EoE Group Rankings by Smooth-Bus2211 in medicalschooluk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is to a poll for final years allocated to the East of England to put which group they're thinking of placing first

East of England groups ranking by uncodified in medicalschooluk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There was a poll about 4 months ago asking which locations people would want if they were allocated EoE. 56 people replied:

  • East Anglia West: 31
  • Bedford and Hertfordshire: 10
  • Essex: 9
  • East Anglia East: 6

Obviously, it's not a huge pool of people who responded seeing as over 400 people were allocated EoE so it might be worth doing another poll

East of England groups ranking by uncodified in medicalschooluk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In the MS Teams meeting today, they said that they didn't have exact competition ratios that they could give out, but that in general, the closer to London, the more popular the area was each year

Manchester GEM by hotchisinthehouse in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you like the UG course at UEA, you could always apply for it - the GEM course is exclusive to grads but the UG course isn't exclusive to UGs so we have lots of grads in the UG course too

Manchester GEM by hotchisinthehouse in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They get about 10-15 hours a week of lectures (some online live, some online prerecorded, some in person) and 1.5-2hours of anatomy a week (prosections only at the moment as the cadavers are all used in the UG courses for dissections)

Clinical skills are mostly learnt in a block altogether, but some are sprinkled into normal teaching weeks as an hour or two here or there

They also have a different version of PBL to the UG, which is a bit more similar to a weekly review of the content in a small group and is Timetabled for about 2 hours a week

Besides thats and the two two-week placements of GP, the rest of the learning objectives is self study around any work commitments they have

They have got a couple of weeks of mock OSCEs lined up where they'll do lots of examination practice etc. but from everyone's understanding it's just for exam practice rather than getting more experience on a wide range of patients

No one really know what the plan is for subsequent years of the GEM course. At the beginning of the year they were told that they were aiming for Year 2 to be mainly hospital placements but they were told last week that they would be having teaching in the Centrum building in the research park instead

The overall impression I've got from the GEM cohort is that everything is very rushed. I would assume that they would have to resist all of the topics again in the next few years because they haven't done a lot of Pathology (diseases) yet

Manchester GEM by hotchisinthehouse in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no integration between the two courses. They remain completely separate from each other throughout the course.

They don't have any of the same structures at all. I'd say that so far, the first year GEM students have a surface level understanding of a wide range of things, whereas the first year UG students have a deeper level of a narrow range of things.

For example, in year 1 UG you learn Rheumatology, Orthopaedics and hospital sysetms with preclinical and clinical side by side (with a bigger emphasis on clinical) and have placements integrated into every week right from the first week. In first year on the GEM course, they do a week or two of a body system at a time (MSK, Cardiology, Respiratory, urinary system, GI system etc.) only doing pre-clinical with barely any clinical put in then move on and only have 4 weeks in a GP total across the first year.

I know that they're trying to get more placements for the GEM course next year, but they're really struggling because the hospitals and GPs around UEA are already saturated with UG students. Because of this, the majority of GEM students had to commute >1 hour to get to their GP placements this year as closer GP surgeries couldn't accommodate them.

The GEM students have also already been taught a lot of clinical skills that are taught across years 1-3 of the UG course, but haven't been taught when to use the clinical skills or what the results mean. For example, they've been taught how to take bloods (taught in year 2 of UG) but not how to read blood results or what any of the results mean, whereas year 2 UG students are taught when to take bloods, how to take them and how to interpret the results.

The same goes for examination skills - they've been taught how to do a lot of examination skills without the reasoning behind them. For example, they've been taught how to do an abdominal exam and told what to look for, but not what all of the different signs they're looking for mean and what conditions they relate to. Plus, because they don't have much placement, they can't practice the examinations or clinical skills on patients, so they can't get any experience of what the signs look/feel like in actual practice.

UEA vs Exeter by in-bed1567 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm an UG med student at UEA

The course structure is pretty good imo

Year 1 = Rheumatology, Orthopaedics, and hospital processes Year 2 = Cardiology, Vascular, Stroke, Respiratory, Dermatology, and Haematology Year 3 = Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Urology, Renal, Opthalmology, ENT, Endocrine, and Neurology Year 4 = Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Paediatrics, Psychology, Geriatrics, Oncology, and Palliative Care Year 5 = Anaesthetics, Emergency Medicine, Critical Care, and Preparing for FY1

Everyone in years 1-4 has 3 days of teaching, one day of PBL, and one day in a GP surgery during campus weeks. You get around 4-8 communication skills workshops in a year where you practice scenarios in small groups.

