People who undertook graduate medicine without a science background

I have recently applied for graduate medicine, have received an offer from Newcastle and am still waiting a reply from Southampton. I have no science background since GCSE, I took no science A-Levels and did my first degree in Economics. I feel comfortable with Maths but worry I will be far behind those who did Biomed or even just those who did science A-Levels. For anyone who was previously in my situation, do you know of any subjects you think I should do a bit of research on before I go? Like I said, I don't want to be behind before I've even started. Thanks!

I'm a current GEM student at Newcastle. I had no science A-levels either, and as I was 35 when I started the course, my GCSE knowledge had rusted away to virtually nothing. The key points:

With this in mind, I wouldn't recommend doing much preparatory study before you start. If I'd tried to do that, I think it would have backfired on me - I would have worried about what I was getting myself into. When you start, you'll have a teaching block called Foundation, which incorporates the fundamentals of neuroscience, cell biology, genetics, and pharmacology. This will give you a fairly solid base, and you revisit the topics in greater detail as the year progresses, so don't feel as if you have to know everything perfectly by the time Foundation finishes. All I would recommend is familarising yourself with core scientific vocabulary from those four areas if you're very rusty on terminology. (I kept having to look up what various things meant in my first couple of months.) Khan Academy has some nice simple videos and concept pages that are good for that.

Congrats on your offer, and I hope you end up at your first choice, whichever it is. 🙂

hi im thinking of applying to Newcastle could you explain the procedure and grades you've got im barely just getting a 2:1 and im unsure if I should apply could you plz tell what requirements and how you scored the place plz

I have recently applied for graduate medicine, have received an offer from Newcastle and am still waiting a reply from Southampton. I have no science background since GCSE, I took no science A-Levels and did my first degree in Economics. I feel comfortable with Maths but worry I will be far behind those who did Biomed or even just those who did science A-Levels. For anyone who was previously in my situation, do you know of any subjects you think I should do a bit of research on before I go? Like I said, I don't want to be behind before I've even started. Thanks!

Hi Jacobadd, congratulations in getting into Newcastle for medicine especially for graduate entry, I am in a similar position, as I did no science at all and for my undergraduate I'm doing law, if you don't mind can you please run through quickly how you got through for graduate entry medicine, as in your UCAT score, what type of work experience you obtained and talked about in your personal statement and how you tackled the interview stage, also good luck to your 1st and 2nd year of Med school 👍

hi im applying this year what type experiance have you got so far struggling ?

I’ve been struggling a lot and have been trying to find work experience along the way but keep getting rejected

Do the virtual work experience you can sign up to through the University of Brighton.
Work or do experience in schools, play groups, charities, social services, anything. Not everyone can get direct healthcare work experience and they know that. Do something different and so make yourself standout.
Speak to family and friends and find out if there is anyone who has a chronic health condition and if they are prepared to talk to you about it.
Explain that you will need to ask the following questions maybe and give them option of declining. A portion of people are more than glad to explain they had rheumatoid arthritis and will be expert patients and can tell you all about it and how they manage it. That is the kind of person you are best off talking to as you will learn loads.
Ask when they were diagnosed.
Ask about what symptoms they had (if any)
Ask about what impact it has on their routine due to appointments or check ups etc
Ask about how the condition is managed
Ask about what medicines they take, note down details and any side effects- a lot of people take a lot of different pills and seem to not suffer anything
Ask about the impact their condition has had on their life, if there anything they can't do or which has changed, has it affected them emotionally/psychologically: even conditions such as acne can have a hidden impact way beyond what meets the eye.
Thank them for their time and explaining things to you.
The above is plenty sensitive enough but by keeping the questions generic you will spare embarrassment or shame. Be extremely careful how you ask questions like these.
Reflect on any and all encounters with people, whatever you do. Consider the situation and try to put yourself in their shoes. Think about feelings and thoughts and what their life might look like. A lot of medical schools have a lot of focus on empathy and dignity as these are important aspects of healthcare. The above kind of discussions are the kind of thing you can expect to practice and spend time on in your first year of medical school. Avoid overall medical complexity as you won't necessarily be able to understand it all, but by all means look deeply into any condition. Lots of people have psoriasis, learn a lot about that, it's various forms, it's effects, it's complications. Established vs emerging treatments. Consider the short and long term impacts.