The Student Room Group

Cambridge Medicine Students and Applicants

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Reply 60
mhairi_10
ah, thank you helenia, visesh and vesicle... i know i should probably look over my circuit notes and get to grips with what exactly electricity is!


I don't think anyone's quite sure what exactly electricity is. I'm in a horrible conffudle at the moment with conventional current and the flow of electrons for both chemistry (cell potential and electrolysis) and physics. Damn you Fleming's left hand rule, which should be the right hand rule really...
Reply 61
As the others have said - it does help a fair bit with IA HOM etc, but if you have half a brain and remember some GCSE/Standard Grade stuff, it comes pretty easily.
Reply 62
Helenia
As the others have said - it does help a fair bit with IA HOM etc, but if you have half a brain and remember some GCSE/Standard Grade stuff, it comes pretty easily.


Ditto the above generally - I get a bit confuzzled on the physics-y stuff (esp last year) but it didn't affect my marks in the end...

UCAS-wise I think that you are sort of meant to take what you declared on your form or you have to inform them or the unis of any change (ie if you previously declared that you are taking Physics but now are not)... not sure of the exact details there though.
Reply 63
you do have to declare it, and if you change without telling them they can reconsider your offers i think :]but i wouldn't drop physics this far into the course, wouldn't be allowed to, and couldn't if i wanted to i don't think because of the maltriculation requirements of cambridge. i just wanted to know if concentrating on my other three subjects to the extent that i get a B or a C in physics would put me at any great disadvantage and it seems not, so thank all you lovely people for putting my mind at rest. my maths teacher will be very happy :] xx
Reply 64
Helenia
On the undergrad course, not very many.


There are quite a few, more than i had expected to see! They all sit together in lectures and get teased by Whittaker about being almost as old as he is...
Oh yes and biochem grads are very useful to have as neighbours in practicals :biggrin:
The majority of the mature med undergrads, are they at mature colleges or non-mature ones ?
Reply 66
I was just told by the receptionist at my GPs today that they've stopped doing Hep B vaccinations, and that I'd have to get it from occupational health at work. Now she was really preocupied so I couldn't explain that I don't actually work yet. I know that other medical schools definitely expect you to be health cleared before you go. At cambridge you aren't in contact with patients immediately so do you get the opportunity to have the vaccinations in the first year there?
Reply 67
You have to have an occupation health check-up meeting things in the first term of your first year, and I'm fairly sure that they'll give you the vaccination if you haven't already had it (they gave me a booster of something, though I can't remember what :rolleyes:).
Reply 68
Hmm, now you've reminded me about it, I had a blood test in the first week (having had all the vaccinations) and they said the results would be sent to us in November. As far as I'm aware, they haven't sent anything.

Vesicle - I had a lot of trouble persuading my GP that yes, they did want to vaccinate me. Eventually they agreed, but it took a lot of effort. You may well have to pay for it. There have been several threads about it over in the Medicine forum in the past, although I haven;t been over there recently. I think you should have at least started the course before you get here, but I don't think they're that bothered usually if you haven't had all 3.
Reply 69
Thank you Darzona and Afoneleri, I shall talk to the practice nurse about it next time I see her, and go look on the medicine threads to look for general protocol.
anyone know if i can do clinical school in a different country, say switzerland?
Reply 71
citizen.erased
anyone know if i can do clinical school in a different country, say switzerland?

Never heard of anyone doing that. Even some British med schools won't take you on, so I doubt a foreign one that isn't familiar with your curriculum would. But you never know.
Reply 72
i know vesicle has already asked about the hepatitis B vaccine, and sorry to kind of repeat stuff, and sorry if this has been answered already somewhere, but i couldn't find it!

i got my occupational health service letter from cambridge today and whilst saying that all medical students should be immunised against hepatitis B before starting the course, it also said;

"All prospective medical students must provide a laboratory report, generated prior to the commencement of hepatitis B vaccination, showing absence in serum of of hapatitis B surface antigen. "

I have already started my vaccination course due to the fact I'm going to africa this summer, but i didn't have a lab report done prior to this, will it matter, or am i just panicking?