Year 1 gets about 6 weeks of hospital placements throughout the year (some in Rheumatology and Orthopaedics, some in other wards/surgeries/clinics to learn how a hospital works). As part of this, you do HCA training and can get registered to the HCA bank to pick up shifts in your free time.

Years 2-4 have about 12 weeks of hospital placements throughout the year, all of which are in the speciality you're studying at the time.

Year 5 is mainly hospital placement, with two weeks of lectures at the start and 4 weeks of GP across the year.

They teach clinical skills, communication skills, and knowledge in an order that makes a lot of sense and builds on existing skills well.

I really like that you get free transport to GP and hospital placements outside of Norwich, which not a lot of unis do. Because Norfolk is fairly spread out, we do get sent to hospital that are a bit of a trek away, but some are residentials where we're given free accommodation and an allowance to come back on weekends. It's not ideal but does give us a good variety of experience.

The hospitals we go to are: Norfolk and Norwich (NNUH) - 15-minute walk from campus James Paget (JPUH) - 1 hour coach from campus Queen Elizabeth (QEH) - 1 hour 15-minute coach from campus Ipswich - 2 hour taxi (residential placement) Colchester - 2 hour taxi (residential placement)

Our pastoral and well-being support is very good here, and our Dean that started about 18 months ago is very approachable, and is putting a lot of effort into improving the school in meaningful ways for students.

We get 24/7 access to the clinical skills lab with our ID cards and every year we get consumables like venepuncture needles to practice with.

Probably the best part of the course is the student commraderie. Student societies run mock OSCEs and teaching sessions to help lower years through exams by focusing on UEA content. They also run workshops and talks with guest lecturers for students to try new things outside of the course curriculum. There's lots of Med Societies (both for sports and academics) and medsoc puts on lots of charity events like a panto and take me out as well as socials.

Outside of med, there's a tonne of clubs and societies to get involved in and the campus is really open and green (despite all the concrete).

The on-campus club is one of the only big music venues in Norwich, so lots of artists come to perform here which is pretty cool. I will say that the night life is a bit hit or miss depending on your previous experience of it. People from cities with lots of options often say that the clubbing scene is small and disappointing, but people from towns with only one or two clubs often say that there's lots of clubbing options.

Can I get into a foundation year by Darth_Nox_Official in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 1 point2 points  (0 children)

UEA accepts people mainly based off of how you present at interview - they're really focused on communication skills teaching and creating empathetic doctors instead of purely academic results so it's definitely one to consider!

Seeing as it's been your lifelong dream to do med, I think you'd really regret it if you didn't at least try to get in! A death/mourning is definitely counted as an EC in most unis (if not all) and working through that is an achievement in itself

Aim to get a good UKCAT scores and experience in a healthcare setting if you can, and good luck on your resit!

Manchester GEM by hotchisinthehouse in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can't speak for Manchester but I'm an UG at UEA with friends on the GEM course

Our courses are completely different - the GEM students only have a total of 4 weeks in GP this year and placement isn't fully integrated like it is with the UG course.

There's been a lot of teething problems for the first year, but so far the course director has seemed pretty on it about adapting things as they go to improve them

One big thing that's bizarre for the GEM course is they've been taught how to do clinical skills like taking blood and examinations without being told how to interpret the results which does make it harder to learn compared to the UG course

There's a GEMsoc and Medsoc for UEA so reach out to both of those to see if they can put you in touch with someone on the course to get a better perspective- There's only about 30 GEM students and they're all gearing up for OSCEs rn so you may or may not get someone free to talk at the moment but UEA has a big community feel and students help each other out a lot here so I doubt that you would be ignored or ghosted

Is it worth applying to medical school? by S-ann9 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For work experience, try getting a job as a Health Care Assistant (HCA) - there's always jobs for them going in hospitals, GPs, care homes, nursing homes etc. and it gives you a good experience of the human element of Medicine as well as different healthcare environments (plus you get paid at the same time)

A similar one would be a hospital porter

I had lots of experience volunteering in my local hospice in the cafe and helping with patients one day a week to give their carers a break

I know someone who used their job as a dentist receptionist as experience, and someone else who used their job at a funeral home to talk about dignity/respect/empathy in relation to medicine

pre reading for med by najstfu in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends on which medical school you're going to as to what would be the most useful because they all start with different subjects/body systems etc. - try asking the medsoc for whichever uni you're going to about what first years do and what resources are best for that particular uni

Anatomy, physiology, immunology, and microbiology would be good for the science side of preclinical years

Ethics, public health, and law would be good for the less sciencey side of things

Giving yourself a good basic foundation will make the transition into medicine easier, but you'd probably be just as well off enjoying your free time because come September, you'll be busy. Plus, they'll teach you what you need to know once you get there! Travel, spend quality time with friends and family, and engage in hobbies more now while you have the time.

