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Life of a Medic

My journey through Medical School and beyond…

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All articles filed in Hot Topics

Applying for Medicine? Hot Topics30/08/201920/08/2019

5 of the Most Useful Medical Topics I Wrote About as a Medical School Applicant

One of the things I did a lot when I was applying for Medicine was read up on a health topic and then create a blog post to help me reflect on it properly and gather my thoughts together. A few days ago I was just cruising through my site and reading the odd reflection…

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Applying for Medicine? Hot Topics Interviews12/12/201701/04/2019

Interview Hot Topics: NHS Funding

There are many challenges facing the NHS, from an ageing population to evolving healthcare needs. This blog will focus on a key challenge: NHS funding. ‘Underfunded’ is a word many people use to describe the NHS. The demand for NHS services is increasing year on year, so the problem of “underfunding” is actually caused by…

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Though we’ve finished our learning and cases for 3rd year, our med school has mentioned getting us to self-organise 2 clinical debrief sessions weekly via zoom in our groups. Not sure how I feel about that 😕 We’ve yet to find out more about it and what exactly it’ll involve so we’ll see... 🤷‍♀️ How’s your school/uni delivering the rest of your teaching? Anyone else having zoom classes? ✍️
Weekly ritual. ✨ I love this acid peeling solution from The Ordinary. It exfoliates the topmost layer of your skin so after each use your skin feels so much smoother and blemishes start to fade. You can use it twice a week but I only use it once since the solution is quite strong and my skin is a little sensitive. Does anyone else use any products from The Ordinary?
Average waking up time so far is about 12.30-1pm...but oh well, I’m just embracing the fact that I can enjoy a lie in every morning and can go to bed without having to set an alarm for the next day. ⏰ Today it was around 10 to 2 by the time I woke up 😅 What time did you wake up today?
I’ve finally now got the time to get my embroidery back out and make some progress with the bag my sister wanted me to embroider for her. I’m on the fun bit, doing all the flowers now, I’ll share my progress on my story. It’s nice to be able to feel like I’m doing *something* whilst being sat at home all day. 💐 We’re all being bombarded with a lot of information right now, which can be particularly damaging to our mental health. I think it’s important that you find something to pre-occupy you at home to get your mind off it a little. Join The Mindful Movement and share what you’re doing during this time that you have to stay at home to protect others. #themindfulmovement #athometogther
Especially during these times 🙌
This week has been so long and so many things have happened in terms of the situation outside. I’ve been cooped up at home all day, everyday. I’ve been making myself get on the treadmill for a little bit of exercise each day, the willpower that took though 😅 What have you been doing with all this free time?
While everybody else is stocking up on toilet roll, I’m here stocking up on Mario Badescu. Only joking, I normally use the rose water one, but it ran out so I re-ordered and got enticed by the other colours (plus there the orange blossom one came as a free gift). 💕 A 5 month break from Medicine means medical/study-related content is going to be a little difficult. There’s my warning that you might want to prepare yourself for whatever other random snippets of my day-to-day I feel like sharing. 🙃
Now that I’ve got a lot more free time indoors I thought make a start on the books I’ve been buying for myself throughout the year. This one is the School of Life Dictionary on The Language of Emotional Intelligence. It’s organised as a list of unexplainable everyday concepts and phrases trying to shed light on their meanings, a little bit philosophical. It’s not my usual type of book but I thought it’d be quite enlightening to see everyday concepts from a different perspective. I’ve read a few of the themes so far and it’s really interesting, excited to get through more of them.
So...we’ve just received an email saying our OSCEs have been temporarily cancelled due to the Coronavirus. I can’t even express what a huge relief that is! 😆 They’re saying they‘ll try to re-arrange it for later in the year, if it’s feasible, but we’ll find out more as time goes on. So now we have a week off which was supposed to be “revision week”, then we have what was the “OSCE-week” all free...and then we start our projects. Placements and everything else are so far carrying on like normal. Have you had any changes due to Coronavirus in your medical school?
