Your Graduate Entry Medicine Questions Answered! | PostGradMedic

[Music] hi everyone welcome back to the channel this is going to be the first of hopefully a series of Q&A videos that we're gonna do here on the channel where I've put the opportunity for you guys to ask questions upon my Instagram recently you can go and find me there at post-grad medic before we begin the Q&A video though can I just say congratulations to everyone who submitted their yuccas applications for Medicine this time around super-stressful i had the very great privilege of being able to read and review a lot of your personal statements which I really enjoyed so thank you so much for letting me be a part of that and well done again for getting your applications off but I just thought this would be a good chance to address some of the really good questions that you guys send in quite a lot and it might help people in the future who have the same question the first major question that I had come in revolves around the best way to prepare for your med school interviews this is a bit tricky because I think there are a few different ways that people can go about preparing for their interviews and straightaway what I did which was think of an enormous list of every question that I might conceivably be asked and then I wrote out an answer that I would give in an interview and then basically learned all of them that's certainly one way you could do it it's just not very efficient it's what I felt worked for me but I think the more useful part of that process was thinking about the types of questions that I might be asked and then reflecting on the sorts of answers that I might give in a pressured situation but I think the process that I went through could be slimmed down slightly by making flashcards or something for example if you were asked to reflect on your work experience just have a few bullet points about each work experience placement you did say you know I spend time shadowing in psychiatry so what did I notice about psychiatry it's a hands off medical specialty they work with a team of other professionals such as clinical psychologists psychiatric nurses community mental health and support workers and the more sort of problems do you have in that particular setting in psychiatry patients either finishing the course of medications that they're given or engaging well with their psychiatric treatment is sometimes a problem so how do the staff that I spend time with deal with those sorts of problems just to try and think what makes your experience unique what did you learn what was good about each thing you did what was less good what did you learn about yourself if anything and how is it going to change your practice in the future certainly having people ask you questions that you're not expecting is a big thing there's a huge list of sample interview questions on my website I'll leave a link to those in the description and it's really just a case of practice practice practice thinking about all the different questions that you might be asked there are loads of good books out there as well all my materials are free there's a ton of stuff on post-grad Medicom it's a go and check out that list of questions you can obviously come to all these videos that I make four ways that you might tackle or think around certain subjects but they are intended as a guide so just a solid few weeks of thinking about what you've done and why it's important I think is enough to sail you through any med school interview okay so there's a couple that are very similar which is I have bad GCSEs non-science a-levels doing biomed at a bad uni do I have a chance and yeah you absolutely have a chance you know using Warwick as just an example and I reckon Warwick statistically is the easiest gradual entry medical program to get into in the UK because of its low you cat cutoff threshold which is the major tripping up step for most people literally all they stipulate you need is a decent you cat score and the two one in any degree subject it doesn't matter they don't care about your a-levels they don't care virtually anything about you as long as you've got the right work experience you've got a 2:1 and you're a relatively well rounded human being you'll do just fine at worry I do just want to focus on the the bad uni part of the question it's difficult for me to agree with the idea that there are bad unis there are certainly more prestigious you knees and less prestigious you knees much of a muchness the content that you're taught you're doing biomedics fir'd it's going to be the same if you do biome at Newcastle or Aston or anywhere and I genuinely don't think admissions boards particularly for medicine really care that much about where you went for your first degree it's much more about who you are as an individual that's definitely not the same for all subjects I know people tell me things like engineering law professional disciplines like that they do sometimes care a bit more about where you went to school that's not the case in medicine at least in my experience this next one's quite interesting is there a divide between undergraduate and GM graduate entry medicine students now there isn't socially speaking obviously it's a bit weird or difficult for me to say because at Warwick we have no undergraduate medical students it's a purely graduate entry course and Swansea is the other one in the UK where there are no undergrads at all from speaking to people I know who do graduate entry medicine at other universities where it runs alongside the undergraduate course I don't feel like there is a divide because all that happens is those people tend to do an accelerated first first and second year and then they're just dropped in with the third years who will be 20 getting on 21 if they'd gone at 18 and gone through the underground pathway so in terms of mixing I don't honestly think there is what I will say and I really don't want to get in trouble with anyone for this but this I think has been my experience I think there's a bit of an attitude difference between undergrads and grad entry medical students and there's a there's a bit of a difference sometimes in maturity obviously you would expect that grad entrants are a little bit older and the undergrads have come straight from school usually and they they don't know anything you know outside the the educational system they've been in that system their entire lives that's not to say that the undergrads are immature or or less academically capable than Grell entry medics that's not what I mean at all I just think because of the extra pathways that gem