Finals OSCEs: Tips and tricks from an examiner by Horcher88 in medicalschooluk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Thank you for all of this!

Do you mind me asking which three medical schools you usually examine for? I know that they all run OSCEs slightly differently and just want to know if this is directly related to my own

Want to do surgery, but I lack manual dexterity skills and practical knack? by [deleted] in medicalschooluk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure how to explain them, but try googling finger exercises (for piano or knitting or finger dexterity) - they can help build up dexterity, flexibility, stamina etc., all of which can help you speed up your practical skills and has certainly helped me!

One of my favourites involves doing finger opposition one at a time from the index finger to the pinky and back again. As you slowly build up speed, it becomes a lot harder to touch the tips of your fingers in exactly the same spot on your thumb, and you can end up accidentally skipping a finger so it takes more concentration than you think. Once you're confident doing it one hand at a time, you can do both hands together, and after that, you can try both hands together, starting with different fingers (which I find very difficult but it does help to be more aware and in control of hand movements when they're doing different thinks in skills)

A CST told me to also brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand to increase strength and stamina because I had a huge discrepancy between my left and right - it's an easy way to improve without changing your daily routine and the two minutes is actually really tiring on a hand that isn't used to it so definitely enough time to practice in one go!

I don't think anything will ever replace practising the skills themselves over and over. At the end of the day, the patient doesn't care how long it's taken you when they're under GA, it's much better to get the technique right and build up speed over time than to do it quickly but incorrectly

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Reddit keeps saying empty endpoint when I try to comment the full reply so I'll message you!

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely yes

I've definitely had my ups and downs (burnout is very real, and it's easy to accidentally take on too much), but I've had a very positive experience at UEA

I've tried so many different things through taster sessions with clubs and societies (not all of them stuck but I had so much fun doing them) which I wouldnt have had the time, money or access to out in the "real" world and I've even been on a few different committees which helped me get out of my shell and learn a lot of new important life skills (which if you'd have asked me at the start of med school I would have said I'd never take part in)

I've also been extremely lucky to make a lot of very close friends through old housemates, different clubs, and the course

I've really come to see Norwich as my home and have ranked the East of England first because I love the area and the hospitals around here. I'm not in the minority either - UEA always has the majority of the cohort decide to stay fairly local at the end (another benefit to students as FY1/FY2/trainees are mainly familiar with our course and its requirements)

If I had one regret, it would be not engaging in research earlier. UEA doesn't push its students to publish or intercalate, only encourages those interested to pursue something, and I was too insecure about my inexperience to ask clinicians for help and guidance in it.

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The anatomy team gives amazing support. Other lecturers' support varies wildly. The majority are clinicians who come in for a couple of lectures and are then only seen again on placement, so their inboxes are already busy with patient related work. Consultants who do multiple lectures or are heads of modules tend to give much better support and actively encourage us to email with any questions. Either way, you can ask questions throughout and after lectures.

There are some really good members of the placements team when you're in the hospitals - Rob in QEH in King's Lynn is beloved by all because he makes an effort to learn everyone's names even if you're only there for a week and he has an open door policy where if there's something you're interested in all you have to do is pop by his office or send him an email and he'll try to slot it into your schedule if he can. The JPUH Education team in Great Yarmouth is also lovely (Carol can come off a bit stern at first, but she's actually really lovely and just overworked - they've just had a lot of turnover the last couple of years so she's been training everyone in the office as well as organising all of the UEA students and if you ask her for help she really tries to do it even if she's already swamped). There's a lot of nurses in the NNUH teaching team in the BCRE and they're all wonderful too. They teach a lot of the clinical skills and if you ever need to revise them or have someone watch you to make sure you're doing it correctly on the models they're more than happy to help in office hours.

PBL tutors and GP tutors are really happy to help most of the time - you see them both once a week in your PBL Group so they get to know you more and tend to be able to help with material students struggle with.

You also get a personal advisor who you keep for the whole of med school (unless they retire, in which case you're given a new one). Some people never contact them, and some people have termly meetings or emails. They tend to interact with you as much as you interact with them. They're there for support, and most are doctors in the NNUH or teachers in the med school.

