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Life of a Medic

My journey through Medical School and beyond…

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- Year 1
Applying for Medicine?
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By: Life of a Medic 24/04/2018

Sabrena

Hi, I just wanted to say your one page summaries are amazing and concise.

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Last week I submitted my first Arabic writing assignment. You have to reference every time you search up the meaning of a word and trust me, referencing within Arabic text on Word is a challenge because all the words keep jumping around when you try adding numbers in superscript. I quite enjoy writing, it's not too bad (providing you're allowed to use a dictionary), but it's listening I find the most difficult. I can only understand it if it's being spoken really slowly...

Here’s some of my notes on the patterning of the nervous system during embryological development. I find embryology so fascinating, the intricacy and specificity in the development of the human body is amazing - it blows my mind every single time I think about it! Obviously, that also makes it really complex and quite abstract to understand at times. What do you think of embryology - like it, or loathe it?

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - what are your goals for this November? 🍂 _ I really want to be able to motivate myself to wake up early and get some work done in the weekends. I’ve been terrible with this so far, hence the reason why I’ve been unable to finish PBL every week! 😫 _ I just like to relax in the weekends - I went ice-skating this morning and had loads of fun! I’m going to be finishing my first block of sessions this month, so I’m super excited to be able to get some of my levels! ⛸❄️

This week’s case is about stroke and is horrendously long. The Anatomy for this week is also a HUGE, we have to cover ALL of the cranial nerves and their anatomical pathways! 😫 _ (The irony of this quote since I’m being lazy and posting an old photo. 😅)

Had an easy-going start to the week with just a PPD session. PPD stands for Personal & Professional development and is basically all about the reflective process, encouraging us to reflect on our abilities, interactions with patients etc. _ We have to keep an online portfolio of our reflections and have a couple of group sessions throughout the year based around topics that we need to reflect on. Today’s session was based around “understanding diversity and unconscious bias amongst colleagues” which actually made me think quite a bit.

Who’s sitting the BMAT this October? I’ve got a post up on my blog with tips for each section which will hopefully be helpful for those of you that are. Linked it in my bio! 💙 _ I actually found the BMAT easier than the UKCAT, it was a lot more “prepare-able” in my opinion and having past papers available was also helpful.

Next week we have our Consolidation week which is basically the equivalent of Reading week, across other courses. Apart from Monday, I have no scheduled sessions for the rest of the week and I am so glad because I have got 101 things that I need to catch up on and finish off! 😞 _ I’m just making a list of all the work I’ve got left to finish so I can ensure I cover it all over the week. I also have some coursework-type of thing to do for my Arabic , which I’ll probably focus on during this week because I can’t imagine having time during a standard timetabled week! _ Check out my online shop (linked in my bio) to get your own to-do list like the one above! I ship worldwide! ✨🌍

Year 2 is definitely a lot more intense than year 1 - there’s so much more work, I’ve been finding myself falling behind every week! It is also more interesting as well: a lot of neurology, brain stuff and we’ve started covering some mental health illnesses too! 🧠 I can’t lie, I’m a little worried about how I’m going to be able to retain the masses of info we are covering every week, especially for Anatomy...but hopefully everything will come together in the end. _ Check out my pathology summaries on my online shop - link in bio! 😊

I’ve started keeping an Arabic journal in an attempt to widen my vocab. The thing with language learning is that having gaps in it, really does leave your vocab very rusty! _ I’m not going to force myself to write in it everyday, because I know that’s not going to happen...so I’m setting myself a realistic goal of a couple of times a week. I’ll let you know how it goes! _ (Before anyone points it out: my notebook isn’t the wrong way. In Arabic we write from right to left instead of left to right, so I have to start from the back of the notebook) 😅

The session I enjoy the most during the week is probably our practical PhysPharm sessions. Last week we injected local anaesthetic into each other and this week we are going to be doing various different eye tests. _ It's really cool because you can get into more of the practical elements of the course and experience the direct impacts of drugs and certain tests on each other and yourself! It definitely helps to really see the direct application of things you've been learning about on yourself, plus it's super interesting to literally learn about your own body! _ You can get yourself the weekly planner above by visiting my shop - link is in the bio!

I never bought myself a stethoscope when I started medical school. I know some people buy it at the beginning just for all the excitement of it all and perhaps for it to even serve as motivation to get through the 5 years, but I didn’t. I thought I’d wait until clinical years when you really need one since there’s plenty spare in the medical school that you can always use to practise. _ Not in my clinical years yet, but here I am with my first 2 stethoscopes from @erkakallmeyer - aren’t the colours so pretty! 💕😍 What colour stethoscope do you have (or want to get)? _ These @erkakallmeyer stethoscopes are sooo comfortable - they are literally the first stethoscopes I’ve worn that don’t hurt my ears! Every time I get them out my sister grabs the pink one and my brother takes the blue! 😅

Following my last post on the UKCAT, I’ve been receiving numerous questions about which universities a certain UKCAT score would be appropriate for. Swipe right for some guidelines to help you all out. Bear in mind you shouldn’t base your choices solely on this post, but if you are looking to apply to your strengths you can use some of these unis as a guideline to research into further. _ These boundaries were derived from TMP, so if you’re interested in reading up on them further, check out their website!

