are a group of (usually blonde) girls who have been 'enlightened' on their gap year and enjoy wearing harem pants and bells around their ankles and John Lennon glasses etc. There's also quite a strong drug culture in Badock from what I've heard - even though there's certainly a drug presence in every hall it seems to be strongest in Badock. Badock has the nicest bar in SB in my opinion (I know plenty of people who'd contest me on that haha) and, from what I can see, a community feel. They also have the Badock Ball and various formals throughout the year.

If I have to choose my hall again given my experience this year, I'd definitely consider Badock, just because of the people I met and because most of the units become really close, but at the same time I had a few people say to me that unless you smoked weed it was quite difficult to get to know certain groups of people (I don't), so it's hard to say.

HIATT BAKER
Okay so I probably know the least about HB - I knew quite a lot of medics in there this year but I only really had one good friend there - but I can say that HB is an absolute maze (navigating it when drunk was difficult) and that the people in HB tend to live up to the stereotype of the 'party hall'; everyone I met from HB without exception was confident and friendly. The units tend to be quite close-knit, although I can imagine it would be difficult if you don't gel with your unit - but that's the luck of the draw I guess. It's a massive massive hall (the biggest in SB) that they were building an extension to this year so it must be easy to find friends.  Apparently HB has a gym, and it has the Source Cafe attached to it (a cafe at the Hub which stocks essentials like bread and milk etc as well as doing pizzas and wraps and stuff like that). I don't think they have as many formals as other halls but they have the Hiatt Baker Ball at the end of the year, which I've heard was amazing.

Would I apply to HB if I was choosing for the first time? Maybe!

And now for the self-catered halls:

UNIVERSITY HALL
I didn't know anyone in UH hugely well, but I did know quite a few medics and non-medics there, and by all accounts UH has a fairly laid-back atmosphere, and the people I do know there are open, friendly, generally non-judgemental and relaxed. The UH nickname is 'poverty hall' because it's the cheapest option in SB, but it does seem far less pretentious than some of the other halls can be. The kitchens are tiny but from what I've heard (I haven't been inside) the rooms have a lot of storage and are an ok size. They don't have many formals, being self-catered, and I think it's arranged in flats of 5 or 6...I can't remember. It is also the closest hall to the Hub where the bus stop is...a mate of mine there could see the bus arrive from his bedroom and run and get on it easy - so jealous of him haha!

UH was almost my second choice of accommodation, and in hindsight I'd definitely choose it as my 2nd choice if not my first.

DURDHAM.
Ooookay. I lived in Durdham this year, it was my first choice as to get a place at all you had to put it first due to demand. Durdham's nickname is 'Dulldham' and I used to get loads of stick from my other friends about living there, haha. Durdham is the only hall in SB where all rooms are en suite, and having an en suite was just awesome. You live in flats of 6, and to be honest (as I'm sure the case is in UH) the time you have really depends on how well you get on with your flat. I guess this could be the same in halls as well but corridors and units in halls contain many more people to meet and get on with. Durdham is arranged in blocks, but due to the set-up of closed flats it can be quite difficult to get to know your block. At first I found it quite difficult to relate to my flat, as we were all completely different people, but the great thing about flats is that you learn to get on with anyone - by the end of the year it felt like a family, and I miss them! Durdham had one Christmas formal and we had a music festival (Durdhambury) in the quad at the end of the year. I didn't always feel like part of a community at Durdham, but on the other hand I know some people that did - like anything, it's the luck of the draw. Some of the porters could be a bit patronising, but some of them were lovely and it was nice (because it's quite a small hall) to have the banter with them when you went down to get your mail. The kitchens in Durdham are notoriously big, and have a dining/seating area, which is ideal for flat parties. The downside of that is that even though we have the biggest bar in SB, it's dead about 85% of the time bc everyone drinks in their flats, haha.

If you would have asked me earlier in the year whether I would have reapplied to Durdham I would have said no, but looking back now I've moved out, I think I'd apply there again.

