Graduate Entry Medicine 2017

Did you have supervision on any of your shifts or were you left alone completely? I'm going to be on a med ward but I don't know if it's going to be acute. I hope it isn't because they are almost always packed.

How many patients did you typically take care of in one day?

I'm Band 2. How do you go for Band 3? What is the difference between the roles of a Band 2 and 3? Does 3 just do more work?

Did you have supervision on any of your shifts or were you left alone completely? I'm going to be on a med ward but I don't know if it's going to be acute. I hope it isn't because they are almost always packed.

How many patients did you typically take care of in one day?

I'm Band 2. How do you go for Band 3? What is the difference between the roles of a Band 2 and 3? Does 3 just do more work?

Hey guys, Just wondering has anyone started their UCAS applications? and are you applying "independently as an individual" or is your university giving you a buzzword ?

The first week I made sure I had supervision, because I had never done any healthcare work before. But after that I pretty much got left alone unless the tasks required more than one person.

On SAU we had two teams, 1 Staff Nurse and 2-3 HCA's looking after 18 or 16 patients per team. However on my new ward (since SAU got closed and moved) it's been a lot better, usually we have 3 teams of 1 Staff Nurse (or AP) and 1-2 HCA's looking after 8/9 patients per team.

I started off as a Band 2, then once a Band 3 position became available the Ward Manager asked me to put myself forward. Basically Band 3's do everything that Band 2's do, alongside recording observations (blood pressure, sats, HR, resp rate, temp, etc.) along with recording blood sugar levels in patients who have diabetes or certain medical conditions. Depending on where you work Band 3's can go forward for additional training such as venipuncture, dressings, etc. At least this is how it works where I am based.

Medical wards can be generally horrible, but if you haven't had any previous care experience then make sure you shadow someone for at least the first few weeks. Acute wards have better patient:nurse ratio's than general medical wards. My placement trust would have say 1:4 Rn's or 1:8 HCA's in HASU, or 1:8 RN/HCA's in elderly care. It really depends on how well staffed your hospital is though, you can usually tell how well staffed a hospital is by it's reputation. In my trust there isn't a great difference between band 2's and 3's, except that band 3's earn more money. Mostly band 4's get pushed to do venepuncture and cannulations where I'm at, but again that depends on how much funding there is available to the ward.

It's worth joining bank after 6 months, then you can work in different wards and go part time if you wanted.

I thought King's only considered for the 5 year program if we made it to the interview. Otherwise, they won't. I was just trying to maximize my chances at King's.

I haven't looked at anything outside of London because I have absolutely no clue what would be a good idea considering my qualifications.

Regarding the fees, I'm paying the same as home students because I am an European Union citizen. 😉

Thank you so much for replying to my message!!

Is anyone feeling a bit jealous about friends and stuff getting good and stable jobs, getting married, going travelling and generally doing normal adult things? And we're just sitting here trying to hoard as many degrees as we can.

Not normally one for the cheesy /r/GetMotivated images but this is one that I like to remind myself with regularly.

Being in London is not the be all and end all of medicine by any means, and their requirements won't be much different from other places as it sounds like you have good qualifications. Bear in mind the increased cost of living in London as well! Also, are you aware of how expensive the 5 year courses are? Don't apply unless you can afford it...I'm at Southampton and loving it, and here are gem courses at lots of big cities as well as smaller towns and all over the U.K., depending on what you're looking for! Feel free to ask questions about Southampton. I also interviewed at Newcastle, Kings, and had an interview at Warwick that I didn't attend, so can answer more general stuff about those places too


Posted from TSR Mobile

To be quite honest with you I have always had only one plan in mind, and it was to apply to King's. Everything else take to me as I started browsing this forum (and other related ones in the student room!). It's been quite the process I tell you...

Regarding my preference to London unis: it all has to do with it being the only city in the UK that I actually know... Nothing else.
However, I understand what you told me and I think my opinion has shifted a bit.

My plan is to apply to King's for sure (both programs I suppose..), which leaves me two options empty. I had bumped into Warwick a while ago and totally disregard it as a valid option. However, today I looked into it and I found it to be plausible choice.