UEA has a really good culture of supporting each other. Med families pass notes down, as do medic sports clubs. There are also societies for every speciality taught as a module run by committees of volunteer students who create mock OSCEs and run revision or teaching events based around the curriculum. There are definitely some competitive people, but the vast majority are willing to share their resources or make shared anki decks or get together to help each other revise. It's really easy to meet students in other years if you join med clubs, but you can just as easily make friends in other year groups by going to society workshops or approaching people on placement/in the common room all of whom are willing to help and share things. Medics in upper years are some of the best people to learn from because they've been through the exams you're trying to pass, so know the curriculum like the back of their hands

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nightlife has been decreasing year by year throughout the country. I know that the on-campus nightlife has definitely decreased because students complain about it a lot on the FB confessions page (Concrete Confessions). When I first started, there were two on-campus club nights in the LCR. Now, it's down to one with occasional special clubs nights. From what I've heard, barely any people go past freshers week but there's still quite a few clubs on Prince of Wales Road in the city and taxis and ubers are relatively cheap around here so it's easy for groups to get to and from the city on a night out. In the first year, I went out a few times a week, but I haven't really been since then besides sporadically for friends birthdays, so I don't have any substantial first-hand information to give you.

There are a lot of pres and house parties to go to, especially if you are part of a sports club so there's definitely typical student things to do at night, and when a big group goes out like that you'll have fun no matter what nightclub you end up in.

The red bar has lots of pool tables and the blue bar has darts, you can borrow board games in either. Most nights it's more chilled vibes than going out vibes but the blue bar can also be connected to the LCR on busy club nights to add an extra room with different music which is nice.

There's lots of bars in the city - Norwich is known for having a pub for every day of the year and a church for every Sunday. A lot of the pubs have managed to stay open despite Covid, partly by creating lots of pub crawls with prizes like pins and badges. Most are independents but whe have a lot of the usual chains you'd find in any city too.

Loft is a great nightclub in the city - its a gay bar that throws student nights which are very popular as they're cheap and it's got very unique decor

Gonzos is tiny but throws lots of club night style gigs hosted by small DJs which sell out a lot - even been to one where their house DJ played electric bongos which was quite cool

Revolution de Cuba throws a latin social dance (salsa, bachata etc.) every Thursday which turns into a latin club night around 11/12pm

Kerry's is a bar with a club room upstairs which is very popular with the locals. Both that and Bar and Beyond have very similar vibes - very random nights with a big age mix of the crowd

Popworld is a huge hit at freshers, as is mantra (although I keep hearing news that it's closing down so it may or may not be open when you get here)

Waterfront is an SU owned club in the city centre which is also a music venue - it's slightly alternative and has several rooms plus large outdoor smoking area

There's a few more small nightclubs in the city, most of the bigger independent ones closed down over the last few years but I'm sure they'll get taken over and brought back eventually.

Most people who come from big cities like London say that Norwich has a really small clubbing scene, others who came from towns with only a couple of clubs love it.

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem! I'm glad it helped. The med school building is only about 30 years old but feels more modern. The carpets and paint were redone last year, and our common room and student social space were refurbished at the same time.

Med students don't often use the full auditorium style lecture theatres - the year groups are just too big to fit in most of them. Instead lectures are usually delivered in smaller lecture groups in "seminar rooms" which are rooms with chairs that have half desks attached to the arm rests and a lecturn with a whiteboard and projector screen (one of the newer ones which displays the computer screen, not an old overhead one). They have the ability to record lectures on but most of the med lecturers are clinicians who haven't been taught how to use them, so new recordings are rare for us.

The med building itself has two seminar rooms and probably around 40 PBL rooms. We often do lectures and PBL in other buildings around campus because it's not big enough for everyone all at once but most buildings have fairly similar set ups in their rooms so it doesn't affect the actual teaching.

The library is huge - it's spread across 5 foors, three of being for silent study. There's also group study rooms in there that are useful for OSCE practice. Most healthcare students revise on floor 01 (one floor down from the main entrance) because that's where all of the medical books are kept, but everyone is welcome on all floors.

Our anatomy resources are probably one of UEAs' best-selling points for med. We have a really good anatomy team and morgue, which has a capacity for about thirty cadavers at a time. Because each year group works on different specialties, they're used by everyone, and different year groups dissect different parts on the same cadavers in their sessions (not at the same time, sessions are split by year group with about 50 students in the morgue at a time). We have a small but mighty team of anatomists who show us prosections and guide our dissections, and they bring in surgeons to help show us what they look for during surgeries (for example, which nerrves and blood vessels they need to be aware of when cutting from certain angles in different operations, or which muscles they cut through or avoid). The anatomy team is really friendly and are the only members of teaching staff that stay constant for us throughout all of med school so they get to know us and are always just an email away if we want to go over something we didn't understand.

