My First Week of Medical School

My first week of medical school is officially over!

It’s been a tough week mentally and emotionally. Having to balance the vast input of information with the physical strain my body went under cycling to and from uni every day – definitely a new experience for me. I am happy to finally have gotten started, once you know you are going to medical school and one the final countdown, you just want to get started and prove your ready for it. This weeks lectures were a plethora of information about how the course is going to work combined with a number of foundation of sciences based lectures, which was super helpful, but made me really want to get into the next week of lectures and new content.

The first day was life changing; though the cycle up the hill to uni nearly killed me. I finally gained possession of my medical student lanyard, bright orange to make sure people can see it. The day was a real incite into how the course will work, with multiple reminders of how amazing we will be as doctors one day. The day was really informative about how we were going to learn in our ‘blocks’ and ‘themes’:

Blocks are essentially modules with the themes running along the blocks over the whole year. Its a clever way of teaching you how to think and act like a doctor, because you are constantly taught and reminded about the laws, values and ethics required to be a doctor. The themes provide an interesting break from learning the anatomy and physiology and the excitement for getting to clinical skill on Friday keeps you motivated throughout the week.

An extra bonus is that Wednesdays are free days!

Though i did an interesting lecture this Wednesday on autonomy and consent. It was highly intriguing; it got the whole year chatting and discussing their opinions. However, the knowledge that Wednesdays are largely free days removed the worry i had about coping with the intense workload and adult life.

Wednesday was also the MedSoc fair. So our medical school has a MedSoc that acts like a student union, but you pay a little extra to your joining fee to have access to main campus activities. After a nice afternoon trip into town (the Slytherin comfy socks i purchased on a whim were totally worth it) we went back to uni for the fair and i signed up to lots of interesting and intriguing MedSoc clubs.

Friday was by far the most exciting day of the week. It was our first day in the UHCW and it was exciting to enter the hospital in my bright orange lanyard saying ‘medical student’. It definitely made it all the more real, and the lecturers for clinical skills have so much humour, that at the end of the day i arrived home on such a high.

Welcome Ball on Saturday evening  was amazing also and the great end to the week. I finally got to wear my beautiful navy dress, I’ve been looking forward to wearing it for weeks. A good meal and a nice dance, it was a nice chance to relax and get to know my fellow med school students without having to worry about the academics… for one night!

I especially loved my favour pot of jelly beans, cleverly served in a urine specimen pot of the med students. It provided some good humour to my table, especially as one of my friends is an ex-urology nurse.

I am now excited now for the next week. Though i am well aware of how much work i need to put in to keep up on the academics… who knows what i will learn next, though i am definitely excited for clinical skills next week.