People who undertook graduate medicine without a science background

1.

Biomed grads don't have any advantage. You won't be behind other people.

2.

You probably won't believe the above. In my first semester, whenever I heard life sciences grads talking about how intense and overwhelming they were finding the course, I thought they were either exaggerating or studying the material in much greater depth than I was capable of learning it. I was wrong. The undergrad biomed curriculum doesn't have that much overlap with medicine and most things really were as new to them as they were to me. In our first exam, the student who got the top mark (in the high 80s) was an arts graduate who didn't even do science GCSEs, and they weren't an anomaly - one of my interviewers even told me that the reason why Newcastle doesn't have subject-specific A-level requirements for the standard five-year programme is because it seemed silly to go on asking those applicants for sciences when GEM students with pure humanities backgrounds were doing fine. The course staff have often commented that in their experience people from non-science backgrounds will have closed any knowledge gap that did exist by Christmas.

3.

You'll still struggle to believe point #1 even now you have this info. The course is fast-paced and the sheer volume of the content can make you feel as if you're drowning. There'll be days when you panic and decide that while the other humanities grads might be doing fine, you're the dud they let in by mistake. When that happens, remind yourself that everyone in the room will be more than familiar with the thought.

4.

Your background will be useful in its own right. When I was struggling through the immunology case I was very envious of the student who had done an immunology-related MSc dissertation. It all looked so easy for them. But then there were topics where I suddenly found myself more confident and knowledgeable than my classmates, and that was often because of prior experience that I would never have assumed would be connected at all. You'll be surprised at how many relevant skills you've picked up.