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