Reality of Graduate Entry Medicine...

Insight into the reality of studying Medicine on the graduate course. I reflect on my first two months of medical school.

Am I finally writing another blog post? Firstly, I hope you are all well and keeping safe. As the UCAS Medicine deadline has passed, I decided there was no point writing another guide until the interview period (which will come quicker than you expect!).

I have been extremely busy since I started studying Medicine in September, and “stressed” or “intense” are merely understatements for the graduate entry programme (GEP). After feeling under the weather today, I decided to finally give myself a break from studying (and reviewing my 200+ Anki flashcards) and write a blog post instead!

Not sure where to begin as thoughts are running across my mind, but thought I’d reflect on my first two months studying Medicine on the graduate entry course.

“Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos, untangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning. This meaning becomes learning, which can then inform future mindsets and actions.” Jennifer Porter, Harvard Business Review

My initial thoughts - SO excited but am I really ready for this?

At the start of September, I was super excited to finally start studying Medicine. I couldn’t wait to get started and we had a very busy induction week with daily webinars (practically 9-5 Mon to Fri) and in all honesty it scared us all just a little. An overload of information about assessments, exams, coursework, clinical skills, professionalism and the list is ongoing. I felt exhausted by the end of it, and I thought to myself if I’m tired from induction week, how will I cope when the actual content starts the following week?

But looking back, I think it was more about making a routine - lockdown had flipped everyone’s routines and made us all night owls. I had to change my routine of waking up and staying up late to waking up at 7/8am every morning. I made sure I committed to this routine at the start, and although it was undoubtedly hard at first, I’m glad I stuck to it as waking up early is just the norm now. The thought of staying in bed past 8am makes me shiver… I never thought I’d ever say that?

First Module - Movement & Posture

My first module looked into the locomotor system so looking at the way the body moves and the disorders within it - it’s very anatomy heavy and in 6 weeks we’ve gone through every bone, every joint and every muscle including their nerves & blood supply & movements in the body (excluding the head). It initially felt like a slap in the face, and I thought they’re crazy!! Surely they can’t expect us to memorise all of this? They must have lost their minds? Haha they’re joking right?…. No they were serious. I think this was the scariest part; the amount of content they threw at us in a short period of time and expected us to learn was daunting. I thought my previous degree (Biomedical Science) was content heavy but oh my - this one module we covered in 6 weeks, is probably equal to the all the content studied in a whole year of Biomed.

This is an example of the hand anatomy we are required to learn and memorise. I really did think they were joking. And this is only the hand.

We are also expected to learn everything as we go along, the content needs to be learned that day/week otherwise we will essentially fall behind and find it very difficult to catch up. This is mainly due to the fact we don’t have ‘revision period’ in Medicine. We get about 3/4 days to revise for our final exams and you could probably revise 10% of the year within those few days. So they constantly emphasised that we need to learn as we go along. Have I mentioned the word intense?

Typical week

I thought I’d show you an example of a week in GEP Medicine. It can vary slightly in terms of numbers of lectures and other teaching but the majority is similar every week.

• Mondays: Lectures and PBL

• Tuesday: Lectures and Anatomy

• Wednesday: Lectures, Anatomy, Histology, Older years doing revision session

• Thursday: Either GP Placement or Clinical Skills in the hospital

• Friday: Lectures, PBL, Anatomy reviews and online e-learning

Due to the current situation, everything is currently online except Thursday’s where we go into the hospital. That’s why the lectures don’t have specific time slots, they’re under ‘asynchronous’ so we can do them anytime on that day. At first I despised this and wished we had ‘live’ lectures, but now looking back I realised live lectures would almost be a waste of my time. I prefer pausing the lecture recording and writing my notes as I go along, something that wouldn’t be possible in live lectures. So not all is bad about the online learning system!

We have PBLs (problem-based learning) twice every week, each session lasting 2 hours. The first hour involves a review of the previous scenario, and the second hour we get given a new scenario and make learning objectives. I underestimated the amount of time PBLs would take, and they recommend around 3 hours per PBL. But for me personally, it takes around 5 hours of research to feel some-what confident I’ve covered the necessary content. Access to the internet means we could essentially spend countless hours and days on each learning objective but with Medicine it is about breadth rather than depth, and this is something I’ve struggled with as in Biomed we were required to go into depth in each subject.

Last thoughts

Medicine is all about self-discipline and self-motivation. There is absolutely no-one to check on your progress (until our first exam in November) so falling behind can become a dangerous reality. However, having self-discipline and making sure you do the work on the day definitely makes this degree much more manageable. You are in charge of your own learning, and I think that definitely distinguishes the graduate course from the undergraduate programme, where they may have some more guidance.

I know I have re-iterated how intense GEP Medicine really is but I think it’s vital for people to realise what they are going into. It is double the work of the undergraduate Medicine degree, and you do get thrown into the deep end from the first week. However, the programme leads are very responsive and they will try their best to help you in whatever way they can. The Anatomy teaching we have received has also been amazing (despite our dissections being cancelled till January), and they do repeat information across the lectures and anatomy tutorials which helps engrain it into your memory. The actual content is also extremely interesting and sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m listening to a lecture just because I am genuinely interested in the content!

Till next time…

Lastly, I thought I’d finish off by saying look after yourself and be kind to your soul. Whatever you are doing, whether studying, working or anything else, look after yourself. It is so important to give yourself a break, and that’s definitely something I’ve realised, especially whilst studying at home. It gets quite difficult to distinguish between your home and work life. Some days you can end up studying till 10-11pm after waking up at 7am. You need to limit yourself, and (trust me) I know it can be hard to, but do it for your own mental health - especially in this society and especially due to the current circumstances with COVID. Some days will be harder than others, you won’t always have the same level of motivation - as I’ve found today and yesterday. And remind yourself that it’s okay.

You CAN take a break, and you SHOULD take a break to avoid burn-out.

Be kind to your soul,

Look after your mind,

Nourish your body.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post as much as I’ve enjoyed taking a break from studying! Please do like and share around with others! I hope to write another one soon - I will aim to make it about medical school interviews, and as I’ve said before feel free to email me with any questions you may have (I do reply but it make take longer than usual!).

Till next time,

Mimz :)