I have two questions for you: why did you decide to attend Southampton? And why had you selected Warwick to be one of your options?

Thank you so much for your help!

Peep

Hi guys,

I am thinking of applying for medicine and wanted to get a realistic opinion of if I would be considered into GEM near birmingham.

My academic qualifications are as follows:

GCSE: 1A* (CHEMISTRY) 3 As (MATHS, CITIZENSHIP, BIOLOGY) 4 Bs (ENGLISH LIT, ENGLISH LANG, LAW, STATISTICS) 1C (FRENCH). I completed DiDA (which is equivalent of 4 GCSE's. I also completed asset languages in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi.

AS levels: Psychology- B
A2 levels: Biology A, Maths B, Chemistry B, General studies B.
MPharm (Master in Pharmacy): 1st class honors, at my graduation I also received the pharmaceutical press prize award

Extra Circular activities:
Events coordinator of a university society (2nd year of university)
PR of a uni society (3rd year of university)
President of a uni society (4th(final) year)
Student ambassador (3rd and 4th year of uni)
Peer mentor (3rd,4th year)
Resident support assistant (4th year of uni) My hard work and dedication was noted and I received a student engagement award.
I also passed a motion at the students union.

Work experience
Retail (2010-2013)
Community pharmacy (2013-2014)
Pre-registration year at a large teaching hospital in the midlands (2015-2016). When I pass my exam in June I will be a registered pharmacist)

I have also completed a mental health first aid training and basic life support training.

I have passed a piloted version prescribing safety assessment test with a score of 83%, this test is required by some deaneries for junior doctors.

I have also had placements in boots, and an internship with a pharmaceutical company.

I am also a dyslexic student and wanted to get a realistic idea of getting into GEM at Birmingham or surrounding areas. I am from birmingham and would want to have a commutable distance to my university.

Southampton has a number of advantages in my opinion:
1. The graduate course has 40 people per year, which is a nice amount. A little more than some courses (eg kings which is 28) but less than Warwick (which is 140 or so I think) so I like that.

2. The pre-clinical aspect of the course is covered in 18months, which is different from somewhere like kings or Newcastle where you have to do 2 years of usual pre-clinical in just one (very long) year! This makes Southampton first year a lot more relaxed than some other places.

3. We get loads of clinical contact rift from the start. An afternoon at a GP (in groups of 4) every other week plus an afternoon per week at Winchester hospital where we practise clinical exams/clinical skills and get to go on the wards and take histories from patients/get bedside teaching from doctors. I love this aspect of the course!

4. The course is partly pbl and partly traditional. We have graduate groups on Mondays (8 students plus a facilitator in each group) where we get trigger material for the week and a list of learning outcomes to be covered. We divide them up and then on Fridays we present them back to our groups, usually in a fun or creative way. It's so much fun! And then we also have anatomy teaching and lectures in the week, so most outcomes are covered by lectures as well, making sure you don't miss anything out. I think it works really well personally.


I put Warwick down simply because i have an arts degree and hence could only apply to 4 universities in total without doing the GAMSAT! It was on the bottom of my list though, simply because of the size of the course and the location, which I personally don't like (too far from the sea)!

Just FYI, if you get a high UKCAT score you will almost certainly get an interview for the graduate course at Kings, so there's not much point in applying for both...also the cost of the undergrad course is crazy crazy high and worth taking into account!


Posted from TSR Mobile

Hey Guys,

Just signed up for the UKCAT exam. Just wanted to ask what you guys are using or if any of you have experienced success with a certain revision guide (e.g KAPLAN or MEDIFY)?

I'm looking to purchase the online course for KAPLAN, essentially the two day KAPLAN course in tutorial videos and lots of UKCAT questions and mocks, available for 2 months.

Please enlighten me!

Just booked my travel and hotel to come down to the Warwick open day on 6th July, anyone else here going?

Just booked my travel and hotel to come down to the Warwick open day on 6th July, anyone else here going?