Pros and cons of Stoke Bishop in general.
The free bus is a godsend as the halls are 45 mins walk away from uni (if that) but to be honest the distance is walkable - I was just lazy! The nearest shop is the Sainsbury's across the Downs, which is about a 10-15 minute walk away from Durdham. In SB you are literally right next to the Downs which is good for sports teams and such, and you are also the closest halls to the Sports Complex at Coombe Dingle, where some exams are held (I had 3 exams there this year). Even though living further out from uni wasn't a big inconvenience, it was frustrating having to plan it every time I wanted to go out for a drink or out in general - I couldn't just pop down the pub, and back from a night out you either got a taxi or you walked (I got a taxi). I'm living much closer this year, and I'm really looking forward to it. On the other hand, it's true that SB is the 'social' group of halls - you do tend to meet a lot more people in freshers - however that stereotype does attract quite a few less-than-nice people.


Anyway there you are, I'll write a post on Clifton and the Centre halls later, I've done them separately because I know much more about Stoke Bishop! As always, feel free to comment with any questions!

Tash x

Thoughts on my course! PART TWO.

Hello! I've just come off of a two week celebration after the end of exams and I'm finally back home and relaxing, so what better time to carry on this post! I hope you're all excited about starting your courses if you've accepted offers!

In the last post I talked about MCBoM (Molecular and Cellular Basis of Medicine), so now I'll go into HBoM (Human Basis of Medicine), which focuses very much on the patient experience and the societal impact rather than the science of medicine.

HBoM is split into SHM, Ethics and WPC:

• SHM (Society, Health and Medicine).
  This is covered in the first half of the first term for approximately 10 weeks (my memory's rusty!). It is taught in one session every week comprising a lecture followed by a tutorial. You'll be given a paper to read every week, which you must do some set work on before the next week's tutorial. SHM was good, our group worked really well together and we got on with our tutors so it was really nice - the content varied and always sparked debate! Topics that I can remember were the reasons behind declining chlamydia testing, reasons why people choose to seek or not seek help for health problems, the societal view of disability etc.
• Ethics.
  This was covered quickly at the end of the first term just before Christmas, and examined just after Christmas with SHM. It was very much what I expected - it covered the different ethical perspectives and applied them to different situations, encouraging us to debate amongst ourselves as before.
• WPC (Whole Person Care).
  WPC gets a bad rap sometimes for being too 'flowery' or pointless after SHM - it focuses on the more holistic side of medicine, taking into account the 'whole person' in the clinical context rather than just the disease itself. I enjoyed parts of WPC more than others but to be honest that's the same with everything in life - I think I got quite a lot out of it; topics included Mindfulness, Emotional Factors in Health and Resilient Systems. WPC was assessed by an assignment rather than an exam, in which we had to complete a personal activity which could be anything from volunteer work to structured interviews to an art piece, followed by an essay which included reflection on the art piece and analysis of the relevant literature.

So although MCBoM and HBoM were the main components of this year's teaching, we also had Epidemiology and Primary Care, and Systems teaching towards the end of the year.

