All 12 entries tagged Joanne

One last push…

It is now 10 day to go until exams, lectures are finished and we have one week of dedicated revision time before our first year summative exams. Despite the exams hanging over Block 5 like a dark and very scary cloud, our reproduction and child health block has actually being one of my favourites.

Block 5 mostly focused on normal anatomy and physiology, learning about the physiology of pregnancy and labour and the development of a foetus right through to adolescence was truly fascinating and reminded me that one of the reasons why I wanted to study medicine is because the human body is amazing! We also did a lot about development in childhood and safeguarding issues around children. This really highlighted that as a doctor we aren’t just treating injuries and disease, we have a much larger role in society. Learning about the social aspects around medicine may not seem really relevant now but it will form a large part of our future careers!

Year 1 ended with a bang at our last session at UHCW. For the first time this year we had access to fresh human tissue. The surgical training centre team had dissected specimens of arms, legs, hearts and even heads for us to observe and revise from. This is a truly unique opportunity that doesn’t exist in many medial schools. At Warwick we are lucky to have the plastinated specimens all year round but their delicate nature limits how hands on you can be. With the fresh tissue you can feel the difference between a nerve and an artery and see the action of a tendon if you pull on it. It really is a brilliant learning opportunity and as a medical student I really appreciate the gift that the donors and their families have made to us.

I’ve spent my first Saturday of revision week back in the medical school with the Surgical Society for an anatomy revision day. There are lots of active societies at the medical school. I haven’t had much opportunity to get involved with many of them this year but I joined the surgical society as they run frequent revision sessions throughout the year for members. Tea, coffee and a seemingly unlimited supply of sweets gets us through long days where tutors, mostly 3rd and 4th years, help us go over key concepts and practice exam questions with us.

I find these sessions with the senior students really helpful as they can really guide you to the important information. As a first year graduate medical student it can be hard to identify the key points from lectures and also hard to know what sort of questions could be asked, getting tips and the chance to practice makes life a lot easier!

In our last week of first year we also had a lecture to introduce us to Advanced Cases 1, our first term in second year. Although everyone is very much preoccupied with getting through first year it was actually really motivating and inspiring to hear about second year. It was great to hear how we will be spending much more time on the wards, integrating all of our knowledge from first year and really learning how to apply it to patients in a clinical setting. I’m nervous of being let loose on the wards with only my clinical partner to protect me but I also can’t wait. Just one last push and I’ll be there. See you on the other side of exams…

Megan Earle : 08 Jun 2015 13:53 |  Tags: Exams Joanne Mbchb Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

30 days, 720 hours, 43’200 minutes until exams…

Exam fever has turned into exam delirium and I find myself thinking of Dory from Disney’s Finding Nemo singing just keep swimming, just keep swimming as she swims through the dark and dangerous waters. Over the next 30 days I need to just keep revising as I pass through the murky and unfathomable waters of blocks 1 to 4 and grapple with new challenges presented by Block 5! It’s hard to maintain confidence in your own way of working when you find yourself comparing yourself to your fellow students some of whom seem to have no need to eat or sleep and seem to be able to reel off endless lists that you had forgotten even existed. I’ve always worked quite steadily, I try and make sure I don’t work too late and always make time for dinner that doesn’t just consist of cereal. Although I haven’t been very good at keeping up many extra activities outside of medicine this year I have started walking the 3 miles to the medical school a few times a week, making sure I have some fresh air which I think has really helped. Even during my PhD I didn’t let myself get too worked up over what other people were doing but I’m struggling to do the same in my first year of medicine. The amount of information is so mind boggling that most people have had to change their working style and mine has morphed and improved over the year, but have I done enough? I hope so, but I won’t know for sure until the end of June!

Apart from exam stress I have just finished my second week of block 5 Reproduction and Child health. We are covering some very interesting topics such as child development, conception and labour and because the block leads know we are revising at the same time they are doing everything they can to help us. Providing quizzes to help us consolidate our knowledge and providing quick recap sessions in response to questions sent in has been really helpful. The lecturers at the medical school really do go out of their way to help you if they can. A great example of this was a whole afternoon of revision on some of the trickier concepts from Block 1 and 2 which was run solely in response to requests from students. Peer support is now running two sessions a week and extra sessions on specific topics at the weekend. Ruder and more memorable mnemonics for various topics are passed around the cohort, and while I’ve never been so stressed in all my life the amount of help from the medical school and my fellow students is really encouraging.

I can’t just work constantly though and after a particularly long day this week I made my first trip to the SU bar the Dirty Duck on main campus with a few other medics who had had enough for the day. Chilling in the sunshine with a cold drink and new friends made me realise that we are all in the same boat and we just have to keep revising… only 43’200 minutes to go!

Megan Earle : 13 May 2015 09:36 |  Tags: Exams Joanne Mbchb Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

In need of some support

Well it’s the last day of my Easter holidays, and exam fear has set in. My revision plan over Easter may have proved a little over optimistic but overall I’m pleased with the amount I have covered. One of the main things about medical school is that for a lot of learning comes down to repetition, and lots of it! I haven’t been able to do this as much over the holidays as I had planned but I hope that the work I have done has laid a good foundation to really consolidate that knowledge over the next six weeks (eek!).

Despite living like a hermit over the holidays working from home has worked well for me, personally I find working in a library with others a bit distracting, I find myself much more interested in total strangers conversations rather than my own work. I do find it helpful to work through clinical cases in groups though, other people will pick up on information that you considered irrelevant. Learning how to answer questions based on clinical cases is very different from anything I’ve done before, you really need to pay attention to the small details in the case as the answers are often right there in front of you, it’s easy to miss marks by just not reading all the information thoroughly.