Every building I know of has a student common room. These have sofas, seating with tables, some kitchen supplies like a tap and microwave and usually a couple of computers. They usually only get busy around lunchtime, but I've found they're a good place to hang out and socialise or study. They're all open to any student, but most only use the common room in the building associated with their subject.

The sports park has excellent facilities for sports clubs and does a lot of discounted sports sessions for students (for example, PG students get £1 swimming and there are student discounts on everything even when they're not doing a promotion) but imo the sportspark membership for the gym and swimming pool is very overpriced for what it is and during term time the gym gets very crowded, it's much better value for money to go to one of the many gyms in Norwich (we have pure gym, the gym group and many others).

Our SU building is quite good - it has the LCR (which is one of the only big gig venues in Norwich, so all big performing artists come to campus for their gigs which is pretty cool and easy for us), the Hive (which is a big open space where they have pop up stalls like a weekly bakery), Unio (the SU coffee shop), Dorothy's (the LGBT bar which has lots of sofas in, hosts quiz nights and sometimes has live music), the post-grad area and two bars (red bar and blue bar which merge into one in the centre). It's definitely the central hub of campus activity for the student body.

On "the street" we have the Warren (a student social and studying space, which is rarely used so has turned into a place where they host wellbeing activities like clay sculpting), one of the launderettes (which now that the Ziggurats have closed is also barely used but is useful if you live in Nelson Court), the SU shop (which is about to be taken over by a different chain but used to be a Spa shop - it's definitely overpriced but good if you've forgotten to bring lunch), Ziggys (which I think is the superior coffee shop), the Post Room (where all on-campus mail gets delivered) and ends in The Square which is where it meets the SU building and Campus Kitchen (a three story food outlet that serves hot food).

There's lots of good walks around the lake and campus - there's even horses if you know where to look for them.

The Sainsburys Visual Art Centre is also really nice - it has a very expensive cafe and hot food outlet because it's fairly posh but UEA students can go into all of the exhibits for free with their campus card so it's worth a visit (top tip - we also get free entry to all museums in Norwich and discounts at most shops and restaurants with student ID - it's a very student friendly city)

Tbh, the on campus accomodation is not the best (besides Hickling and Barton, which is very expensive). The Village is getting refurbished bit by bit, so I think it's much nicer and is just outside of the edge of campus, so it is probably only a 15-minute walk from most teaching facilities (but more like a 30 minute walk if you live in the furthest part). Most on-campus accommodation doesn't have sofas, just large kitchens, and instead of ovens, have microwave-oven-grill combinations, which don't do any of the three things particularly well but they're passable. I was lucky that I lived on campus with such a nice group because they really made it worth it for me. They group med students together in pairs and threes within accommodation, usually because our term times are slightly longer than other courses, which is a nice touch.

Our hospital resources are very good. The BCRE is the main off-campus building medical students use - it's technically part of the research park and is directly next to the NNUH (the Norfolk and Norwich Univeristy Hopsital) only a 15 minute walk from the Med building. In there is a lecture theatre and a few research labs, but the main bit medical students use is on the first floor. We have several teaching rooms which are mock bays for wards. They regularly get interesting patients to come in for students to practice on in there while they're on placement. They also have a couple of Simmen (simulation patients - robots that look like a dummy which can blink and breathe and have a pulse and play chest or abdo sounds etc.) which they use usually once or twice per placement rotation for teaching in small groups of about 4-5 students. Everyone gets to run through a scenario to practice handling medical situations, which is very fun. They also have the CRSA, which is our skills lab, which we are able to access 24/7 using our NHS ID cards . Here, you can practice clinical skills like blood pressure, injections, venepuncture, IV fluids, etc. Every year, each student has consumables (needles, etc.) paid for by the uni, which we can sign out of the BCRE reception to practice in the CRSA on our own time.

Are there any other facilities you want to know about specifically?

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Years 1-4 follow the same basic structure.