• Epidemiology
  Okay so disclaimer: I try not to be biased when I'm talking about different aspects of the course, because different people enjoy different things, but I hated Epi! I hated it so so much haha, it's just everything I dislike and urgh...but I understand that not everyone will share my opinion haha, so here's a fairly objective description. Epi was basically evidence-based medicine and medical statistics. Every week we had a group session with tutors who were all epidemiologists (they were so lovely bless them and they had such a passion for their subject - but even they couldn't sway it for me haha) and each week we'd go through a different topic after which there would be set work. Topics included ways of presenting data (histograms, bar charts etc), different types of studies (cohort, cross-sectional, RCTs etc), how to interpret P values and confidence intervals, regression lines and that sort of stuff. Basically, it was fairly simple if you'd done Statistics before, and I'm sure it'll come in handy in the future if I ever want to go into or interpret research.
• Primary Care (GP Placement)
  This was brilliant - as my first placement at medical school I got a lot out of having the chance to talk to the GP I was assigned to and seeing first hand the way he interacted with patients - however I'm sure most people will have already done a GP placement in some form before medical school, even if it was just with a nurse. The quality of teaching varies between GPs as you would expect but in general it was a really positive experience. The best part about Primary Care, though, was the home visits. During the term we'd do a mixture of sitting in on consultations and going in twos to patients' houses to interview them about their experiences with illness. This time was honestly invaluable to me - it brings medicine down to a personal level, and often the patients feel more comfortable with you as students than they do the doctors themselves. The things you find out about people and their resilience or their vulnerability in the context of their illness move you and affect you more than any textbook or lecture ever could, and the things I heard and learnt have stayed with me and, I hope, will affect the way I relate to my own patients in the future. Primary Care was assessed in the form of two assignments, which were my favourite assessments throughout the entire course, as it was easy to be inspired to write having heard these patients stories first hand. The Applied Case was an essay based on one of the topics covered within SHM, applied to cases that we had seen during observed consultations, and the Reflective Assignment was a creative piece that could be art, poetry, prose, dance, or music (I know a girl who wrote music inspired by a patient) backed up by a reflective essay, based on a patient seen on a home visit. Of course, across the assignments all patient information was kept strictly anonymous, and consent obtained from all parties. Your GP tutor can nominate your assignments for prizes if they wish (I was nominated for my applied case, but some GPs tend to nominate people much more readily than others - it's often the luck of the draw, I know groups whose GP nominated them all, and groups where the GP didn't nominate any, regardless of how good they were, haha!) and often the tutors will say goodbye to you with a meal or a drink (ours took us to Pizza Express - they were lovely). 
• Systems (In 1st year, you study CVS and MSK).
  This was hands down my favourite part of 1st year - it felt good to apply the scientific knowledge we had to the body as a whole with a more clinical slant. In Systems, as the name implies, we looked at different systems of the body (we continue with all of the others next year). Each System is primarily taught by one person, with many other guest lecturers who are often high-ranking consultants, who come with videos of surgeries (particularly in MSK - lots of hip replacements and fracture repairs) and real anonymised clinical data, which can be really interesting, especially if you are thinking about pursuing a career in that particular system (I was not one of those people, but it was still interesting). Alongside lectures there are pharmacology and physiology practicals (which are often electronic simulations, especially in CVS, for good reason), clinical lecture sessions which involve real patients, and more anatomy. Anatomy is changed slightly for Systems (it was so nice to have it back!) in that rather than being a completely topographical cadaveric examination session it was split into 4 parts; topographical anatomy (specimens), applied anatomy (learning how anatomy can shape clinical skills - this was my favourite bit, we learnt the basic of how to auscultate heart sounds, place an ecg, do musculoskeletal examinations etc), clinical cases (where we were given an unidentified disease specimen in a pot, eg an abdominal aortic aneurysm, or a photo of a condition, eg Dupuytren's contracture, and asked to identify it and asked questions about potential differential diagnoses and risk factors), and radiology (where we were given various unidentified x-rays, eg a Smith's fracture/heart valve replacement, and asked the same kind of questions as in clinical cases but with the added task of identifying all of the features of the x-ray, for example on a chest x-ray we might have had to identify dextrocardia or situs inversus). Overall I found the Systems exams challenging, but easier to deal with as I really enjoyed all of the content - even though the sheer volume of drugs we had to learn for CVS was challenging, haha!

Overall, my first year has been incredibly rewarding and challenging, but I've loved every moment of the course (minus Epi, haha). If you have any questions, feel free to ask as always, but do bear in mind that Bristol tweaks the course year to year based on student feedback, so it is always getting better and better - they really do listen to your opinion; based on feedback about MCBoM and HBoM I think the powers that be are changing the structure of those elements, so watch this space!

Until next time,

Tash x

Still alive - promise!

HELLO! Right, all exams are over and marked and celebrated now - I passed everything and I could not be happier, thus it is time again to write! People who've been reading for a while know that I am the worst ever when it comes to keeping writing deadlines - this is often due to a hectic schedule, but also because I am v.lazy when I'm not working haha, I will try my very best to make up for that this summer!

