h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Quille the cynical tells me you're thinking of doing medicine in the long run.. so I'm just dropping in to say hi!

I'm a 3rd year at Birmingham Uni... do feel free to ask ifyou have any questions. In fact here's a link to an excellent entry on how to get into a Uk medical school.. written by well me actually.. A717527

hey! - to tell the truth, at the end of GCSES altho i wos interested in medicine, I knew I wouldn't be able to do the sciences to high enough standard. Therefore, I am looking at Occupational Therapy - can combine my bio and psych and be in a caring/medicalish proffesion!

I have an interview for the Welsh College of Medicine on WEdnesday - very scary! lol - any tips, then please let me know!

Thanks


Misscooldude

wahaaaaaaa! me getting confused, this wos in my message centre even tho tis my boyfriends name at the top of the wotsit now taht i look closer - lol!!

ah well, yeah he is interested in med, but i'm sure he'll tell u that!


wonder y i got that message


hmmmmmmmm

Hello Z

lol, excuse my ditzy-girlfriend she gets confused sometimes.. hehe..

Yes Quille was right in saying that I am interested in Medicine - I have applied to Bristol, Cardiff and the new Hull-York Medical School (York campus). I also applied to Nottingham but they turned me down (bastards! lol).
I read your article and, luckily, I can say that I am doing most of what you suggest (brilliant article too ).. lemme just look thro' it again and see if there are any questions I can ask ya...
oh, I heard that it was more like ten people for every place.. where'd you get those statistics?
right, got placements at local hospital, have done work in the county hospital and I hope to get a day-placement in A&E there, altho i am doubtful. Am doing a day with the local surgery too (after writing to my doctor ) and I have done a certificate in basic counselling skills! I RULE! lol
Oh, and I got my hep-b course absolutely ages ago (lol, no more than a year ago) cos i went to the GUM clinic and asked for it, simple as that (whilst getting checked out for everything else - CLEAN! and proud)
Haven't got that brown envelope yet, so still have that breath all waiting for the sigh of relief... it'll come, I know it will..
haven't heard of any medical entrance exams/essays from where I have applied to, maybe you could say otherwise?
I am a reader of the New Scientist not only for the med stuff either, which I think can only be a good thing.
What question did you get asked in your interviews (if you can cast yoru mind thaaaaat far back)? and oh oh ARGH! at the nursing question... lol and you can't answer "money, girls and money" for that can you? (Do you watch Scrubs? co sif you do then you'll recognise that answer.. if not then are you missing out! lol IMHO)
Luckily I am gonna get my fees paid for (unless the government pushes through these 'top-up' charges, in which case I mite be unlucky)
I knwo that I am going to be in debt but the job at the end of it will pay dividends for it, I am prepared for these eventualities. I also have a savings account and am trying to set up a student account asap.

Thanx for penning a note to me, much appreciated. If you have any more pearls of wisdom, any information about the course that you may feel you want to let me in on or just wanna chat, feel free!

Speak to you soon.

BenniBi!

Hello

Don't worry about your girlfriend we've been haveing a nice chat on her. And Nottingham are notorious for turning people down they are the most difficult to get into in the country. I got the stats from teh UCAS website. But it can be confusing each place at each medschool will have about 10 applicants but each of those applicants will have applied to 4 places in total so when you work out the total number of applicants nationwide it works out like that. I actually looked at the raw data which you can download. (sad but true)

My story is.. I applied to Aberdeen, Glasgow, St. Georges, Liverpool, and Birmingham. In early december I had interveiws at Glasgow and St Georges, it was the 5pm in Glasgow and the 9am in London, so I got the sleeper down from one to the other. Which is a bit scary when you're 17 and nervous as it is. I fluffed the Glasgow one up because of nerves I talked too much. In St. Georges which was my first choice, I was even more nervoues i couldn't quiet say anything. In the end they resorted to asking my whether i supported Liverpool or Everton, becuase I my parents are from Liverpool.

Needless to say I got two rejections, but Glasgow said that I could ring them up if I still didn't have a place by August and they might be albe to fit me in.

Then in April I had an interview at Birmingham, for this one I'd been to see the college's Ed Pscy about my panic attacks, had a mock interview with a very nasty teacher. (who told me I came across as arogant and stared out the window when being asked a question)> and was feeling a lot more confident.

Then I got an offer from Aberdeen without an intreview which was great they wanted ABB, and an offer from Birmingham who wanted AAB. SO I put birmingham down as first choice and aberdeen as second choice.

I got BBB and birmingham took me though, I think they had a bit of an admiissions crises that year because they were ordered to take on 20 more med students by the department of health.

Don't worry about money you'll earn loads when you're a dr and if you work in teh holidays in 1st and 2nd year you'll end up with not that much debt. From what I've heard about top up fees they'll always allow the poorest students to go to Uni so I wouldn't worry about them either..

Hello again Z

One question that I thought of since last time - is everyone in Medical courses a hypochondriac? A fairly serious condition when you think about it, but quite a funny one too.. I already am, but there you go, who knows, I Might have malaria! lol joke..

