Results Day

Finally, a day to celebrate.  On Wednesday I got my exam results (27/6/12) for year 1 of graduate entry medicine and I can proudly say that I have passed and will now proceed into year 3 which is all very exciting and a massive relief.

I think that getting through the first year feels like such an achievement on a graduate entry course simply because of the nature of the structure of the course.  Graduate entry courses are a year shorter than normal 5 year undergrad medicine, however because it is a year shorter it unfortunately means that you have to do two years worth of preclinical work in the one year.  So you are having to cover the same amount of content that the 1st and 2nd year undergrads did in half the amount of time.

It therefore doesn't take a genius to understand that this first year has been very intense to say the least; doing two years worth of work in just the one year means that it has been by far the most demanding and tough academic year of my life. 

It does seem rather strange having only done one year of study to think that in August/September I will be a third year medical student.  However, saying that, I am really looking forward to getting out into hospital to get involved in taking patient histories, clinical examinations and hospital bedside teaching.  Finally I can start to look forward to the clinical years.

If I had to give any advice to people thinking of studying graduate entry medicine it would be this:

Wherever you end up going to study, the first year of a graduate course is going to be intense, relentless and hard work.  But trust me, from someone who has been there, just stick with it!  There will be times where you will genuinely feel that you can't do it and you will often doubt whether this is what you really want to do with your life.  That is natural and I know that many people in my year did feel that one at some time or another.  There is no magic secret to passing GEM/GEC 1 other than: 'don't give up and just stick with it!'.

First ever blog - background

So, here we go, my first ever blog.
Just a quick message to really reiterate what my profile message says; I hope this can become an online diary to share experiences that i've had as a medical student, what it is like and to also hopefully encourage others to share their experiences of being a medical student or the experiences of those applying to study medicine; whether that be the normal 5 year course of the graduate entry course.
I hope you enjoy my blogs; early days yet but please feel free to comment on anything posted.