The Student Room Group

Question for medical students

Hi I was just wondering how much free time you have as a medical student? And in particular, how many clubs/ sports do you/ could you do? See I've been thinking that if i get in, I want to join this society and that society and whatever, but is that just naive? I mean whats it like do you have a lot of time for sports/ dance/ music and stuff?
Thanks a lot x
Plenty of time for a life. Be motivated and you can get everything you want to do done.
And there are plenty of medic societies/teams that are designed to be fitted in around your timetable.
There should be plenty of time; as ever it depends on your motivation & organisational skills - as I imagine is the case with any other beast of a degree, to be fair. Fission_Mailed raises an important point: medic clubs are suitably accommodating anyway. I'll go out on a limb and say that many medic sports teams are more chilled as a consequence (though evidently med school size also comes into this), though that's not always the case - e.g. men's rugby at Imperial, where the medic 1st XV are in the premier league (College 1st XV are in the league below).

That said, you may well find that one club in particular dominates your extra-curricular life, and social life too (r.e. sport especially).

Personally I play one sport mainly, another sport in the summer, and a non-sport soc takes up the rest of my time.

:holmes:
I think laid back is probably the right term. They allow you to prioritise medicine over the sport. Uni rugby can get a bit funny about you missing practice to go on a GP placement.
As a result, you can get some very good players; a guy in my year played a game for the Northampton Saints before being forced to retire due to a shoulder injury.
(edited 13 years ago)
What a boss :fatcontroller:

Shame about the knee - I'm quite looking forward to limb anatomy next term, when I can finally appreciate why knees suck so much balls)

Granted, the course attracts some particularly driven individuals, but I'm still impressed at just how much medic clubs & socs punch above their weight
Reply 6
cool thanks a lot :smile: this is quite encouraging
Reply 7
Original post by James93
Hi I was just wondering how much free time you have as a medical student? And in particular, how many clubs/ sports do you/ could you do? See I've been thinking that if i get in, I want to join this society and that society and whatever, but is that just naive? I mean whats it like do you have a lot of time for sports/ dance/ music and stuff?
Thanks a lot x


Plenty of time as a preclinical student. You can do as much as you physically can! Gets a bit difficult during clinical years but shouldn't stop you. :smile: You would go bonkers (trust me) if your life is just medicine!

My current schedule (as I'm on 9-3/4/5 lectures) is:-

Mon: Diving
Tues: Off
Wed: AED training
Thurs: Sailing Social
Fri: Off
Sat: Another social

which is pretty cool! :smile:
Original post by digitalis
Plenty of time as a preclinical student. You can do as much as you physically can! Gets a bit difficult during clinical years but shouldn't stop you. :smile: You would go bonkers (trust me) if your life is just medicine!

My current schedule (as I'm on 9-3/4/5 lectures) is:-

Mon: Diving
Tues: Off
Wed: AED training
Thurs: Sailing Social
Fri: Off
Sat: Another social

which is pretty cool! :smile:


Is that ULU diving or Queen Mary? Really want to do that when I start!
Reply 9
I find I've got involved in more things since I started medical school, than when I was in school. I'm in final year on placement with final exams in about 5 weeks.
Average weekly evenings pan out something like this for me:

Mon: Uni football training 6-8
Tues: Club netball training 6-8
Wed: Uni football training 2-4 (if we get afternoon off placement... otherwise I head to the gym!)
Thurs: Part-time job 6-10
Fri: Club netball match 7-9
Sat: Part-time job 4hr
Sun: Club football training 7-8.30

Is it tough? Not really. Does it put me under pressure? No. It does however mean I plan my days much better, because I have to!! And I waste less time - and just get stuck into doing what I need to do!
Original post by winter_mute
Is that ULU diving or Queen Mary? Really want to do that when I start!


ULU!
Reply 11
Original post by digitalis
Mon: Diving
Tues: Off
Wed: AED training
Thurs: Sailing Social
Fri: Off
Sat: Another social

which is pretty cool! :smile:

Mon: Nights
Tues: Nights
Weds: Sleep
Thurs: Lash
Fri: Lates
Sat: Lates
Sun: Lates
Original post by Renal
Mon: Nights
Tues: Nights
Weds: Sleep
Thurs: Lash
Fri: Lates
Sat: Lates
Sun: Lates


Nice...so basically no sleep :wink:

I feel so useless, I just cant manage to go on the lash and still turn up for firms in the morning. I don't know what's happened! Not helped by the fact my sleep cycle is totally ****ed. I wake every two hours in the night religiously!
Original post by James93
Hi I was just wondering how much free time you have as a medical student? And in particular, how many clubs/ sports do you/ could you do? See I've been thinking that if i get in, I want to join this society and that society and whatever, but is that just naive? I mean whats it like do you have a lot of time for sports/ dance/ music and stuff?
Thanks a lot x


Loads of free time this year as opposed to last year which I'm not complainig about. Its technically private study time, but people only actually revise when its close to exams - other than that, no timetabled lectures means 'sod off and do whatever'.

But yeah, I find the more I pick up and the busier I am, the more effective and efficient I am when I actually have to revise - I just get on with it when I need to and there's less faffling about, if you see what I mean.

I've picked up an insane amount of ECs/Socs this year, and it could potentially come and bite me in the backside come end of year exams, but for now I'm happy with stuff. Keeps me busy. That said, you'll prob find it a little hard to be a very active member or a committee member (as opposed to being just a standard member) of more than 3 socs IMO. I mean you've probably written about your 'excellent time management skills' or how you managed to be captain of 7 sports teams, while still finding the time to help build 4 schools in Africa and even still managed to learn to play all wind, brass and percussion instruments ever invented to grade 8 in your personal statement, but you do also need some time to chill, even as a preclin med student. You don't want to burn out before the real hard work begins...
It really depends on the course you pick. We don't have much contact time so most of our work has to be done in the masses of free time we get, and again that depends on your organisational skills and motivation. I have a part time job, I row with the local city club at the weekends, I go to extra lectures organised by the medical societies here most Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. I go into schools with the Widening Access to Medical School team to lead classes telling people they can be Dr's too, and I go into schools and teach sex ed with Sexpression. I have between 15 and 17 hours of contact time a week depending on whether it's week 1 or 2 in the timetable. I couldn't row with the uni because they wanted three water sessions and 3 land based training sessions a week and I couldn't give them that much time, but I'm having just as much fun with the local team (and it's easier to win races because the competition is tough, but not as fierce) and it's a lot cheaper and more relaxed. If you really want to do it, you can find time to fit it all in, especially in your first couple of years.
I currently don't do much extra-curricular stuff, but I have plenty of time to do it. I have enough time to do all my work to a reasonable standard and get in a couple of hours of socialising every evening and some lazing around time too. It wouldn't be hard to switch that to music/sport/internet-dating-society/whatever other crazy thing someone tries to get me to sign up to at the freshers fair.
I have time to do a lot more than I actually do. At the moment, I volunteer with one charity for a couple of hours a week; next term I'm going to start training in basketball again and try for the charity's committee. That's about it. :redface: I feel bad compared to all you busy people.
Reply 17
i wouldnt bother with the uni societies posts, go for the real boards, man.

pretty much all uni posts are stock and trade which anyone does and furthermore anyone can do - you want to go for something that will stand out.

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