It’s exactly 2 weeks until my OSCE. Am I ready for it? No. Do I kinda hope we go into a Coronavirus lockdown so it can be delayed? Yes. Do I know that even that wouldn’t stop our med school from getting us to do these OSCEs now? Yes. That being said, I still can’t wait to get it over and done with because after that it’s just our projects and a placement in a speciality of our choice for the rest of the year. That means no more cases or content to learn which practically spells freedom!
A word to describe how I’m feeling right now = overwhelmed. It’s been one of those days where I’ve been feeling like I’ve had so many little things to think about. Last time I felt like this, the little mind splurge above helped to get everything off my mind. Sometimes listing the things that are bothering you can help because you realise that a lot of these thoughts are unnecessary worries and then you can get rid of those that are living rent-free in your head. 🙂
First day of the last block which for me is Renal. I say this way too much, but I genuinely cannot believe how the time has flown by, how am I in my final block for third year already?! 😱 Anyway, for just an an overview of the day, this morning I have a Nephrology Clinic, followed by my induction for this block. And my afternoon is nice and free...
MOSCE over, didn’t go brilliantly and didn’t go completely dreadfully. I suppose it’s probably served its purpose of giving us an indication of what the real OSCEs are going to be like and how they’re structured so I better start thinking about how I can prepare for those over the next 5 weeks. Now to relax and enjoy my cuppa with possibly an episode of Call The Midwife. What are you guys enjoying watching lately?
The feeling of productivity today comes from the fact that I managed to finally tidy my room! 😁 Would have been great if I managed to put together another post for the blog that I seem to be progressively neglecting, but that’s not happening. Our OSCEs are coming up soon, mock ones thankfully but I feel completely unprepared for how different clinical OSCEs are compared to the ones we had in years 1 and 2.
Summaries do help make everything make better sense. I made this one for Clinical Debrief a couple of weeks ago where we assign topics for different people to summarise and present in different sessions. 😅 I’m not making any notes this year, so I feel as though a few summaries will help to get everything in order in my head, problem is making notes using the Apple Pencil means you have a never-ending scope for perfection. It does save a lot of time though being able to move objects, re-size them etc. Anyone else use an Apple Pencil for note-taking?
This is the biggest problem of having nice big empty surfaces...they’re perfect to throw things on top of and before long they end up looking like this. Time to clear this up I think 👀🙈
The end of Surgery is in sight, today we were signed off so just got 2 days left before we rotate again! I’ve loved Surgery, don’t get me wrong, but it has been so incredibly draining that I’m welcoming the next block with open arms. We’ve had to squeeze in an extra theatre on top of existing clinics and ward rounds each week, we’ve started earlier each morning and on top of that we’ve had a lot of more teaching so had full days of being in the hospital every. single. day. We also had our Progress Test yesterday which was quite a milestone exam as it demarcates the halfway point through med school. Of course, the questions still felt bizarre and unattainable, but I suppose the fact that many more words were familiar I can take as an achievement in itself. Aaaand finally....today it’s my birthday! 🥳 A change that it’s not on the day of the progress test though as it has been for the last 2 years!
This was our final break right until exams now and I’m absolutely not ready to go back yet! The holidays have just flown by, as they always do and I’ve been the complete opposite of productive. When do you go back?
I know a lot of you will be preparing for your medical school interviews now, and I know it’s possibly one of the most stressful times you’re having to work though with the challenge of balancing A-levels and interview prep. I’ve got a collection of interview advice posts on my blog which are definitely worth a read, all about how to prepare, what I did for my interviews, advice I can give after being an MMI examiner, a bit about the Manchester interview etc. I’ll link the category of posts on my story, you can also visit my website (lifeofamedic.com) and use the “Applying for Medicine - interviews” tab at the top to read these advice posts. If you have any questions, just drop me a message or submit them anonymously through the “AskAMedStudent” page on my blog!
Cannot believe the Christmas hols are finally here...I’ve never felt so in need of a lie in before! I’m going to give myself some time to really relax this holiday since I know it’s going to be really intense when we go back again. First thing, I’m sitting down with Adam Kay’s new book (which I bought when it first came out but never had a moment to read). Has anyone else read it?

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