I hope those of you who have firmed choices are happy with them and excited for the next half decade of their lives - congratulations to you all, especially if this is your first application! To those of you who are deferred entry or weren't successful this time around, congratulations on sticking with medicine - your perseverance will 100% pay off, go and have an incredible year! To those of you who are just starting their application, welcome! These next couple of years will be difficult, but so so worth it, I promise. :)

So just a quick update - I realise I'm becoming very good at doing updates and less proficient at actual content haha this will change - I'm now officially a second year medic! I had a quick look back at my very first posts a second ago and I honestly can't believe I've come this far, it all happened so quickly. Even though my posts have been sporadic at best I'm so glad I started this, it's nice to be able to look back and see what I've achieved when I'm feeling down or like I'm not getting anywhere.

The good news is that over these past two years I've accumulated so much new knowledge to share with you all - even though I still have a whole lot to learn! For anyone that is still in school, I can tell you that my last year was definitely the most transformative for me; I learnt a whole lot about myself and I'm sure you will too. When I get the time to write I plan on writing about what to expect from 1st year, what I expect from 2nd year and my thoughts on the University of Bristol as a whole, the halls experience etc, but as you know the timing of my posts can be a little unpredictable, so bear with me! :P

Anyway, I hope you all have an amazing summer and as always, please don't hesitate to comment with any queries, it's so awesome to see people engaging with the stuff I write - it pushes me to write more haha! If you'd like to leave me a longer message or talk to me about something you don't want to publish, feel free to email me at nl13795@my.bristol.ac.uk, it's the fastest way for me to get back to you!

Tash x

NEW LEAGUE TABLES!

Okay so as per usual it's taken me forever to post - I have a valid reason this time as I am RIGHT in the middle of my final exams - I finish in a few days and I could not be more ready for exams to be over! The reason I'm doing a quick post is because I've just seen the new Guardian university league tables are out, and considering I posted about what I thought of league tables a while ago, I just thought I'd say that I WILL be writing on the subject again soon in light of the new tables, and that you should have a quick peruse of them yourself here: http://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2014/jun/03/university-guide-2015-league-table-for-medicine

After you've done that, have a read of my original post, then look at the data within the tables. SURELY I cannot be alone in thinking that it's ridiculous that the medical school with the top spot has a 'Satisfied with course' score of 77%, which is LOWER than EVERY other medical school in the table bar one (King's)?! The medical school ranked FIRST by the Guardian, Cambridge, only has higher scores than every other school in TWO CATEGORIES. Those categories are 'Spend per student/10' and 'Average entry tariff'. That means that the league table top spots are at the top because they spend more money on their students and they only let people with eye-wateringly high grades in. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that the course structure and the way the course is taught are far more valuable to us than these criteria as future doctors.

By all means, please scrutinise the categories yourselves and come to your own conclusions, but if I can give you any advice at all it is NOT to base your decisions on the rankings that the Guardian has drawn up - USE THE RAW DATA IN THE TABLE. When applying this year, make sure you bear in mind what YOU want to get out of a course. Also remember that applying was hard enough when I applied, and it gets harder every year. There are thousands of people in your position. Do not waste your UCAS choices. Apply intelligently and tactically, because when it comes down to it, it won't matter which university you came from at the end of your course - you are ranked against every other medical student in the country on the basis of your own merit when applying for jobs. Good luck, and I'll post again at the end of this week when I've finished celebrating the end of a tough tough term!

Tash x

Thoughts on my course! PART 1.

Hello! It has literally gone 12 and I have a 9am lecture tomorrow but I felt like writing, and I've promised myself I'll write more often, so here I am! I thought maybe it was time to talk to you about my course, as I keep harping on about how fabulous it is.

I try to be as honest as I can be within this blog - although my opinions change the more I grow and learn (e.g. I've had to tweak my post on league tables for medical schools because I think I was a bit too negative towards them - my current opinion is that they are still not much use in terms of choosing where you want to apply, as everyone is different and they are filled out by students who've come to the end of 5 years of a course that's probably changed since they started, however they are there for a reason and should be considered if there isn't much else to choose between unis - if with a pinch of salt) - so I don't know whether my opinions now will still be my opinions in 5 years time, but if I manage to keep this blog going that long I'll try and post every year to let you know! I've said before that I was an idiot when it came to applying to Bristol, as I'd looked into my other choices in far more detail - so I think tonight (for as much time as I can type without drifting off on my keyboard) I'll tell you some of the basics about the course (mainly first year) that I wish I'd have known about in more detail.