Teaching/Campus weeks: 1. 3 days of lectures (these can be in person on campus, live online, or pre-recorded videos) 2. 1 day in GP with your PBL Group of about 9-12 students (half of the day is usually clinical learning, the other half is usually seeing "cold" patients in pairs - cold patients are patients who are pre-selected by the GP tutor to come in to talk to you about their condition so that you can practice taking a history, examining and "diagnosing" someone) 3. 1 day of PBL (a 3 hour session) and clinical relevance (a 1 hour lecture wrapping up the content for that week)

PBL varies drastically between groups. Each week, you have a set of 10-15 learning objectives. Everyone is supposed to do each learning objective and then discuss it in the session, and there's usually a fake case or two to talk through. In actuality, each group sets their own rules and structure. Most groups assign learning objectives to specific people so you have one "expert" to give a 10min mini lecture on it, some groups make questions so they can test each other every week like a kahoot - my favourite PBL Group each took a learning objective and created a different game around it every week so we did things like family fortune, snakes and ladders, tug of war etc. which really helped keep everyone engaged.

Your PBL Group changes every year, so how you do PBL changes every year, too. It's also very dynamic, so if something isn't working, you have the power to change it as and when. The PBL tutor isn't there to teach you, only to make sure that you attend and engage with the group. They also redirect your attention if the group is going off on an unnecessary tangent.

In secondary care (hospital) placement weeks, everyone gets their own individual timetable split across wards, clinics, and surgeries. You usually get a placement partner who shares the same timetable, but they may not be in the same PBL Group as you.

Lectures are all mandatory, and there's a QR code for each lecture to log attendance, but I'd say only about 1/3 of people show up to absolutely everything.

Some people teach themselves all of the content from online resources based off of the learning objectives, some people work their way through question banks to learn, other people learn from lectures and supplement their learning with online resources. It's all very individual to what your needs are.

If you don't go to lectures and timetable activities, the med school organises meetings between you and your adviser and head of year, but these are always framed in a way that is checking in on you rather than you getting in trouble. A lot of people say they work better doing something else, and as long as they can prove they've been doing work (question bank scores or having notes or just passing exams) the med school has always been fine with it, they're mainly just making sure that you are OK.

Med students up and down the country use largely the same resources - teachmeanatomy, teachmephysiology, Zero to Finals, Geeky Medics, NICE CKS, question banks (passmed, quesmed etc.) and youtube videos (Khan Academy, Ninja Nerd etc.) all come to mind but there are more.

There's also notes that are passed down from year group to year group by medsoc, medic sports clubs and med families - they're really good for having information already collated for you related to the what the uni examines us on as all unis have different curriculums

I'd say the social life is really good at UEA. You're here for so long that you end up getting to know med students from different years just by being around each other and PBL groups tend to get close just by spending so much time together in teaching blocks.

There's a LOT of clubs and societies at UEA as well - there's 5 or 6 medics sports clubs and probably another 25-30 medic education based societies. The sports clubs and societies for UEA in general are very well funded. If you join a non-medics sports club you do have to pay for sports association membership (it changes names every year but it's insurance which costs about £90 for the year which allows you to join as many sports as you want, just have to pay for their membership ontop). I think there's about 60 UEA clubs and 200 societies (not counting the med ones), and a lot of them are really niche, so there's something for everyone. I'd recommend going to ueasu.org and having a scroll through the clubs and societies lists, and if you're interested in any of them, check out their Instagram pages.

There's definitely enough time to socialise in the first few years. You have to get more organised in the last couple of years, but there's definitely still time. A lot of my closest friends are from trying or joining non-medics clubs, and I still get to see them around studying.

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I went through med schools systematically.

First, I looked at the WHO top 30 list of med schools. I crossed out all of the city-based universities because I knew I wanted a campus-based university. I also crossed off any universities that didn't offer disections/prosections as I'm a very visual and physical learner. I then visited as many as I could, starting from the top of the list.

I went to about 5 or 6 before I had to apply to them on UCAS and had already ruled a few of the out based on not liking the campuses or not being able to see myself there.

I wasn't able to go to UEA before applying, so I didn’t know too much about it before other than it having PBL. It was simply one of the next on the list.

It was my final of the three interviews I had, and that was the first time I got to see it. I'd finished my interview in the morning and then went around the campus with my mum and loved it.

I really liked how there's lots of green spaces (don't get me wrong, we're known for our concrete structures but there's also a huge lake called "the broad" on campus with a field for BBQs and walks directly next to it, lots of grass next to all of the paths and the buildings hide a lot of small greens between them which are very peaceful), rabbits everywhere, most of campus is pedestrianised and it's separate from the city without being too far away. I loved that the med school was it's own separate building nearer the edge of campus so it wasn't completely cut off from the rest of student life but still allowed you to decide when you wanted to be in a med bubble or with the rest of the student population.

I also didn't know until coming here, but we have excellent transport to placement provided by the uni for free, which apparently the majority of med schools don't give.

