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Cambridge GEM A101 medical students - applicant advice needed!

Hey guys,

I'm interested in applying to Cambridges GEM programme for 2019 entry, and just wanted to get some advice from current GEM students.

How are you finding the course? Anything you particularly like about the teaching at Cambridge? Any negatives or aspects that can be improved?

From what I know, Cambridge usually look for very academic students, and I imagine their graduate medical course to be very focussed on underpinning scientific principles through their traditional teaching methods. Do you feel that information taught is appropriately cross-linked for relevance to clinical practice during pre-clinical years? I've always been keen on integrated medical teaching, and just wanted to ascertain if Cambridge offers elements of this, or if it's purely 'learn underlying theory to it's entirety then apply in year 3' as opposed to 'learn theory that is of clinical relevance and apply as you go along'. Hope I'm making sense lol!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
Cambridge graduate course is basically same as the standard cause, except first clinical year is squeezed into the holidays of the first two pre-clinical years (and it also skips the intercalation year, as everyone on the grad course already has a degree, so that would be unnecessary for them).
So it works like this: you study pre-clinical years 1 and 2 together with the regular undergraduates, and when they go on vacations in these years you go to the hospital for your clinical placements. You also take exams for Years 1 and 2 with the regular undergrads, and then one month after Year 2 preclinical exams you take Clinical Year 1 exams. This is the massive crunch point, and grad students do stress and struggle a bit in the summer after Year 2.
But then, once that is out of the way, you join the standard course students for the last two years of the clinical course and stop trying to constantly catch up and can enjoy your life a bit more.
So, long story short, even though I do love the course and I believe it produces really good doctors, I would not say that the clinical work is very well integrated with the pre-clinical work in the first two years of the course. There is a degree of overlap but it's not because somebody sat down and planned a well integrated curriculum. Grad course students kind of have to make it work as best as they can, working both hard and smart in the first two years.

But of course there are lots of positives. The students are very bright and hard-working, and usually help each other quite a bit, so you feel part of an amazing community. I feel like the professors and the admin team who look after the grad course actually care a great deal about our wellbeing and try to take feedback onboard as much as possible (although they are heavily regulated by the Clinical School and pre-clinical course regulations, so they cannot majorly overhaul things). Our main teaching hospital for the first two years (West Suffolk Hospital) is great, with amazing healthcare teams who are very keen on teaching. Also I do like the teaching style in the two pre-clinical years, with small-group supervisions, lots of labs etc. It is very scientific, we go in lots of basic science details in almost every subject, but for me personally it's a huge draw. Cambridge itself is lots of fun, with a huge range of societies you can join and activities you can attend.
Original post by mindlesss
Cambridge graduate course is basically same as the standard cause, except first clinical year is squeezed into the holidays of the first two pre-clinical years (and it also skips the intercalation year, as everyone on the grad course already has a degree, so that would be unnecessary for them).
So it works like this: you study pre-clinical years 1 and 2 together with the regular undergraduates, and when they go on vacations in these years you go to the hospital for your clinical placements. You also take exams for Years 1 and 2 with the regular undergrads, and then one month after Year 2 preclinical exams you take Clinical Year 1 exams. This is the massive crunch point, and grad students do stress and struggle a bit in the summer after Year 2.
But then, once that is out of the way, you join the standard course students for the last two years of the clinical course and stop trying to constantly catch up and can enjoy your life a bit more.
So, long story short, even though I do love the course and I believe it produces really good doctors, I would not say that the clinical work is very well integrated with the pre-clinical work in the first two years of the course. There is a degree of overlap but it's not because somebody sat down and planned a well integrated curriculum. Grad course students kind of have to make it work as best as they can, working both hard and smart in the first two years.

But of course there are lots of positives. The students are very bright and hard-working, and usually help each other quite a bit, so you feel part of an amazing community. I feel like the professors and the admin team who look after the grad course actually care a great deal about our wellbeing and try to take feedback onboard as much as possible (although they are heavily regulated by the Clinical School and pre-clinical course regulations, so they cannot majorly overhaul things). Our main teaching hospital for the first two years (West Suffolk Hospital) is great, with amazing healthcare teams who are very keen on teaching. Also I do like the teaching style in the two pre-clinical years, with small-group supervisions, lots of labs etc. It is very scientific, we go in lots of basic science details in almost every subject, but for me personally it's a huge draw. Cambridge itself is lots of fun, with a huge range of societies you can join and activities you can attend.

I know this post is from ages ago and a lot has probably changed, but do you have any insight for the interview? What kind of prep would you suggest? Particularly the science based questions what could you expect? Anything would definitely help!!
Reply 3
It's been years since I sat the interviews (so could have completely changed) but back then it was fairly basic stuff at the standard of A-level Chem/Bio with a little bit of Math (not calculus, more like calculating medicine-related things). Otherwise the standard wider questions like motivation / understanding of a career of a doctor / ethics etc.
Original post by mindlesss
It's been years since I sat the interviews (so could have completely changed) but back then it was fairly basic stuff at the standard of A-level Chem/Bio with a little bit of Math (not calculus, more like calculating medicine-related things). Otherwise the standard wider questions like motivation / understanding of a career of a doctor / ethics etc.

Fantastic thank you! Were the Chemistry questions pure chemistry or related to the human body? I just wanted an idea of the kind of questions that could pop up for Bio and Chem (balance this equation type situation??) .There’s not of mock examples out there so anything would help for both.

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