I called my mum (she's a GP) and she said she'll make an appointment for me to have a blood test done later in the week, so i will have the laboratory report done :]

sorry to ask such silly questions too... i just didn't want to call, or mention it if it wasn't important :]
Also, what's the latest you can start the Hep B vaccination while still making sure it gets done in time? I can't get mine done at the moment (it's along complicated story relating to other illness/drugs) but should I be panicking about this? Thanks lovely medics xxx
Reply 74
mhairi_10
i know vesicle has already asked about the hepatitis B vaccine, and sorry to kind of repeat stuff, and sorry if this has been answered already somewhere, but i couldn't find it!

i got my occupational health service letter from cambridge today and whilst saying that all medical students should be immunised against hepatitis B before starting the course, it also said;

"All prospective medical students must provide a laboratory report, generated prior to the commencement of hepatitis B vaccination, showing absence in serum of of hapatitis B surface antigen. "

I have already started my vaccination course due to the fact I'm going to africa this summer, but i didn't have a lab report done prior to this, will it matter, or am i just panicking?

I called my mum (she's a GP) and she said she'll make an appointment for me to have a blood test done later in the week, so i will have the laboratory report done :]

sorry to ask such silly questions too... i just didn't want to call, or mention it if it wasn't important :]


If you didn't get it done, you didn't get it done. They're not going to kick you out for this. Get the test done soon, explain it to occupational health when you do arrive and hopefully they'll understand.

As for the rest of you guys, I'm not sure what to recommend - you could try contacting the Cambridge Occupational Health service to check things out?
Thanks Helenia :-) (Or can we now promote you to the title of Wonderwoman?)
Reply 76
Danielle2137
Also, what's the latest you can start the Hep B vaccination while still making sure it gets done in time? I can't get mine done at the moment (it's along complicated story relating to other illness/drugs) but should I be panicking about this? Thanks lovely medics xxx


danielle, i meant to post this earlier but my internet crashed...

my letter says that "you should have recieved at least two doses of hepatitis B vaccine prior to admisson."

it also says that " all applicants should be vaccinated using the standard vaccination schedule for hepatitis B vaccine at 0, 1 and 6 months."

Then theres another bit that says the whole course plus a subsequent blood test takes 8 months to complete, but it would seem from the letter you don't need to start the vaccination program until just over a month before admission if you only need to have had the two vaccines :] that said i would probably trust helenia's much wiser advice and call up :]

p.s thank you helenia! i guess that was a little more of the omg-what if-i-don't-actually-get-in-after-all-of-this panic shining through again, sorry to be such a pest!

xxxx
Thank you, you are awesome :-)

You make things make sense... that was truly shocking English but ah wells, I'm a (prospective) medic so it's allowed :P

Mhairi, I think we should panic together- it seems we panic enough so we should just be done with it and become panic buddies!

P.S. I echo Mhairi's comment- sorry to be a pest Helenia, you must have much more important things to be doing than reassuring silly billies like me when we're freaking out! xxxxx
Reply 78
Danielle2137
Thank you, you are awesome :-)

You make things make sense... that was truly shocking English but ah wells, I'm a (prospective) medic so it's allowed :P

Mhairi, I think we should panic together- it seems we panic enough so we should just be done with it and become panic buddies!

P.S. I echo Mhairi's comment- sorry to be a pest Helenia, you must have much more important things to be doing than reassuring silly billies like me when we're freaking out! xxxxx



haha danielle, lets! we are actually going to annoy everyone on tsr until august (nevermind how neurotic we could become if we actually get to cambridge) so it would be nice to panic together - consider yourself the official reciptent of my offer/cambridge related worries (lucky you, theres lots!) :]

P.S. i think bad english might be common to all sciency folk - an english teacher once described my style as apalling, but said he had to give me an A because i seemed to be able to remember a shocking amount of information about my texts :]
Reply 79
mhairi_10
P.S. i think bad english might be common to all sciency folk

Speak 4 yourself.

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