The first year at Bristol, in my opinion, is very well rounded. When I'm asked for feedback I come across as such a sycophant because I just go on for ever about how much I'm enjoying it all - I'm an eternal nerd. It's split into two main sections up until just before Easter: Molecular and Cellular Basis of Medicine (MCBoM) and Human Basis of Medicine (HBoM). Also included in first year are Epidemiology and Primary Care, and towards the end of the year we start Systems teaching which carries on into second year.

I'll start with MCBoM.
MCBoM is everything you'd expect from a first year medical course - the sciencey stuff. It's split into 9 teaching elements:

• Element 1 - Anatomy.
  I finished Anatomy back in December and it is honestly one of the best parts of the course so far - everyone (that I know of) loves it! Anatomy is taught as cadaveric prosection (pre-dissected specimens that you handle), which before I came here I was a bit apprehensive about as I wanted to dissect, but now that I've done it I'm glad it wasn't dissection as you start with no knowledge at all and I wouldn't want to be cutting up a body as I wouldn't have a clue where to start, I might make mistakes, and I feel like you learn so much better when the dissection is done for you so when you start out you can see exactly where everything is. You do, however, have the option to do dissection as an SSC in 2nd year if you come in the top 30 in 1st year for Anatomy (this is bc places are limited). The anatomy lead is brilliant - they get straight to the point with their lectures and keep them fun, and the anatomy demonstrators that help you in the dissection room get to know you quite well and give you loads of extra knowledge (they're all qualified doctors) even if some of them can be a bit patronising sometimes! Every week you do an interactive spot test with voting keypads, and every week is centred around a different body part/organ system. I loved anatomy; I get to do it again in a couple of weeks for Systems.

• Elements 2&4 - Biochemistry & Metabolism. These felt like one continuous element by the end, involving a lot of pure science lectures as is standard in first year, given by the same lecturers that you get to feel like you know (until you pass them in the hallway and realise they don't know who you are haha!). It's taught well, and there are lots of accompanying practicals to supplement the lectures.
• Element 3 - Physiology. This is primarily given by one guy, who is just a brilliant character. You'll understand if you end up coming here. ;) We got accompanying tutorials and practicals for this element along with the lectures, which I found slightly less challenging than Biochem because a lot of it was A-Level revision, like synaptic transmission etc etc. 

After these four, we have January exams examining us on them (which few people seem to fail) after which we finish MCBoM with:

• Element 5 - Pharmacology. I thought I was going to hate this element, as it didn't sound like something that interested me, but it was actually taught really well, and even though there were some bits (as with every course) that were a bit of a drag to learn, I ended up enjoying this part of the course,  and there are lots of accompanying practicals and tutorials.
• Element 6 - Genetics. This was taught by the same people as taught Biochem, which was nice for continuity as we got used to their style, and consisted of solely lectures. It got a bit repetitive but was generally enjoyable.
• Element 7 - Nutrition.
  As you'd expect, this was fairly monotonous, and a lot of it was obvious, but it was taught by lecturers you'd had before which was nice and it was a fairly short element.
• Element 8 - Infection and Immunity.
  The big daddy. This element is massive - I'm currently in the middle of my easter holidays and have just finished going over it - it's a beast. A lot of people moan about element 8 but I enjoyed most of it, especially lectures at the beginning where we were briefly given PBL-esque scenarios to tackle, as it felt a lot more like I was a medical student and not a science student, and overall the content had more of a clinical slant, which was awesome.
• Element 9 - Cancer Biology.
  This was possibly my favourite element, full of new knowledge and taught by people who are doing the cutting edge research they're telling you about themselves, which was brilliant. This element (in my opinion) was really really interesting, as applying the science knowledge we'd accumulated to disease biology was exactly what I wanted to do.

