The Student Room Group

2nd year medical student Q&A!

Hi everyone! I'm about to start my 2nd year of medicine at the University of Birmingham and I'm here to answer any possible questions you might have about medicine, Birmingham, interviews and applications, social life, whatever! Post your questions here and I will answer them all on a blog post in the next few days :smile:

My blog is on WordPress and is called FutureDoctorErin :smile:
(edited 5 years ago)

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Original post by erinls2
Hi everyone! I'm about to start my 2nd year of medicine at the University of Birmingham and I'm here to answer any possible questions you might have about medicine, Birmingham, interviews and applications, social life, whatever! Post your questions here and I will answer them all on a blog post in the next few days :smile:

My blog is on WordPress and is called FutureDoctorErin :smile:

What GCSEs did you get?
How can I find medical work experience in sixth form?
Reply 2
Original post by NerdyNiamh
What GCSEs did you get?
How can I find medical work experience in sixth form?

Hi there :biggrin: GCSEs I can answer very quickly, I had 7A*'s and 3A's :smile: good question about work experience, I'll do a blog post on it and link it here! :smile:
Thank you so much! :biggrin:

Btw your GCSEs are amazing. I’m receiving my results in 3 weeks and I’m so nervous, especially with the new concept of the 9-1 system!
Reply 4
Original post by NerdyNiamh
Thank you so much! :biggrin:

Btw your GCSEs are amazing. I’m receiving my results in 3 weeks and I’m so nervous, especially with the new concept of the 9-1 system!

No worries, I've actually nearly finished it so will be posted here soon! :smile: Anything else you'd like me to write about?
And thanks haha, it's weird seeing the new 9-1 system now as I was so used to the A* A B etc system! Best of luck I'm sure you'll do fabulously and I can't wait to hear how they go :biggrin:
Reply 5
@NerdyNiamh here is the blog post I have written on work experience! I hope I've covered everything you wanted to know and hopefully will help with your applications for work exp and to med school :smile:

https://wordpress.com/post/futuredoctorerin.wordpress.com/166
I don’t have any questions but I wish you the very best!
Reply 7
Original post by AppleB
I don’t have any questions but I wish you the very best!


Aww thank you, it's really made me smile that you bothered to say that :biggrin: All the best to you too!! Are you applying for medicine?
Hi what A-levels did you take to do medicine?
What grades did you get at A level? And what was your UKCAT score?
Any tips for mmis? What do you do in mmis too? Good luck for your 2nd year!:smile:
I'll hopefully be starting at Birmingham this year! I was wondering if most students had cars and how they get to GP placements if they don't have one? And do students get the train from the uni station for free?
good luck for your second year! :h:
Do they accept international students?
If you don't mind me asking,why did you want to do medicine and are you interested in any speciality currently?
Reply 14
Original post by Halimoooo
Hi what A-levels did you take to do medicine?


Hi, I took biology, chemistry, maths and music, my offer was AAAB (4 A levels reduced offer from usually A*AA) and I had to get A's in bio and chem :smile:
Reply 15
Original post by leverarch
What grades did you get at A level? And what was your UKCAT score?


Hiya, I got A*ABB in Music, Biology, Chemistry and Maths respectively. Not the best and actually not what my offer specified - it was AAAB with A's in bio and chem but I guess maybe the A* made up for slipping a grade? To be honest I think it was more because I had a good UKCAT score and it was the first year of the new A levels so places were probably a bit more lenient. My UKCAT score was average 713 with a band 1 :smile:
Reply 16
Original post by liatanner
Any tips for mmis? What do you do in mmis too? Good luck for your 2nd year!:smile:



Hi :smile: that's a good question actually and something I think I'll write a blog post on as well, thanks for the idea :biggrin: So in case you don't know, an MMI is basically a set of interviews, arranged in a circuit where you might start at say station 1 and rotate around 10 mini interviews. Each one tends to last somewhere between 6 and 9 minutes. There could be a maths station, a station about motivation, work experience, hobbies, anything....

I'll hopefully write a few blog posts tonight but as it won't be up straight away probably here are my main tips:

1) Your first one will be scary and might feel like it hasn't gone well - this will literally be a combination of nerves and the fact you haven't done an MMI before - I felt my Bham interview went awfully and I was shocked when I got in!!

2) If you have a chance to do a practise circuit at school or somewhere then definitely try it. If you want to pay to go on a course then feel free - I didn't do one myself so I don't know whether it's worth it or not. I basically prepared by doing things like having long conversations with my dad in the car about medical issues and ethical stuff or reflecting on why I wanted to do medicine, things like that - just talking to people is really helpful!

3) When you go to your interview, try not to get dragged in too much by other people because some of them will be really competitive and it can throw you - remember you're there for *you* and so do things like leave more than enough time to get there, give yourself a nice breakfast, get an early night the night before and then when you're there just relax and focus on breathing and stuff.

4) When they ask you questions, you don't want to sound rehearsed (just don't rehearse, just have an idea of what you might say about certain things but don't script it). I would say before starting an answer sit there for 5 to 10 seconds, take a deep breath and have a quick think because there's nothing worse than fumbling around with umms and arrs and stuff like that - it'll also help with the nerves :smile:

5) If you don't understand what they've asked you, ASK! They will happily explain or go into further depth. Think of it as a normal conversation, convey what you want them to know but try and be as natural as possible and not forced. They would much rather you ask for clarification than you set off down completely the wrong path!

6) Do a bit of research before you go - they may well ask you about the university, the medical school. I can't say where due to confidentiality but I was asked about history of the city and medical school in one of my interviews and I was *so* glad I'd read up about it - it really helps if you're passionate about certain elements of each course/university. As well as this it's worth keeping up to date with current medical news as it's something you can talk about that shows you're really invested in medicine, plus once you become a doctor you'll always have to be keeping up to date anyway so why not start now!

7) overall, just be yourself! Try and keep yourself relaxed and if one station doesn't go so well then that is absolutely fine - the good thing about MMIs is that you can start each station afresh and if you do badly in one you can easily make it up in another

Hope these tips are useful :smile:
Reply 17
Original post by bonnie_x
I'll hopefully be starting at Birmingham this year! I was wondering if most students had cars and how they get to GP placements if they don't have one? And do students get the train from the uni station for free?
good luck for your second year! :h:


Oooooh a fellow Brummy! Can't wait to welcome you in september :biggrin:
So I think most people don't have cars, and I didn't take mine (also you'll have to pay for parking permits and stuff to keep it at uni). Most people I know either ubered or got the train to their placement - we ubered every time as it wasn't tooooo far and also you only go every other week so it's not really worth having a car up there I don't think. Unfortunately it's not free from uni station, but it's only Β£1.70 return to the city centre so it's pretty cheap really! :smile: When you start at Bham feel free to drop me messages and I can give you tips and resources and help for first year!
Reply 18
Original post by Naomi noelle
Do they accept international students?


Yes they do :smile:
Thank you :smile:)

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