students have have to go through to get where they are they tend to have their head screwed on a little bit more tightly and knowledge retention tends to be a little bit better from what I've seen maybe that's just because of the accelerated nature of the courses but what you have to remember ultimately is that about five years into medical practice I think from what I understand of the evidence grad entry medics tend to outperform undergraduate entry medics in most metrics for the first sort of five years of medical practice something like that I'm sure I've read that somewhere after which the difference tails off so short-term I'm sure you do see a difference long-term it doesn't make any difference that's just been my experience so there's a couple here which are very similar so tips for those with a non science background bracket psychology or how to prepare for Grad entry medicine if the last time you studied was a GCSE level again this is difficult for me to answer because obviously I did my science a-levels at a biology chemistry and physics and then I did my own science II undergrad degree began a PhD and then came to study medicine so I'm I'm very much from that more scientific perspective which has its problems as with everything in terms of how to prepare for grad and true medicine I think there are two schools of thought on this the first is what it feels like you should probably be doing is doing the pre reading maybe even just getting an A level biology revision guide or human biology and just looking at the basics of how the human body works and some of the relevant cell metabolism stuff I know it sometimes feels like there's a lot of pressure to do this sort of pre reading in preparation before the course personally speaking like and on how without disturbing my microphone I would recommend against doing pre reading for medical programs at least I can say that if you're coming to Warwick because Warwick is a graduate entry tailored course they build all that into the course they accept people with non-science a-levels with on science degrees so they know that you've got all that to learn and it's built into the course it's very intense but it is taken care of and you will be taken care of and there are a million and one resources at Warwick for example we have non science seminars so these are evening seminars are on once a week in all the basic content that you'll need that you won't have studied before without a science degree but in order to enroll and to teach on these programs you have to come from that non science background so you're in a very safe place to learn so ultimately what I would say at least if you're coming here you're better off asking medical students from other schools if you're going elsewhere but enjoy your time off because you're not gonna get it again once you're actually into med school enjoy and take all the time off that you can while you have the opportunity and then when you get there just knuckle down and be prepared for it to be intense cuz it will be I don't feel like doing prep work will help them that much but the next one is about PBL how do you find PBL do you think it's the right style for you so a lot of more modern medical schools use CBL or PBL we use CBL at Warwick but it's a similar idea problem or case based learning what it is is groups of maybe eight to ten people and so students your peers put in a group with an instructor or a facilitator and you're presented with a medical case so it might be 47 year old woman comes in broken leg bleeding or someone has collapsed at work they've fallen off a ladder and now they can't walk properly and you at least the way we do at Warwick you get revealed more and more details as you talk through what's going on and you build up this clinical picture you basically use all your strengths that you have between you in the group as you're handed each new bit of information anything okay what's our prime concern what are our options are we going to do nothing are we going to manage them conservatively medically surgically what are our options what do we think the definitive diagnosis is it certainly doesn't work for everyone as with a lot of things that medical schools have brought in more recently the evidence base for CBL and PBL having looked at quite a lot of it myself I'm very interested in medic education I think it's evidence base is a lot weaker than a lot of admin boards would would like to admit but speaking personally I do really enjoy it I like that group environment where everyone is able to bring their own strengths to bear because all of you particularly in grad entry have very different backgrounds you'll know different things in more or less detail and they're a really good chance to consolidate your learning in in a very safe environment where you can teach each other and use the cases to support your revision am i grateful that we have a warrior can do I enjoy it yes is it for everyone no but you won't really know that until you've tried it so make it what you will the next one is about first-year so how did you balance first year studying in revision not that well her I did a lot in my first year or at least I tried to do a lot it was a real change for me because I like to be doing a million things at once and doing lots of things outside my core curriculum in my undergrad I spent as much time as humanly possible not doing my degree which I really enjoyed that didn't really work for year one of med school I think you just have to manage your time carefully make to-do list know exactly what it is you need to cover and make sure that you spread the workload trying not to leave weak spots so I enjoyed it not to me and found that I was that was pretty good at it but that meant that I couldn't afford to neglect my pharmacology or something that I might not be better at so just making sure that you're trying to cover as broad a spectrum as possible because medicine med school exams are a generalist jack-of-all-trades game those people are going to do well being super good at the anatomy of the eye or all the neural pathways that will only help you so much doctors need to know all of it and specialist stuff comes later so you have to become used to doing things that you don't really want to do with clinical skills it's just practice makes perfect so in Warwick you learn most of your clinical skills the examinations and stuff in first year which is different to a lot of other schools but just practice practice practice makes perfect we run clinical skills teaching seminar once a week I sit on the committee for that society and help set it up last