Ok, yeah I heard that Nottingham are hard-asses, but worth applying to anyways, just on the off chance I got in.. But, obviously, I didn't - no worries, I got three other choices.. which I think is pretty bad, I want six choices! lol but what aaaare you gonna do eh?

Bad luck for the interviews situations, I am told that I have a confident personality so I don't have the trouble of over-nervousness, although some nervousness is due!
I will try and sort out a nasty lecturer for my mock interviews, might see if my girlfriend's free... (I joke!!) But yes, nasty people are the best people for non-real things.. for real things, nice and understanding people are the best, but rare! lol
I can't believe that you got an offer without interview, how did you wangle that one then? I didn't think medical schools offered to anyone without interview, at least that was the impression given to me.


I am not worrying about money that much, I am prepared for whatever debt I get into and know that I will do all I can to sort myself out with money during the course.

Out of interest, how many hours are you doing now you are in the third year? are birmingham one of those that run the split two-year learning then three-year placement courses? I got a book from the local library today entitled "Careers In Medicine, Dentistry and Mental Health", am reading through that today, it is giving me a bit of good information although it is a little out-dated, even though it is only '99.

Yeah, so those two questions happy-days Z!

BenniBi

Hi an answer to your questons.. you learn to deal with the hypochondra, I tend to assume I'm immortal and could never turn into one of those patient things. Which helps.

In my Day (4 years ago) quiet a few offered places wihout interviews you can find out who interviews and who doesn't from a book in your careers libary at school/college. Abderdeen somehow only interview % of offers.

Things at medical schools really don't change that fast, most of hte admissions tutors have been their for years so I think a book in 1999 will still be up to date.

Most medschools that I know of, (ie that I applied to or have friends at) have 2 years preclincal with increasing clincial bits as extras. (we did 1 day a fortnight in a gp's) then three years of clinical. Some have a more formal split. Some have 3 years to begin with and another 3 years clinical.

As far as I'm concerned clinical is by far the funnest part of hte whole thing it's great, I'm in hospitals 4 days a week and GP's the other day so it's a lot of proper medicine. Where you can really see where your going.

Good luckk and keep me posted.


Z

Anyone mind if I lurk and try to get some info from those that know? Ok perhaps I'll go read the article then...

Lurk away m'dear.. but as far as I know things are different in the US, far more elongated, you do a degree then medschool, gosh I'd go mad considering I got frustrated doing my A levels knowing that I wanted to do Medicine because so much of it was irrelvent. I wished there was a longer course that you could start at 16!

Actullay a tip there Statistics may seem boring but as i spent most of yesterday evening fidling with statistics remember it and keep your notes. because if you're good at it then you've got a good chance of getting your research published and all the good jobs that come with that!

Yes Quille, feel free to add anything and the like

I get what you're talking about Z, it is quite frustrating learning about plant science in biology when all i really want to study is human science. But not to worry, we are onto human health and protection from disease next, which makes me very Hopefully we'll do stuff I don't know about but seeing as I have already pretty much read the textbook right thru, it might not happen like that.. although our bio lecturer does seem to go off on interesting tangents from time to time, which can be quite interesting!

It might be interesting to see what a 16+ course for medicine would do.. I woudl have definitely considered it at the stage I was at earlier but would there still be opportunities if, at the end of the two years, you decided that maybe it wasn't the best thing for you? dunno about that.. I guess it would have to have the usual strenuous weeding out that occurs with medicine at the moment.

Did you hear the news, by the way, that Cambridge has been knocked off the overall top spot by Oxford for the first ever time? That made me smile a bit

And luckily we are doing statistics for our option.. or at least, the higher maths people are and I am tagging along in their group for the rest of the year so I shall be doing stats as well - thankfully I a bit more on par with stats than the rest of them - the other three in the class are physics people whereas I do biology and psychology which gets heavily in there with stats and spearman rank and chi squared and all that fun stuff! I like stats, very easy to do in theory cos all you do is put the values in and there ya go

Anyways, I think my bed is faintly whispering to me, I should satisfy its nightly need to have someone lie on it for about 8 hours!

Night-Night everyone (Or Good Afternoon for Quille.. as I think it is.. ah I dunno! - bye-bye anyways!)

BenniBi!

Ooh I'm sure you'll be fine if you're doing stats. It's amazing how it stops being fun once you've got the rest of medicine to study.
I've just come back from shadowing my team on call so I've had a pretty cool night! I really enjoyed it even thought I messed up a bit at one stage.

I guess a 16+ medical course would have to have the option of coming to it later. But I reckon their are loads of people who have known what they wanted to do from an early age so it seems pointless doing A levels.

But then I've been thinking it's a pretty big descion to make when you're 18 let alone when you're 16. Admittly I made the descion at 12 and stuck to it. I remeber the exact moment, I was on Hoiliday in Hebridies, (Mull to be precise) and was thinking about want I wanted to do with my life and made up my mind.

lol, hello Z!

Excellent for the night-shift, it is all that really interesting stuff that i wanna jump right into right now! it is a little bit frustrating that it isn't going to happen for another two year at least but I realise that it isn't going to be all fun and fairies! Stats, i am sure, will get boring very fast! Abnd i realise that there is a fair bit of work to be done in the lecture theatres! how hard does chemistry get then? Does it get very deep, and/or does it move away from the more 'physic'al aspect of it (i.e. inter/intramolecular forces?)