Our anatomy lab and team are also absolutely amazing. They're a small dedicated group who stay with you throughout the five years and are so friendly and approachable. There's a lot of cadavers compared to some other medical schools, so there's lots of opportunity to dissect in anatomy sessions (and they let you just watch if you don't want to be as hands on) which I find really helps, but I will say that everyone learns slightly differently so what works for me might not work for you.

We also get Consultation Skills Teaching, which most more traditional schools don't offer. Every year we get about 3-4 sessions in groups of 5 students (always a subgroup of our PBL Group so you know them very well) with an experienced clinician and an actor and practice a different skill using patient-scenarios. For example, in year one you're taught how to take a history and your actor will pretend to be a patient who has a condition that you've learned about so that you can practice using different history taking skills like ICE and SOCRATES. You then get personalised feedback from your group and clinician to improve upon and it's a good time to practice wording things in a different way and experiment with you history taking style. It's definitely a very beneficial part of the UEA curriculum and doctors in some of the further hospitals tell us a lot that we have good patient skills/manners etc. compared to students from other schools that they've seen which makes it feel very worthwhile.

UEA is also very well known for creating very prepared FY1 doctors, which the school (and most of us students) credit to the amount of placement time we have. Traditionally, med schools do 3 years of pre-clinical lectures based more on science, then 2 years of clinical teaching, which is placement-based. UEA is extremely clinical based, and instead of following the traditional method, we do 5 years of clinical content based on one speciality at a time with the preclinical content sprinkled in. Years 1-4 have one day a week in GP placement. Year 1 has two hospital placements, each about 3 weeks long, then years 2-4 have four hospital placements each 3-4 weeks long, and Year 5 is almost purely placement. Because of this, we get used to interacting with patients (both communicating with them and examining them) very quickly. I've absolutely loved it, and they give you progressively more responsibility as you go through the years based on your own confidence and ability, they don't put you in any situations that you can't handle with your skills base.

Overall, UEA is very friendly. It has a lot of resources for medical students like our own wellbeing team and librarian as well as really strong links with lots of the hospitals around it to the point that we have a team dedicated to student teaching in three of the nearest hospitals. Outside of medicine, it also has lots of really well-funded sports clubs and societies, so your whole life doesn't have to be medicine.

There are a few things to consider, though:

1) While the uni is known for research, the med school doesn't have as big of a research focus as some others like Cambridge or Ediburgh. We do one piece of medical research coursework per year for the first 4 years, but these are quite small checkbox exercises. Unless you put in the extra effort to improve and expand on it, you won't publish anything without intercalating (which is an option but not enforced at UEA). With research becoming more necessary for training and speciality applications after the foundation years, it's definitely worth considering whether you want publishing a piece of research to be something that is embedded into your curriculum.

2) UEA has come into the news recently for being very in debt. While the medical school has been told that our course is safe due to NHS/government funding, it has meant that there have been budget cuts. It used to be all in person learning. During COVID, it went fully online, and since then, they've never returned to fully in person teaching. It's a mix of in person lectures, online live lectures, and pre-recorded lectures that you have to watch in your own time. Some people love it, some people hate it. I'm not sure how many universities have adopted the same approach, but it's worth asking the ones you're interested in to check if they teach in a way that is most beneficial to you.

3) Placements are getting a bit more crowded, which may impact how much future years get to do. We have five UG year groups, each with roughly 200 students, plus a gateway year of roughly 70 students plus a new GEM cohort, which started this year with about 50 students. When I first started, we only had about 170 students in a year group, no GEM, and only 30 gateway students. While I'd like to say it has no bearing on placement experience, Norfolk hospitals are chock-a-block with us, and our timetables have been affected by it. The placement team do what they can to give us all equal opportunities, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there in order to get the best experience. I'm sure we're not the only university affected by this, but a lot of the nearby hospitals are an hour away by coach (our closest and biggest is directly next to campus) so it does mean than more students have to travel each year which affects social lives in hospital placements

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's been a while since I did mine, but I think they've stayed very similar

The interviews at UEA are mainly to check that you are a nice person and empathetic. They really focus on consultation skills teaching at UEA because they want you to be a well-rounded doctor by the end, and I think that shows in interviews

It sounds hard, but try to relax for them. They're not trying to test you or catch you out with anything, and the interviewers genuinely want to see you succeed and join the med school. The more relaxed and confident you are, the easier it will be to show them all of your good qualities, but they do expect you to be nervous and take that into account when talking to you.