year just practice on your friends practice on your housemates I used Anki so the spaced repetition app to consolidate all my knowledge in first year because it just reminds you as you're going to keep going back over your flashcards I made a video on how to properly use Anki and get it set up you might find that useful and just try and make your own life easier do a little bit often rather than cramming in you know all-nighters here and there just do an hour or two every night on top of your lectures keep up with your homework keep up with any extra work like we have the anatomy books at Warwick that we have to do once a week just unfortunately for that year your work has to come first you don't have much of a social life but get out when you can the idea is survive first year and then thrive in the laity is the next one is can you white bums I suppose I can I worked in a care home before coming to before going to uni in fact I volunteered there not doing it on the wards since I've been here if a nurse asked me to help clean a patient sure I would I've got no problem in theory with doing that do I do it for other people regularly no so the next few here are all about money how the maintenance loans work for GM are they less or the same as the first degree graduate entry medicine we're all lucky in the it's funded exactly the same way as your undergraduate degree for the most part I'll talk about that more in a minute but if you're doing the four year accelerated program then your tuition is handled exactly the same way as your undergrad 3 years would have been for all intents and purposes it's a fully funded course I didn't notice any significant drop in my maintenance loan allowance for the first year the the change then comes when you get into the clinical part of the course where you get in second third and fourth year where student finances involvement becomes absolutely minimal and then the NHS starts to take over your funding allowances in the form of the NHS bursaries which is applied for what in the same way there's nothing to worry about it is slightly less money that you get through that system than you would get through student finance but that's just the way it is I think we're very lucky in graduate entry medicine that the course is funded there are very few courses nationally that that do that personally speaking I didn't find the drop in in the equivalent of maintenance payments that's challenging because I was saving up all the way through my undergraduate degree because I looked ahead and I knew what was coming and asked students at the time how this all works I have been saving for a long time knowing that gradual entry medicine was coming I have had support from my parents sometimes I'm very very lucky and grateful to them to be able to say that you just make it work one way or another there was also a question about not related to GM directly but how would one fund the a100 course and what help is available this is not something I know a ton about what I think I can say is that help for a 100 grad med students is minimal as far as I'm aware Student Finance doesn't provide any support because they're they're kind of take on it is if you want to be funded to do your second degree apply for one of the more competitive four-year programs that's that the general line when I was applying to uni I knew I wouldn't be able to afford the you know forty fifty thousand pounds that it would take to fund a five or six year undergraduate program so I had to apply for all four-year programs and I got one that's the balance you're playing off against you would have to pay your tuition fees in full yourself basically I don't know how the NHS bursaries works for a 100 students I assume it might actually be the same but if there are any undergrad grad entry students watching this please please pitch in in the comments because I need your help with this one it's not something I'm super familiar with what I have heard of people doing is applying for uni hardship funds that seems to be one source that people get money from taking out private loans to cover the difference which is going to be a big undertaking you know you are talking 40 50 thousand pounds I know that the the way ultimately some people are able to do it is that their parents ended up remortgaging an existing property or something like that I don't really want to get into an argument about about money in people's parents paying for things if that's the situation you're in and your parents are willing to pay for your tuition and that's fine look go for it whatever becoming a medic is hard enough as it is I don't really like it when people get at one another about that type of thing everyone's in a completely different situation don't make judgments about people that you know nothing about if someone's parents are paying their tuition that's fine if they're working part-time to put themselves through that's also fine everyone has their own challenges you've just got to make it work for you there was also a question about working part-time during grad entry medicine I don't know how people feel about undergrad medicine the timetables probably a little less cramped grad entry medicine your first year you're not working part-time you're just not there isn't time to make it feasibly work unless you do it every weekend or something like that second year onwards at least for us when the timetable gets a bit more chill absolutely you know you have a long summer after first year which you don't get further on but we'll talk about that later so that's a chance to recoup some money by working a lot during the first summer particularly if you're something like an existing NHS bank worker perfect you'll probably be based near a hospital for med school anyway so just go on Bank rejoin as he would you can do you know work as much as is feasible for you you know a lot better in second year what your clinical commitments are going to be is it true that gem courses have two weeks of summer yeah um so we we had a two-week summer between year 2 and year 3 so we worked right the way through till the beginning of September with minimal time off then we have 2 weeks off then we got our results and then we started again immediately we do get pockets of leave and here in there so we get some time off a Christmas we get four weeks off across what would be next year for me 2020 so I get two weeks guaranteed leave in August and I can take a week I decide so before the summer and before Christmas I can take a week but when we're into that point it's a lot more proper clinical commitment that's just the way it is