Into the first couple of days of second year. We’ve had a couple of introductory lectures and our opening PBL session where we met our new group. We haven’t done enough yet for me to judge the rumours of this semester being the hardest, but hopefully it won’t be too bad. _ On my timetable I have Wednesdays free so I’ll probably be spending that time working on my PBL case every week. I made a start on this week’s case (on spina bifida) this morning, which I’ve been finding really interesting! _ Yesterday I also had my first Arabic session of the year which I really enjoyed. It was fairly relaxed and I feel as though it’ll be a nice breather every week! ☺️ _ How’s uni/school going for everyone else so far?

Planning for next week. I’m using the weekly planner to create different things to focus on at different points throughout the day and the to-do list to keep track of miscellaneous things that need doing at some point during the week. _ This year our PBL cases run from Tuesday to the following Monday (instead of Monday to Friday), so I’m not sure what I’ll need to spend the weekend doing so I’ve left that blank for now. _ Visit the link in my bio to get your own planner set! I ship worldwide and you can use the code PLANNERLOVE for a little discount! 🌎

There’s loads of pathology notes up on my shop (and hopefully many more to come). I’ve summarised different conditions within 2 sides of A4 , because let’s be honest, there’s too much info to fit it all on to one side! _ Link in the bio for everyone who wants to check them out! 😊

Slowly working through my little list...been feeling very unproductive and lazy recently. I’ve also got 1 week to sort out my sleeping schedule, which probably still won’t happen. Thankfully, I hardly have any early starts in my new timetable for this year!

I was tagged by @zenstudy_ to share 10 fun facts about myself, so here goes... _ 1️⃣ I’m 19 years old, but regularly get told I look about 14 🤷‍♀️ 2️⃣ I’ve always been fascinated by astronomy and before choosing Medicine, my first career ambition was to be an astronaut 🌌 3️⃣ I can’t survive a day without my morning tea ☕️ tea over coffee any day! 4️⃣ I have been blogging for about 3 and a half years now - when I first started I was just doing it to keep track of my own reflections but now it’s grown to be read by over 100,000 people in over 150 different countries! 5️⃣ I’m really into photography, I even have a separate photography account: @innocentparadise 📷 6️⃣ In my Liverpool Medicine interview, I slipped and fell into one of the stations 😂 very embarrassing, but I still got an offer there though... 🤷‍♀️ 7️⃣ I started wearing a headscarf in year 3...because long story short, a new girl started in my school wearing one and I didn’t want her to feel left out. 😅 I’ve been wearing one ever since 🧕🏼 8️⃣ I’m very much into skincare and have a 6-step daily routine which I try to stick to as much as possible (yet I still can’t get my skin to glow & look flawless) 9️⃣ I write in a diary everyday and have been keeping a handwritten one ever since I was in year 4! 📝 1️⃣0️⃣ I always wanted to learn how to drive before I turned 18 - I passed my test the day before my 18th birthday! 🚗 _ Challenging everyone I’ve tagged to share 10 fun facts about themselves too!

Only got a week left before second year of med school commences, and the daily grind begins again. When do you go back to school/uni? 📖 _ I’m currently making a list of all the things I need to do before I start: paying fees, filling out forms, buying essentials...all those routine tasks. ✏️ _ Pictured above is my Vintage Flowers to-do-list planner. You can get one by visiting my shop (link in bio). I ship worldwide! 🌸

About half a year ago, I collaborated with @nourkaco, a scarf brand to design a new scarf for their signature expressive collection. The collection is supposed to exemplify the message and struggle of feminism and equality. _ To create this design I decided to turn to my favourite tool - the brush pen - and create a design with all the words I felt were central to equality and represented shared love between humanity...and that’s how this design, Love Wave, was born! 💫 _ Though I’m really happy I was able to collaborate with such a huge brand and create an item of clothing that represents loads of amazing moral values that I stand for, one that many people around the world will be wearing; unfortunately the brand did not inform me my design was published, did not even communicate with me at all about my design so by the time I discovered it myself it was all completely sold out - I couldn’t even get a copy of my own work. 😔 _ By looking at my feed you’ll all know that calligraphy is one of my major hobbies, so it’s just something I wanted to share with you all 🖋 just would have been really amazing if I could have taken and shared my own photographs of my own work with you all! (None of the girls modelling the scarf are me btw 😅) _ What words can you read off the scarf, comment down below 👇

An old picture, because I have not done any Arabic in so long. I was hoping to spend the Summer reviewing all Arabic I know, but did that happen? - nope. 😐 How have you been with your Summer goals? Have you managed to achieve any targets you’d set yourself? 🌴 _ Learning without a teacher is quite difficult because you have nobody to answer any of your questions. I tend to write things I’m confused about or need clarifying on a post-it note and when I eventually get round to it, I send them to a friend who lives in the Middle East and she helps me out a little with them - I’m so lucky to have her. 🤗

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