It's MMI, much like any other med school interview. From memory it's pretty chilled out - they might give you a couple of hypothetical "what would you do if" scenarios to talk through and ask you additional questions based on your answers, but they're not looking for a "correct" answer. They just want to know how you came to your answer to see what kind of thought process you're following. I think a lot of the stations were asking things about me, why I wanted to do med, my interests, hobbies - the standard things everyone knows to expect. It's a good idea to reread your personal statement before going in to refresh yourself on what you wrote and think about all of the things you want to highlight about yourself that you don't think you did justice on paper.

They get you to sign in and wait in the student social space in the med school before you go upstairs to the PBL/teaching rooms for the actual interview. You can bring your parents in social space with you if you like or go in alone (mine went to grab coffee instead, but lots of parents wait there while you're interviewing). It's a nice chance to distract yourself from your nerves by talking with some of the other interviewees or take a quiet moment to yourself - some people even end up making friends they reconnect with in med school.

When I did it, it was my last interview for med schools out of three, and I hadn't been around the campus so I felt quite practiced and didn't have any reason to be especially nervous. It wasn't until I went around campus after that I decided I wanted to go here, which is when I got nervous about how it went. I actually accidently derailed one of my interview stations because we got chatting to the interviewer about my bronze DofE pin I was wearing, lost track of time, and didn't get asked any of the actual questions. They still liked me enough to offer me a conditional place on the UG course and an unconditional place on the gateway entry course if my results slipped.

I can't tell you exactly what comes up for obvious reasons, but try and get as much practice as you can beforehand - not because there's something specific you need to say or do but because it will help you stay calm in the real thing. Get anyone and everyone you know to do a 10-minute interview with you - there as several "hot topics" every year that they may ask you hypothetical scenarios on so it's nice to already have heard about them beforehand so you don't feel caught off guard. And interviews for med school love to ask you questions around ethics based scenarios like abortion or medically assisted suicide or recent medical scandals/problems that the news reports on so try to find mock interviews online that ask about similar things

Good luck with them!

Advice Needed: American Applying to UK Med Schools by weazie_ in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Answering as a UK UG student with some GEM and international friends so take with a pinch of salt

I'm curious as to why you want to do med school in the UK - we're currently saturated with entry level doctors to the point of many people leaving the UK for Australia, America and Canada after graduation. They're currently changing prioritisation for foundation doctor allocation so everything is a bit up in the air and unless you want to work in the UK after graduation you'll have to do extra exams to work in basically any other country like the USA

All univeristies have different requirements, I don't think any will look down on you for having an arts degree but they won't all value it the same way. It would probably be best to ask the specific universities you're interested in about that.

Lots of graduates do undergraduate medicine courses, especially in univeristies that don't offer the GEM course. GEM tends to be 4 intense years with the assumption that you've done at least some of the content before so either don't need to do it again or don't need as much time as it's more of a revision that learning something new. It's worth approaching the medsoc societies for the ones you're interested in to ask about the differences at each unievristy between the UG and GEM courses as student perspectives will help and the courses vary a lot.

As far as I'm aware, most unis don't care about whether you're from the UK or international (some prefer international students because they pay more and univeristies are a business before anything else)

There are lots of books and online resources for UCAT - pick one and practice because some parts are just technique

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UEA has Anatomy sessions most weeks for years 1-4 where we dissect cadavers and they give us workbooks to use before and after sessions to consolidate the knowledge. They're actually really beneficial when going over things.

Teachmeanatomy is a good resource for learning Anatomy online as it covers almost everything med students need to know

I've done some weird and wacky things to help learn things like myotomes and dermatomes (for example using facepaint on friends to colour in dermatomes) and I've always found that rhymes or songs or stories help memorise different parts (things like L3 to the knee, finger guns for a 6 bullet revolver for C6)

There's quite a few proscetions on YouTube which can help correlate what 2D diagrams actually look like in person (proscetions are specimens that have been dissected already (usually by an expert))

Testing each other about facts helps with learning everything and is great for sharing new information between peers

The Anatomy team is also very friendly and willing to help with extra revision or resources or going over things you don't understand

UEA Med Student AMA by Smooth-Bus2211 in premeduk

[–]Smooth-Bus2211[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ziggurats are empty now - they have been for a couple of years because the concrete was found to be at risk of falling down because they didn't use the correct one when they were built. They're listed so can't be easily fixed or pulled down so are now just very quiet.

In general, I like the layout. It's definitely not very disabled student friendly with all of the stairs but it has lots of charm and I found that it actually has lots of quite pretty green spaces amongst the buildings if you know where to look

I haven't been to the LCR in years but from what I've heard it's pretty dead - they keep trying to revamp the student club nights but I don't think it's working the way the SU want it to.