with grad entry medicine but you do get that long summer after first year you finish in June and you get your two or three months that you would with a normal degree so make the most of it there were a few here about how far are the placements for 4gm do you have any influence over where the Uni places you at Warwick med school what's the farthest away you have to travel this is really variable I don't think Warwick's too bad for this at least compared to some of the other schools I've heard about but ultimately it massively depends where you study grade entry medicine because it depends on the University at least at Warwick the furthest away that I've heard of has been about an hour so you might have GP placements in the middle of Birmingham for example where if you were going to drive it would maybe take you that far some people have been up as far as Worcester and for me personally my furthest one has been in Solihull and my GP placement which is a 45 well 40 45 minute drive away but then I was really lucky with my other placements which were literally 10 or 15 minutes away one was literally in the the next small part of Coventry over so it was like an 8 minute cycle or something ridiculous I could have walked so that was great it tends to be pretty random do you have influence over where you go I believe it's very minimal if you do because the argument has to be that everyone on the program has to be prepared to go as far as anyone else they try and mix it so that you have some clothes and some nearby we're quite lucky at Warwick in all of the three hospitals and you can actually look on Google Maps the three you might go to our University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire the big tertiary centre Warwick Hospital or George Elliot hospital just north I think Northam Nuneaton just outside underneat in any way outside Coventry all of them within a good 20 25 minutes for most people of where most people live when they're at Warwick med school which is either on campus or in Elston or lemming Tain's Spa of Coventry more widely none of them are super far away so that's really good this is quite a funny question do you will the same amount of pulling power as graduate entry medics being able to say that you're a medical student does come with a certain amount of pulling power enjoy it don't abuse it probably not good for society that it's true but on paper it seems to be so there you go and then the last one which I wasn't really expecting but I think it's a really good question let me just find it how can I set myself apart from other graduations now this is the way I look at this problem if I'm going to apply for a job or I'm going to apply to a university program I always assume that I am NOT the most qualified person on the list that's a good place to start and I think with graduate entry medicine in particular you are not going to be the most competitive person on that list it's just not going to happen there are people with PhDs master's degrees years and years of clinical experience you know I was straight out of my undergrad and if you're similar to that as if you're straight out a uni or you're not long out a uni you simply are not going to be able to compete with a lot of the very cool and exciting things that a lot of other people will have done because they're all of the new they've had more time to work on things so what I focused on was coming across as a kind of honest and genuinely interested and passionate person and it's just about working out what your strengths are and playing to them just maintaining your own integrity being honest in the answers you give and reflecting really well on the things you've done showing good insight I think is the real key to medical school applications and that's why you get such a broad spectrum of people that get in med schools aren't just full of really smart really super clinically qualified people because I'm none of those things and I go in on my first go you know with all the look in the world I think the best thing you can do is think really carefully about the things you've done be really clear on why it is that you want to be a doctor and just be nice friendly open and honest what they're looking for is someone that they can train to be a doctor you don't have to be a doctor already you don't have to have any knowledge about medicine you you just have to be willing to learn honest a decent communicator and particularly if you have a patient sim or something just just be nice courteous don't try and second-guess in the interview what they're asking you or try and work out what the examiner is thinking just answer the question that you're asked I don't think it's a case of setting yourself apart although a good entry exam score will always do that for you so do well on the UK at the Bema or the gam sir I suppose on paper but when it comes to the interview just be be honest be kind and so what they ask you properly do your best and hope that your your character comes through that's really what I would say I know it's not massively helpful necessarily but I do genuinely believe it's true so I hope some of that's been helpful guys thank you so much for submitting your questions I've really enjoyed having a think about them if you've got more questions please leave them in the comments down below I'll make multiple of these as long as we keep having questions come in I'm sure there'll always be things to talk about let me know what you thought of my answers please let me know if you found this helpful I don't know if I don't get that feedback from you if you'd like to see more of these equally I'd love to hear that from you as well please be sure to hit that like button for me leave a comment subscribe I'm on social media I post a lot more on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter more stuff that you won't see here on the channel so I'd really appreciate it if you went and followed me there and you can check out my website post-grad Medicom for all my interview resources and videos which I'm sure you'll find very helpful coming soon take care bye bye

Channel: Ollie Burton

Views: 7,061

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: ollie, burton, ollie burton, warwick medical school, leamington spa, postgradmedic, medicine, medical school, med school, vlog, blog, ollieplays, ollieguitar, graduate entry medicine, university, education, diary, graduate medicine, grad medicine, grad entry medicine, study, revision, neuroscience, anatomy, physiology

Id: Eo3tITgHRHQ

Length: 26min 22sec (1582 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 15 2019