Medicine 2021

[Millylovespuddles]

Hi all
It looks like there’s no medicine 2021 entry thread yet, so it might be an idea to get the ball rolling.
My DD is getting stuck into her A level course, doing well so far, but I’m guessing we parents could do with some mutual support and advice from parents who’ve been here before.

*intercalate! Sorry- autocorrect now thinks it knows all these new words better than me

@Needmoresleep Yes all Notts get the same degree, but the dissertation bit is in an area of their interest. Can be in anything and the 16 weeks is spent under a consultant doing a research project. A first gets the same points as 2:1 in a full intercalation degree, so it's acknowledged its less. But DD didn't want to do any extra year so suits her.

@Pumpkintopf so far it's going ok. It's Varsity this weekend (Leicester Med vs Notts med) so not much work happening I imagine ! They know it's coming so first half of this term was very full on, but now it seems to be back to normal. They manage it well and I have been impressed with how much wellbeing care they have been given (puppies were in yesterday for a cuddle)

@abitoflight ah thank you. I thought I might have known you at Uni as I worked out I left 35 years ago 😂😊.

I just started 35 years ago
Its horrifying! I can retire in 18 months but I'm a bit worried I'd get bored.
And my patients are lovely....😊

But surely having to take biomed, limits the scope to head towards research, or something specific like trauma medicine or sports medicine, or to take a step outside medicine to spend a year in a related field.

For DD intercalation offered the opportunity to get to the same place as those doing the six year degree, albeit via a different route. If DC are looking for something a bit more stretch, it is a good option.

@Needmoresleep it's a choice I suppose. My DD has no interest in research but does like trauma medicine. Notts have a first responder team, staffed by medical students, which is amazing experience. They man the first response car and can be the first to turn up to heart attacks, stabbings (☹️), suicidal people and over doses.

She never wanted the extra year and wouldn't have intercalated, partially due to cost. But I can see for some it would be really important. Notts encourage the students to write papers about their dissertations and try and get them published - more F1 points I believe.
I'm sure other Unis do very similar things.

@abitoflight wish I was close to retiring !! I can imagine it's the patients who make the job so worthwhile. It's not the same, but I love teaching (I am a late retrainer) because of the kids.

I think we discovered on another thread that Nottingham seem to have much shorter terms than elsewhere, which possibly allows time to do the extra.

I don’t know why but Bristol has really long terms - 16 weeks in the autumn and going through the summer. So little time to do a degree alongside. That said many, especially those wanting to be GPS, have little interest in a sixth year, so it’s nice to have the choice.

Last term was 15 weeks and this term is 16 - is that short ? Next term is mainly exams so they finish about mid June. Do others do longer ?

Needmoresleep that is such a useful link! Thank you.

Needmoresleep that is such a useful link! Thank you.

Sorry didn't mean to post that twice!

I can't see a link?

@abitoflight this one

www.intercalate.co.uk

Thanks@Needmoresleep

Thank you

Some, like Birmingham, only allow you to intercalate within the med school.

Birmingham medicine students can intercalate elsewhere. They just have to go through a different process to those intercalating at Birmingham.

Surely the point of intercalation is to gear up towards a specialisation and gain greater in depth knowledge to give them a head start in their chosen area

Not necessarily. I've known medical students to intercalate in history of medicine, journalism, philosophy... Many will study law & ethics (very relevant to medicine but not a specialism). Many will study education to give them an extra aspect to their medical career alongside clinical practice. Of the many I've known who intercalated in global health, very few intended to specialise in this area: it was just an interest they had an opportunity to explore.

@sendsummer
I commented mean number of Astars at GCSE was 10.8. So that was an average, suggesting somewhere around half got more and half got less, that is how averages work.
And you responded That is true for a median value, not the mean

I need some help here. My (probably outdated) stats say that the offer curve is a positively skewed normal distribution curve. This surely means the median lies somewhere between the mean (10.8) and the mode (10). Therefore there is, at most, a 0.7 difference between the median (middle) and the mean (average), hence why I said somewhere around half got more and half got less. Have I got something wrong? I am genuinely interested as the interpretation of the stats can make a difference in whether it makes sense to apply with given GCSE results or not.