Overall I enjoyed MCBoM; as I finish the year I've discovered that I much prefer the clinical stuff we do in Systems, but it's obviously crucial to have that core science base from the start, and I feel like I've been taught well. As you can see by the differing time frames within this post I have, yet again, been sidetracked for like a month and forgot to post! Because of that and the fact that if I carry on on this post with the entire course it will never get posted, I'm going to split this post up, starting with this one as Part One. I promise you I will get better at writing - I'll try my best! Anyway, as always feel free to ask me absolutely anything at all, and let me know if you're coming to Briz next year! Who knows, one of my friends could be your medic parent - and that's a whole other post for another time.. ;) 

Tash x

Tired Tash.

It's half 12 and I cannot believe I'm still awake after the week I've had - I miss a regular sleep pattern! Before I go to bed though as I have a 9am tomorrow, I thought I'd start writing a post describing my course in detail, which I've started writing now and hope to finish tomorrow (but knowing my writing habits it'll probably be some time next week, especially since I have two shows on these next two weeks!). Anyway, just thought I'd write a little update letting you know to expect that, as I expect quite a few of you are thinking about finalising your uni choices now!

From a very very tired girl who can't wait for the Easter holiday (even though she has about a month's worth of lecture notes to go through), hope you're all hanging in there if you have exams, and speak soon!

My Oxford interview experience.

Well hello there! It's 5 (or 6 - not sure, time flies by!) weeks into the spring term of my course and I've reached a point where I would rather blog than write up my assignment, so here I am!

I've been sporadically checking the blog views from time to time and I've been so surprised at the increase in interest - thankyou to the people who've been sharing this blog around! One of these days I'll get round to promoting it myself, haha!

As you can see by the fact that all of those sentences are finished with exclamation marks - I'm a little stressed out. Good stress though! For those of you who haven't started uni yet (and for those of you that have I'm sure you can sympathise) there comes a point in the term, about 5 weeks in, where you burn out and reaaaally start looking forward to your holiday. Anyway, as I have about an hour free before I have to go, I thought I'd sit and write for a bit, and this might be a good time to actually write up my Oxford interview.

Right, as a quick disclaimer, I'm not going to go into too much detail about certain aspects of the interview, as for some facets of it they do ask if you could keep the information confidential (ie don't tell the other interviewees), and I'm not entirely sure as to how far that stretches, so in my best interests I just won't include it. :)

I applied to Oxford after getting stupidly down about my (very reasonable) AS results - I got all As but the UMS weren't high enough to apply for Cambridge (It's hard for me to look back on that as I honestly can't think why I got so upset about it now - Oxbridge schools don't teach clinical skills until Year 3 which I know now would not have suited me at ALL). I got all A*s at GCSE, and as Oxford look at your GCSE results rather than your AS results I thought I'd try my luck. As mentioned in a previous post, I took the BMAT, almost cried at its ridiculousness, thought I'd screwed it up and waited patiently for my rejection. However, to my (immense) surprise, the next month I got an invitation to be interviewed at Queen's College and Christchurch College by email (neither of which I had applied to - I picked a college at random). Obviously I was very excited, and went into interview prep overdrive. I'd never been to Oxford before, so when I got off the train from Newcastle (as detailed in a previous post) and took in the place as a whole I was so overwhelmed - it's a beautiful place.

My first interview was at Queen's, where all the interviewees stayed overnight, ate dinner, and got to know some current undergrads (to Oxford's credit, they really take care of you at interview!). If there are any aspiring Oxford medics out there, I would wholeheartedly suggest you apply to Queen's - it's gorgeous, informal and stupidly friendly - not like the stereotype at all (can't speak for Christchurch on that one ;) ).