Cool to the actually knowing and remembering your decision time/day/place, and i bet you are glad you stuck to your guns aint ya!

anyways, i have ot help pick 100 words or so out of someone's extended essay so i shall be off, might reply more extensively later!

Bye for now

BenniBi!

Oooh no i wasn't shadowing a night shift i was shadowing a day shift that finished at 10pm (are you still sure you want to do medicine?) Chemistry doesn't go deep at all, you just have to be aware of the basic principals but we hardly do anything that's outright chemistry.

The first two years can get a bit bornign if all you concentrate on is work so I'd reccomend that you learn enough and have fun because you'll have more free time than you ever will again in your career!

Good luck.. (got to go cos I'm really tired we had a post take ward round at 8am, expcet it was delayed for an hour so we got very confused)

lol absolutely wanting to do medicine, the hours don't bother me as such! Which I spose is a good thing cos there aren't many areas in which you can go in from medicine that DON'T have some form of unsocialable hours, lol. I think the only things that do have 'normal' hours is stuff like research doctors and public health doctors, which sounds (to me) quite boring! lol

Good to hear that chemistry doesn't get too deep cos, even tho I like it and am fairly good at it, if it got into any deeper terms my head would just explode! I am guessing you have to know a bit about how certain drugs (like penicillins) affect the body on a cellular level? Or is that even too deep??

Ah yes, I will be fast-tracking learning cos it'll be stuff that I a) need to know and b) will be interested in knowing in the first place, which is always good! I always pride myself on knowing that bit more than needed (today we started defence against infectious disease and, as an example of a protozoic disease, I said malaria and said that they are now thinking of treating it with pesticides.. i think bio-lecturer person was at least interested - lol, ok then, i admit it, i'm a swot! hehe)

Good luck yourself with the sleep, hope you get as much as you need (Ha! like..) Have fun and all

BenniBi!

No the hours don't bother me much. but then I did start going out to pubs/drinking/clubbing when I was 14 so I've been through the drinking and clubbing stage, now I've started to realise that I want a stasifying job more than a hangover.

But my housemate who didn't really get into that until he was 18 is a bit annoyed because he feels like he's missing out on his youth. So my advice is drink now, as much as you can without it interfering with work! no really because when you're 21 and older you can't do as much of it as you can now.

I did a module on Health and Disease and it wasn't as much use as the basic principle module.. so I wouldn't worry too much about it, it's interesting though

Hey again Z, did ya have a good sleep? lol, hope so, ready for next gruelling shift!

Yeah, I have been through the drinking stage and remember (or rather not) a few times where i was too stupid to stop drinking and went overboard. But now I am over that and clubbing was never my scene anyway (me being claustrophobic enough to keep me out of them). I have recently gone tee-total cos I just don't see the whole big hur-rah about alcohol and, even though there are some advocates for the one and half glasses of wine a day, it really isn't that great for you! I dont mind other people drinking around me though and I am not one of those opinion pushers, so I aint that bad to go out with

Anyways, the bath has been drawn and I must jump in with cleanly delight! lol

Bye-z-Bye!

BenniBi

Yeah I'm fine for the next shift. I've just done my last take (shift that we have to shadow) of the term so it's not until Januray..

Ooh and well done for going teetotal I could never manage that, some of my muslim friends are conviced I'm an alcoholic which is a bit stragne cos I don't drink that much any more.

Have Fun

Hello Z!

You alright? Caught up on all of your sleep now that you are off the shadowing? What have you got lined up next then? lol, hopefully something fun!

Tell me a bit about the work you do with cadavers.., have you had to do a autopsy or anything like that or do you work on the smaller scale? lol, this just came into my head because, topically, that guy who performed a dissection in public was in my mind, just then! lol

yeah, alcohol is a tricky subject with many many vague lines, so you can't really say either way (in some people's definitions, I suppose if you drink, then you are alcoholic. in other's, not).

Anyways, i had better get wound down for bed soon altho it is weekend tomorrow Have got a bit of work to do over the weekend tho and I have to fit in having dinner with g/friend along the lines i am sure that i'll be able to do it!

Have fun, best wishes.

BenniBi

Yeah I've sort of caught up with my sleep. Well ish. You could say so anyway. Ok I'm about to go to the gym for an adrenaline rush. I'm afraid Birmingham don't do dissection.. not unless you do really really really really well in your Januray 2nd year exams then you get to do some. We do see parts of bodies that have been dissected. (prosections) which sort of helps but you don't have to see it unless you don't want too. I do wish I'd done it though. Also their aren't many autopsies performed at teaching hospitals any more, not since Alder Hey If I were you I'd write to your local DGH (discrict general) mine let me see an post mortem. whihc was a really valuable experience.

They might not let you but at least you'd have tried.

I'm keeping quiet on my alcohol experiences at the moment I'm trying to cut back because Im on drugs that affect my liver and there's a history of alcoholism in my family so I can just image getting cirosis, which I have to say is really horrible!


Tell