If you look at the graph, the highest number of offers was for those with 10 GCSEs (mode), so less than the average (mean) of 10.8. So this suggests the graph for number of GCSEs in those who got offers may not be wholly to scale, given that there is likely to actually be a positive skew meaning more people with offers got below the average (of 10.8) than got above it.

The above is also completely wrong. Most with offers get 10 or above Astar equivalent. The scale is not wrong and there is no reason why it should be from the simple statistics presented with and depicted by the graph.

I maybe should have said the proportions on the graph may be difficult to represent, given the small numbers involved!
But am I right that the statistical analysis of a mode (10) being less than a mean (10.8) suggests a positively skewed normal distribution curve? As if so, then given the info we have, this surely means more applicants got offers with 10.8 A* and less than those with >10.8 A stars?

If I have got this wrong, can anybody explain where, please, as my stats is a little rusty and I do not want to interpret things wrongly? I accept there may be unknown parameters that may change things, but I am basing the assumptions on the info on the page.

I use these sort of stats to encourage people to apply to Oxford. Many see the average and think they need more than 10.8 Astars to apply, when the data seems to me to suggest that slightly more people get in with less than this (10 A stars and below) than above (11 Astars and above)

However applicants should retain what makes them individuals in their PS (including their personal insights) and not let box ticking take over to the detriment of that.

This would be true in an ideal world. My favoured pathway for med school applicants would be a compulsory gap year to include hospital work experience, eg HCA for maybe 3 months, with standardised assessments by mentors in this time-frame, so applicants have matured a bit, really seen what it is like to work at the coal-face and have an accurate, reproducible reference/report.

But sadly, we don't live in the real world and many med schools score PS literally by ticking boxes.
GDPR, FOIs and SARs mean med schools may have to produce an individual applicant's scores and the mark scheme it is based upon, so they have to ensure it is fair and reproducible. They have been told by the GMC what they are to assess, so draw up their domains and mark applicants to see if they make them. This was clearly seen at Cardiff this year when quite a few applicants with 9A*s did not get interviews and feedback was that their PSs did not tick the required boxes as shown on the website!

So whilst I would prefer that med students were encouraged to show their individuality (and am a big fan of using different selection criteria, hence allowing different types of applicant to shine), when med schools have thousands of applications and are ranking them by ticking required boxes, it is as well to advise students do that, whether we agree with it or not, as deviation from what med schools are looking for may be the difference between an interview/offer, or not

@Needmoresleep

The integrated degree in the Nottingham MBBS (and Southampton, if anybody is interested) is a BMedSci, not biomed and I think the topics are fairly broad (I know someone who did one in a Paeds topic)

Daft question maybe but Cambridge and Oxford aren't on the intercalate link - anyone know why that would be ?

Thanks

The Oxford six year degree has an inbuilt research year Pumpkintopf.

@GANFYD Notts topics are v broad - DD looking at Obs/Gynnie for her specialism at the moment. But also emergency medicine. She can also combine both if wants ! Options are open to anything which is nice,

GANFYD you're going way way way over the top about the minimum proximity to 10.8 A* to justify your sanction of an application to Oxford. It really doesn't take the brains of an archbishop for an individual to look at the Oxford graph and say I'd like to go there/ I'm in the ballpark. No student at out school gets this precise about it and you cant be, since you don't know how the BMSAT will go and the BMAT is an absolutely key part of the formula for Oxford.

So what you do is go eg Hmm 8A* good school no mitigating circumstances pretty long shot on the other hand underperformed relative to ability at GCSE so may well smash the BMAT so why not have a go. And variations on that theme. You're being far too narrow about the GCSEs.