I had two interviews at each college - so four interviews in total. My first interview at Queen's was fairly standard, yet terrifying, so much so that I honestly barely remember the first one - it's the second one that has stayed with me! The second interview was conducted in a large sitting room (the settings tend to be fairly informal) with a medic that had just graduated from Oxford and was now working as an F1, and a lecturer. From what I DO remember of the first interview, the questions had been pretty standard science questions, along the lines of 'How does blood flow around the heart' and suchlike. That was something I didn't expect at Oxford - out of 4 interviews I was only asked the standard 'What makes you want to study medicine' question once. Most of the questions revolved around my own science knowledge/getting me to make conclusions based on evidence. In that respect it was a really interesting experience - I learnt a lot of new things and had some really interesting debate. In that second interview, the lecturer began interviewing me first, and asked me to describe the process of protein synthesis in detail (which I did) and then asked me what I knew about the workings of a car engine. This question was designed to make me sweat (I hate physics, didn't do it for A-Level, and knew absolutely nothing about engines), and try to come to my own conclusions based on what limited knowledge I did have using a logical thought process. I knew this was Oxford's approach from what people had told me before interview, so I tried my best to vocalise my thought process, and babbled for a bit about pistons with the lecturer guiding me to the answer. Because this had gone well, I decided vocalising my thought process was a good idea, and decided to do it for the rest of the interview. However, in hindsight, this was a bad idea, as I must have sounded incredibly stilted and scripted rather than natural. The other interviewer (ex-student) must have picked up on this, because BOY did he ask me some interesting questions. I knew from the start that he wanted to test me, as he leaned back in his chair with a blank look on his face and fired question after question at me before I'd finished answering the previous one - if I trailed off on an answer he'd have another question for me. At a guess, I'd say the point of this was to see how well I could respond to surprise questions when I was completely unprepared. My two favourite questions that he asked me were 'Should prostitution be legalised?' and 'Is paedophilia a disease or a criminal offence?'. As you can see they were thought provoking questions, haha, and I tried to answer them as best as I could. I tried to consider arguments for and against for each question and come to as coherent a conclusion as I could muster, but it was difficult to gauge what they thought of me.

My last two interviews were at Christchurch, which was an experience in itself. Going from the small, cosy setting of Queen's to the massive, breathtaking halls of Christchurch was a bit of a shock; the Great Hall in the Harry Potter films is modelled on the Christchurch Great Hall so eating in there was surreal enough, haha! Before the interview myself and another aspiring medic were put in a room with the other people being interviewed that day (mainly PPE interviewees), and meeting them was like being taken through a roll-call of Oxbridge stereotypes; you had the boy from Eton in his corduroy trousers and sweater vest along with the rich American in a smart shirt who's applied to both Oxford and Cambridge, and the exotic Bruneian who's applied to Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard. Safe to say I felt a little intimidated. They were genuinely lovely though, and we played a word game (how typical, I know!) before I got called to interview.

Okay so I said I only had an hour - off to go surprise a friend at lunch! I'll get back to this post tonight - I have a looong bus journey to Leeds for a friend's birthday, so I'll finish it then! As always, thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and please please message me with any questions you might have, related or unrelated!

~~~

Hello! Back to Christchurch - my first interview was in a room with three interviewers (both of my interviews there were with three people), who showed me a vague, basic line diagram of some sort of anatomical system, and guided me through a series of questions to reach a conclusion about what the system was for, and what organism it belonged to. It wasn't a system I'd ever heard of before - I could never have prepared for it. Oxford do this (I think) to judge your confidence in making decisions, and in your own logical thought process. My last interview was very different - it had all the hallmarks of a traditional 'Why is it you want to do Medicine' interview, asking probing questions about my work experience and my personal statement.

Overall, like I've said before, my experience was a very positive one, and I have no regrets at all about applying/getting rejected as it taught me the skills I needed to do well in my Bristol interview.

In terms of applying to Oxbridge for medicine, I'd say about half of my friends on my course did apply there, so it's a popular thing to do. To be honest though, I think a lot of people apply there for the name rather than the course, or just because they are considered very clever and it's the 'done thing' to do. Obviously it depends on the person, but unless the course is really something that suits you - I would save yourself the trouble, as you are much more likely to get in somewhere else, and as I learnt the hard way, you need to apply tactically.

As always, feel free to ask me anything - I hope this has been helpful!

Ciao for now,

Tash x