Abbie's diary of the introduction to MBChB

Monday 24^thSeptember was a huge day for me and the rest of my cohort as it was the beginning of our Warwick Medical School education. The day before, we had a meet and greet in a pub just off campus which consisted of meeting familiar faces and getting to know new people in my cohort. We also received our Med Soc society cards and t-shirts and had the opportunity to chat to the year above us to get some last-minute tips and tricks to survive the first year.

Monday morning soon arrived, and we had several lectures welcoming us to the med school and who’s who in the world of WMS. We also met with our personal tutor and our tutor groups for the first time. Cased Based Learning (CBL) was something I had been nervous about as I had not had good experiences with group work in the past, but my group bonded quickly, and I left the session wanting to experience CBL sessions as soon as possible.

Monday evening brought a bar crawl with our fetching Med Soc t-shirts but despite five of us trying to navigate Google Maps, we still had a situation of about 15 medics wandering around town completely lost (at least we only have to navigate one building in our future careers). Eventually, we found the place and quickly got down to the business of the evening: “having a nice quiet one with the flatmates”. Needless to say, there were a few sore heads in lecture the next morning, but everyone seemed to have survived.

Tuesday brought the slow introduction of content into our lectures, including basic cellular biology, and we got to experience a CBL session looking at how we work our way through CBL cases.

Warwick has a lot of support schemes in place for students, from personal tutors to block leads and systems run by the Med Soc. One of these systems is the Medic Parents scheme. I met my parents that evening, who are two second years. I was happy to see that one of my brothers is a guy from my CBL group and it was nice talking to my medic dad about anatomy - something I am looking forward to learning this year.

Wednesday allowed us to have some free time in the afternoon, meaning we could participate in main campus events if we wanted to. We also had our Freshers Fair and I joined too many societies. I particularly enjoyed the surgical station as I performed my first suture, which I am rather proud of! One of the societies I had made a beeline towards was the Neuro Soc as coming from a Neuroscience background, I was keen to keep a bit of neuro in my life outside of block teaching. I also joined Warwick Netball as I have decided that I need to physically escape my desk!

On Thursday we were introduced to mindfulness and how to make sure we keep ourselves emotionally healthy during the course. We also had the second of our CBL sessions and I particularly enjoyed this as we had brought in brownies to eat. In the evening we had a “where’s wally” social - seeing 50 or so medics running around dressed up in red and white costumes is the most bizarre sight you have seen!

Friday brought our first day at the hospital, which proved to be one of the best days of the entire week. In the afternoon we had one of the best lectures I think I have ever had. We covered clinical skills and watching the demos given by Dr Gill and Prof Patel was like watching a medical Ant and Dec with Dr Gill’s enthusiasm and Prof Patel’s quick-witted “dad humour”.

We were exhausted after a long but incredible first week, however we still had the Med Ball. It took five medics one hour and four videos to figure out how to fix a bow tie in our halls, but eventually we made it. The food was amazing and one of our lecturers wore some particularly amazing shoes that stole the show from every other outfit there. Again, we had a few sore heads the next morning, but it had been a great evening to relax and celebrate the fact we were here.

After talking to people, we still have “out of body moments” where we keep questioning if this is really happening. I’m sure this "daydream" state won’t last long but the medical school here act like a giant team. Upper years support the years below them and the lecturers are only an email away. I’m looking forward to working through block 1 and hopefully getting some sleep along the way.

Update: Freshers Flu has hit me hard.

Abbie

Charlie Gallan : 10 Oct 2018 10:18 |  Tags: Abbie Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem