A Day in the Life of a Medical Student

Well, sort of.

As any of you who regularly reads my blog may know, I am an aspiring doctor. As I am now in Year 13, this year I had the exciting (yet daunting, I won't lie) task of choosing which medical schools to apply. I narrowed it down to Cambridge, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Plymouth. I've had interviews at all (apart from Edinburgh, which doesn't interview anyway), and with an unsurprising rejection from Cambridge, I am glad I have a back up now that I have an offer from Plymouth, which I received in December. And I only have to get AAA!! (Let me clarify, AAA is the lowest a medical school will ever offer.)

Today, I was lucky enough to be able to partake in a medicine offer-holder day at Plymouth, along with 19 others who will hopefully become my course-mates next year. Unlike the majority of the group, I only live a little distance away from Plymouth, and actually go to school in the city, so there was no long car or train journeys for me. Although, I think going to Edinburgh will make up for that. With this blog post, I want to explain the sorts of things medical students, especially those that go to Plymouth, get up to, something I hope will both be interesting to anyone, and perhaps a helpful insight to anyone hoping to pursue a career in medicine.

In the first part of the morning, we got to have a look at Clinical Skills, a vital part of training that ranges from communication and teamwork, to actual procedures. Plymouth's Peninsula medical school has fantastic facilities for this, including a range of dummy patients and even a simulated ward, where you work with actors who pretend to be a wide range of different patients you may encounter. Fortunately for me, I was quite familiar with the facilities as I did my Year 10 work experience with the medical school.

Aside from a tour of the facilities, we got to perform a couple practical tasks. First of all, we got to intubate dummy patients, which is when you push a pipe down their trachea so that they can breathe. It's surprisingly difficult, and I think we all instantly appreciated why we don't try this on real people first, as most of us managed to inflate the stomach rather than the lungs, and no-one did it particular fast, so I'm sure our whole room of patients would have died if they were real. But don't worry, I'm sure that in 5 years time we'll be able to do it with our eyes closed! (Not literally, that could be a little dangerous...)

Another exciting thing we did, was learn how to perform intramuscular injections. Perhaps not as exciting to write about, but learning how to keep things uncontaminated, and how to correctly draw up a solution and inject it into (once again a dummy) patient was fun, and surprisingly complicated!

The day also consisted of a tour of the university and Student Union, a free lunch, and an overview of the course and how Plymouth, as a modern uni, is different to those that try the traditional approach to medicine.

In the afternoon, we got to watch an hour of a PBL session. PBL, problem based learning, is when students work in small groups to focus on a case, where they apply previous knowledge, and go away to research new topics, to understand the situations, how things can be done differently, and perhaps even form a diagnosis or solution. It's a very modern way of learning, and different to the traditional lecture-based method. At first, I wasn't too keen on the idea, but now it has been broken down a little, and now I've had a chance to watch a session, it seems like a really interactive way to learn.

After I had finished at the university, I popped into the city centre to do a spot of book shopping. I ended up buying The Elite by Kiera Cass, and Cress by Marissa Meyer (the previous books of both series have been reviewed, so go check them out from the Review page!). I also had a discussion with a man who worked in Waterstones about Red Queen and it's sequel. He, like me, wasn't that sold with Red Queen, although found the ending good. He has, however, convinced me to consider continuing with the series. (Red Queen has also been reviewed).

If anyone has any questions about Plymouth uni, medicine/medical school, applying to uni, etc, please feel free to comment! Also, if any of you reading this are medical students, I'd love to hear about where you study and what you think of it.

Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen – Victoria Aveyard

*Warning – may contain spoilers*

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Publisher: Orion Books

First published: 2015

Cover: Paperback

Pages: 383

Blurb: This is a world divided by blood – Red or Silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to seventeen-year-old Mare, a Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

But Mare possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of her potential, the Silvers hide Mare in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess. Knowing that one false move will mean her death, Mare must use her new position to bring down the regime – from the inside.

Now Mare has entered a game of betrayal and lies.

This is Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart…

History of my copy: I saw that the Red Queen was a hugely popular book in the Bookstagram community, so I picked it up for a 3 for £10 deal on Amazon along with the books I got my friend for her birthday.

At first, this book really did nothing for me. It was a terrible mix of Baldacci’s The Finisher, Cass’ The Selection and Collins’ The Hunger Games. However, I stuck with it and I am glad I did. It got better, especially the last ten or so chapters.

I will also applaud Aveyard’s brilliant way of creating an apartheid world. The whole idea of Red against Silver was different to everything I’ve seen before, and I think it did make a good premise for a book series.

Plot: Mare Barrow is a Red thief, stealing to help her family survive in the Stilts. She is conscripted to war, just like her brothers, best friend, and every other Red that doesn’t have a job. However, she is ‘saved’ when a man, who turns out to be the heir to the throne, Prince Callum, gets her a job as a servant. This doesn’t last very long when, at Queenstrial (an event where the royal family chooses who the princes should marry), they discovered that Mare has a power, just like the Silvers.

         The Royal family promise her to Prince Maven, disguising her as a Silver, where she will then secretly work with the terrorist Scarlet Guard to bring an end to the superiority of the Silver rule with the help of her future husband.

         Soon, Mare learns that anyone can betray anyone. Sons betray fathers, wives betray husbands and, perhaps worse of all, one of the Princes betray Mare.

Setting: I love how different this Dystopian world feels. I think the way Aveyard has conquered the differences between how the Reds live compared to the Silvers was beautifully done. The Silver cities and palaces are described in all their glory, whereas the Red slums are depicted as the dirty, poverty-stricken places they are, and it really feels like you are there.

Characters: This bit definitely contains spoilers, so stop reading now if you don’t want the end to be ruined!

                Firstly, Mare, what a fantastic main character she is! She’s a heroine with realistic flaws oh my! She is confused by what she is, and remains loyal to her people until the very end. She totally does not deserve what happens to her.

                I love Call too. He remains loyal to his family, and cares about Mare. He does bad things, but he’s a soldier and he carries out what his father expects of him. The moment when he was made to kill the King broke my heart. I do hope him and Mare end up together and ruling a just world, the Silver King and his Red Queen, a world in which people are equal, regardless of their blood colour and powers.

                Maven. What slimy scum! From the start I wasn’t too sure on him. He seemed too nice and, as his mother’s son, I felt like I couldn’t trust a thing he did. I was surprised he was actually allowed to partake in the Scarlet Guard’s plans in the first place, I thought they would have been too clever to fall for that. However, regardless of how much I disliked him, I never thought he would be that evil! He truly is a villain of villains.

To read or not to read: Read. Read and persevere. I nearly gave up on the book at one point, and there were many times I felt like putting it down and leaving it for a while, but there’s a point you hit and you just can’t put it down! I am looking forward to reading the sequel and seeing what happens next.