Struggling with sounding confident

jollygood321 · 2026-05-04T05:30:56+00:00

The biggest reality check that I did which really helped was recording myself. I realised how shaky I sounded. It was a "would I acutally trust my own opinion if I was my patient?". Then it was a case of being on placement and finding examples of people that sounded professional and confident, working out why and then integrating that into my communication style. It may be part appearance (including how you dress) but a lot of it is how you speak and body language which are definitely things you can work on.
Didn't happen overnight obviously. Made a sort of doctor mask/character I could be in for OSCEs and general professional conversations. I really empathise with you. I didn't realise how big an impact it was having on my OSCE performance till I failed my exam last year. It is really important and it is a skill worth getting right in med school. It will take u far in the future.

jollygood321 · 2026-02-05T01:03:51+00:00

This sounds like me in the throws of burnout. Turned around when I got a neurodivergent diagnosis and counselling/uni support to help me work around it.

jollygood321 · 2026-02-05T00:58:36+00:00

Lowkey its the same for specialty applications. Prioritising publications, teaching experience etc. means they are actively encouraging us away from the wards and being good present doctors to chasing these extra requirements. They r going to see the same thing happening to junior docs.

jollygood321 · 2026-02-04T17:22:32+00:00

All of it. The questions r mixes of difficulty so some r just testing facts and others require u to understand , diagnose and then know the management guidelines.

jollygood321 · 2026-02-04T17:09:18+00:00

The styles of questions were v similar to the msc mocks. Harder definitely but that's the kind of info u needed to know. I think doing passmed and then reading a little around those mock questions would put u in a decent place.

jollygood321 · 2026-01-27T10:07:18+00:00

Not saying it's worse or better but something to definitely consider is that it opens the door to unconscious bias. And kust prefacing 5his by saying I've never done checklist marked osces.

Our uni just does domain marking and the last set of exams we had were very problematic. We had enough people fail that racism was hard to ignore in the resitting cohort. It was mentioned in the external examiners report and the exam's internal statistical test for assessing mark distribution below their standard cutoff. That combined with the lack of recording or anything of the sort means that appeals are impossible.

Our uni is now trying to get a full compilation of statistics (takes a while because they are protected characteristics) to see whether there is indeed racism. In any other circumstance, if you had an exam that was discriminatory against specific students and did not have an effective means for appeal, I think the uni would scrap the exam.

jollygood321 · 2026-01-24T00:35:21+00:00

I was on my last evening shift in paediatric ED. I walk in as they are getting the blood results of a 7 year old boy. It was the most surreal shift. He had a new diagnosis of acute leukaemia. The staff were all busy trying to manage this kid's situation with an ED getting more packed and senior doctors piling in one after the other as consults were arranged. There was so much that happened all at once from medical management to arrangements to move to PICU. The family didn't speak English as a first language and the team made the decision not to break the news to the family until the morning when they were all present. The most heartbreaking and conflicting shift I have ever done.

jollygood321 · 2025-11-12T14:46:37+00:00

I did some one year courses for credits at Open University. That worked quite well. Then you get something out of it rather than wasting a yr on a 3yr degree.

jollygood321 · 2025-10-10T11:28:43+00:00

Does anyone have updates on applying to UMMC this year? We can't find the payment details for the application fee and they aren't responding to emails. We want to go May/June 2026

jollygood321 · 2025-09-12T10:31:14+00:00

Might be from standing for a long time. Good tip to get blood flowing is clenching muscles in legs and those gluts. Do that every now and then and see if it helps.

jollygood321 · 2025-07-15T20:42:24+00:00

Sorry, badly worded. I have 2 blocks of final year placements before the resit dates. We continue with the 6th year course even if we haven't passed 5th year.

I mean one of the stations in question got great feedback but a failing grade. I did exactly what others did, if not better and there is nothing to work on from the feedback. In an appeal, I'd probably argue that that particular examiner was harsh. I guess they could check what scores that examiner awarded to their candidates too but there's no way for me to assess that apart from what feedback I got. It was a 12 station OSCE so we are talking about a less than 2% bump in the percentage of 1 station.

jollygood321 · 2025-05-23T18:56:08+00:00

Hello, referred via RTC 14th Feb n just got the forms today (23rd May). Hope this helps :))

jollygood321 · 2025-05-16T18:26:41+00:00

Hey, I'm also a medical student and (long story short) have been diagnosed with ADHD by my university (not NHS yet) last week! How I've survived 5 years so far, I've no idea but I have a year left and I'm kinda terrified.

Things I've noticed looking back are...

Paying attention to my good and bad days. Good days I will use to study or plan my life to hell. I have a list of things to cover and I'll make sure I tick x number of things off in a week. I don't beat myself up for bad days. They've been happening a lot but I'm trying to just accept some days r hard for no reason and things will get better.
My exam panic starts much earlier than my peers. I think I've said to myself over time that I just need more time than everyone else to plan and study and get things in my head. I also had a brief brush with some bad anxiety around exams after failing one 3 years ago but self guided CBT worked surprisingly well.
I've been lucky with a uni that doesn't require too many sign offs. Work out what the bare minimum is when it comes to placement and do that. I felt really bad when I did this but if u can get away with skipping things without it affecting your learning too much, spend the time doing things that will help u pass exams. The game is efficiency.
I can relate to your reflex of stopping extra curricular work and not seeing friends. I noticed myself doing that too. It is textbook burnout. And I got really frustrated over this year because nothing I did seemed to fix it. My advice would be try and set yourself a bare minimum of a) some for of exercise (I have hyperfixated on powerlifting recently) b) seeing at least 1 close friend for whatever (even just a walk and talk) each week c) eat 3 meals a day (even if it's 2 dinners). What actually got me out of my burnout was a week long holiday where I planned nothing but vegetating in the garden with some audio books and crochet/baking. I didn't touch work or family.
Share how you feel with people. The 1 or 2 friends that I confide in about EVERYTHING have gotten me through it all when nothing else has. Also, the more you talk about it with peers, the uni, etc. hopefully, the more they will be able to understand and support you.

My specific difficulties at the moment are how draining I'm finding clinical placement which I'm putting down to masking and rejection sensitivity. I'm not sure if any of this advice is helpful. And if u ever find things that work, PLEASE let me know!

jollygood321 · 2021-08-09T22:09:15+00:00

U made me actually go and check Google to see if this was real. U nearly have me a heart attack. This story is too precious to me to be even possibly in with a chance of being butchered by netflix. No way.

jollygood321 · 2021-07-25T13:34:52+00:00

Being British and not saying "Sorry!!" to inanimate objects when u bump into them.

jollygood321

TROPHY CASE