Another thing that helps to develop this skill is Peer Support. Peer Support is run almost every week as a revision session for first years. The current second years teach us important topics from the weeks lectures. This is a really great resource; the second years really focus on the examinable topics and show us where to focus our learning so we don’t waste time. They are always willing to answer any other questions we may have about the course and most importantly are full of encouragement! Even after Christmas when the second years were no longer based at the medical school they braved the Gibbet Hill traffic to teach us every week. Peer support has even been run over the Easter holidays, for me these sessions have been a welcome break from my study and a chance to do the many practice questions they have provided for us. I hope I get the chance to take part in peer support next year, it’s not only an invaluable tool for the first years but many of the second years say it really helps them to revise key topics and keep things fresh in their minds. It’s also a great chance to develop presentation and teaching skills for that all important CV!

Despite the ever present exam fear I am looking forward to Block 5: Reproduction and Child Health. Pre reading material has been provided to us by the block leads and by peer support to help us get off to a good start in our last Block. I really hope that I can still take some enjoyment out of block 5 despite what lies in wait after!

Megan Earle : 21 Apr 2015 09:19 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Peersupport Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Procrastination…with more work

I have followed my own advice and after having a very productive first two weeks of my Easter holidays which were spent largely confined to one room of the house, I have sacrificed productivity for some much needed socialising. In life pre medical school my weekends were very much my own time and I prided myself on meeting up regularly with friends scattered round the country. That all came to a sudden halt when I started medical school, weekends are very much needed to relax at the end of a busy week and catch up with work, spending large portions of time on trains just isn’t really an attractive option anymore so I’m making up for it now over the holidays!

Even while “relaxing” there is still work to be done, so called “easier” jobs that are a bit more fun than trying to commit what feel like a million drug names to memory! After the holidays my Sleep medicine student selected component (SSC) finishes with our presentations. I’m presenting on sleep and pregnancy, something which I’m interested in – but like a lot of things at the moment, I know nothing about. I’ve being trawling Medline and Pubmed for some helpful references but now I need to put it all together and keep to a 10 minute time limit!

While it’s a bit stressful preparing for a presentation I have enjoyed the SSC, it’s been nice just learning something for fun without the pressure of exams. As part of the Sleep medicine SSC we all got the chance to go to one of the country’s best sleep research laboratories in Leicester. We were shown how the experiments worked and got to speak to a patient who was suffering from narcolepsy. There aren’t many places in the country with dedicated sleep labs and even at Leicester the lab only runs clinics part time. The doctors at the sleep lab all work in different specialities but have special interests in sleep medicine so it was really interesting to speak to them about how they first got involved with sleep medicine. It’s really exciting to know that there are still areas of medicine that are still in their infancy, that still need development so that patients suffering from these misunderstood conditions can be helped.

Having more fresh air this last week may have taken me away from my studies but overall it’s been very beneficial. I ventured to a comedy night in Warwick, enjoyed pizza with an old friend in Oxford and in between some walks and numerous tea rooms I’ve actually had a very productive Easter weekend in the Lake District with my family. Maybe views like this and copious amounts of chocolate eggs are what my brain needs in order to learn neuroanatomy!

Megan Earle : 08 Apr 2015 17:00 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Looking back

After one week of my Easter holidays I’ve drank a year’s supply of tea and got a reasonable amount of work done. However when you realise that the only time you’ve left the house in 3 days is to put the bins out you know you’re working too hard! One of the reasons why I choose to return to university to study medicine was that I wanted a job where I wanted to work hard, I wanted to be so interested, and care so much that it wouldn’t matter how much effort it required. Now that I’m here I think maybe you can have too much of a good thing but I’m also glad that even after all the hard work that I’ve put in this year and the hard work still to come I can still enjoy learning and all the other experiences that come with medicine.

Over the holidays a lot of the medical school will be closed for the selection centres, and while I’ve been working from home in my pyjamas I’ve been thinking about my own experience at the selection centre last year. I was lucky to actually turn up on time to my selection centre, having stayed in a B&B in Kenilworth I laid out my clothes and had everything ready only to wake up in a blind panic realising I had forgot to set my alarm! Fortunately my nerves woke me up at 6am and I was actually an hour early, and had plenty of time to nervously chat with my fellow candidates. Interviews are always nerve wracking but having only had experience of panel interviews I definitely felt like the Warwick selection centre at Warwick was a leap into the unknown. The selection centre has changed since last year but I’m sure the candidates are just as nervous as I was.

Applying to medicine is like no other experience. For many applicants going through their 2nd, 3rd or 4th round of applications there are a lot of hopes and dreams on the line. Many have left successful careers to get work experience, or missed out on an offer first time round and undertook a tough science degree in order to meet the entry requirements. Myself I spent most of the application process wondering if I had made the right choice. Having studied hard for my PhD, secured a postdoctoral role in a different country deciding to apply to medicine meant that here wasn’t really any going back. Using my holidays to do work experience, volunteering on a hospital ward after an already long day at work and revising for the UKCAT on a weekend and all for at best a 1 in 10 chance of actually being accepted felt like a big gamble. After the assessment centre as I analysed everything I had said and done I realised for the first time just how much I wanted to get in and that it didn’t matter what I was giving up or the risk I was taking.

Now that I’m revising for my first summative exam of my medicine degree I can honestly say I made the right choice. I’ve doubted it many times but if I can actually say that I’m still enjoying learning new things while cooped up revising for exams then I must have made the right choice! Despite this realisation I think I should still make the effort to go outside for things that don’t involve waste disposal!

Megan Earle : 25 Mar 2015 11:24 |  Tags: Exams Joanne Mbchb Selectioncentres Warwick |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem