Hello Phase 3!

After a long summer stuck in my study myself and the other 2^nd year students sat our exams in September. Two week later we all made our way, nervously, to the Medical School to see if our names were on the pass list. Walking up from the main campus seemed to take forever as I nervously chatted to my friends, trying to keep it together and stay positive. Well, my name was there which meant that I was officially a 3^rd year medical student entering Phase 3! There was little time to celebrate as we officially started Phase 3 the following day, thus I started phase 3 regretting how much wine I had consumed the night before!

Phase 3 consists of an 8 week research project (SSC2), followed by 3 weeks of lectures and hospital placements designed to get us back up to speed before we start our specialist placements in the new year. The first week of our research project has been lecture based, designed to give us research skills we may need to complete our projects. I used to work in laboratory research with animal models of psychiatric disease but decided that for my SSC2 project I wanted to do something completely different. I am designing a questionnaire to investigate the effect of gender on career aspirations of medical students, in particular trying to find out why women don’t choose careers in academic medicine (where you combine clinical work with research). This project will allow me to develop completely new research skills and work in a totally different area which will be really interesting. Other students are going back to labs they used to work in before medical school, others are conducting audits in the local hospitals and some are even going to Africa as part of their projects. It’s going to be a really fun 8 weeks and a chance to do something completely unique!

As well as getting to grips with my research project I also want to use SSC2 as a chance to get my work/life balance back on track. I found it difficult to get the right balance during Core Clinical Education last year when we spent long days in hospital and revision doesn’t exactly bring out my healthy side! The problem is that this is what I’ve signed up to do, come January I’ll be doing my final clinical placements in hospitals and as the year progresses finals will be ever closer, and once I graduate I’ll be at the mercy of a hospital rota. I have to try and get the balance right now and maintain it so I don’t let it slip again either in final year or once I graduate. Coping with stress and not letting work take over your life is a big part of life as a doctor and something I still need to learn! So here’s to SSC2 and the start of phase 3. Only 16 months until finals!

Joanne

Luke Pemberton : 03 Oct 2016 09:54 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem