Medicine 2021 - Part 3

[SATSmadness]

Hoping for interviews and offers all round, now and well into next year !

@Needmoresleep just wondering why A&E on a Saturday night in Newcastle would be very different experience from say a busy London A&E on a Saturday night. Genuine question as my DS is also a Londoner and one of his top choices is Newcastle med school. He wasn't keen on London schools as they felt too close to home. He already thinks he might like to specialise in emergency trauma surgery although of course that could change. Just wondering if there is anything specific to Newcastle and emergency medicine he should know.

Not really other than very busy and thus a good place to get experience, though knowing the girl she would have researched it well. She was very focussed in achieving her ambition. This girl had been at med school in London so it was a deliberate move to widen experience. Normally the most popular deaneries, ie the one for which you need the most points, are London and the South West. London because of the big teaching hospitals and the South West presumably because of the good mix of urban and rural, with large and small hospitals and the life style.

Though mumsneedwine seems to suggest Nottingham is also a tough one, with students having to take part in the points hunt from an early stage.

I suspect that is why DD and her friends are relaxed. Many would like to stay on in Bristol, and DD would also be comfortable returning to London, but since both are super competitive, what happens will happen. Interestingly DD has been told that the competition for more senior jobs in her desired specialty in London teaching hospitals is less fierce than for the F1/F2 positions, and hospitals/trusts elsewhere have a good reputation for training. So perhaps she too might end up in the North East for the next stage.

DD flirted with trauma surgery, and went to the QMUL intercalation open day (one tip was to go the year before applying, so she had time to consider options) to hear about their air ambulance course. It sounded great, but was clearly going to be popular/competitive.

I hope this is not too much off track. Many students will simply want to get their place and qualify. The great thing about medicine is that it offers such a diversity of careers.

@Needmoresleep think Notts is 1:1 so should get it if apply. They just all seem to like it there (housing is cheap and lots of lovely countryside so DD can't think why she'd move back to the SE).
Hopefully more offers this week 🤞🤞

So why are Nottingham students so worried about points?

As far as I can see it is not something that medical students elsewhere think much about. You do your best in your degree, and they all know from UCAT that situational judgement results can be random. They all get somewhere. And a bit like medical schools, though you might prefer one, all get you to more or less the same place.

I was talking to a friend whose DD qualified in August and she did quite well for points as she got a distinction for her medical degree but did not intercalate. She got her 15th choice (out of about 500) as you choose the rotations as well as the deanery. So she got Exeter (which was the most important thing to her) but not quite the ideal jobs. So points are very helpful even if you know you should be able to stay in area.

I know there was a petition to keep the intercalation points, at least for the students who started before the change was approved.

Thank you very much @Needmoresleep. Not too much off track at all. In fact, it gives a bit of perspective on the current waiting game - this medicine lark is definitely like peeling an onion! . DS has already been talking about how wonderful the QMUL air ambulance course sounds but said it must be super sought after.

I haven't read the whole thread. A lot of imperial/ UCL graduates move out of London to do their foundation year and their core speciality training. My last three FY1 doctors were from imperial / UCL and there are various reasons for this varying from wanting to be near beaches to surf, wanting to have rural life etc., These doctors would have scored quite highly on the marking system and were superb in their knowledge, work ethics etc., I am sure there are graduates from other university wanting to move to London especially if they are from London. I would strongly encourage any newly qualified doctors to move around the country / world to gain experience - once you have family and commitments this becomes difficult.
Dd is in year 2 at one of the London university and I was advising her to look at working in a different country for few years once qualified. If you want to be A and E doctor - For example., nothing beats South Africa with experience in working in emergency department dealing with gun shot wounds, opening up someone's chest in A and E with haemothorax etc., obstetrics - few years in India/ Pakistan or parts of Africa, surgery - look at USA, anything related to endoscopy- Japan etc.,
My advice would be to learn for the sake of knowledge, forget about the point system, develop a good work life balance from the beginning.

There is no points system anymore 😊. Hope lots of lovely offers start coming this week 🤞🤞

Some interesting Med Stats reading for those that way inclined:

wonkhe.com/blogs/ucas-january-deadline-2021-in-depth/

@SeasonFinale

I extracted this data from flexing the graph data in your link
JACS3 subject group Year Age groupApplications
Group A Medicine & Dentistry 2020 19 14,090
Group A Medicine & Dentistry 2021 19 17,990

That's a whacking 27.7% increase in 19 year olds (so last years Y13s) applying for Med/Dent presumably with grades in hand, and we were told that grades in hand count for more than predicted grades.

This is consistent with the data regarding a large increase in numbers taking the UCAT. It would appear that is a very tough year to be applying for Med/Dent for this year's Y13s.

Also consistent with the Exeter cutoffs of 3xA in hand , followed by 3xA predicted on par with 2XA A grades in hand meaning that some with 3 x A predictions didn't even get interviews this year.

@SATSmadness can you please explain what you mean by 'we were told that grass in hand count for more than predicted grades'. I thought this was only the case for Exeter. Is it the case for others?

mmm 'grass' in hand - 'grades' of course!

Grades in hand help to get interview most at Exeter, but also at Cardiff, Liverpool, Leicester, Aberdeen. Not sure of any others.

After interview I think it only helps at Aberdeen, although Leicester do like grades in hand.

Very frustrating given that some (not many, and by no means all) handed top grades out like smarties. See this ACTUAL grades summary from an exam centre included in an OFQUAL report.

Thank you @Monkey2001, the others weren't really on my radar as Exeter was the only one of those my DS had on his 'attractiveness' list (location/course structure) before we got more involved. I kind of wish he had applied to Exeter now as his stats would have made the cut for an interview. It seems like they made a really brutal cut at that stage and speculatively one wonders if that might have resulted in a more manageable interview pool, especially given all the subsequent grade uncertainty and implications for places. Or maybe not, if they just had a disproportionate increase in applications this year. I agree about some students having top grades handed out like smarties last year. My DCs' schools were very proper with it but I have heard of some shockers. You do wonder how those DC will actually cope with the demands of the courses they end up on though.

I read of a suggestion that mini exams set and marked by a school's own subject staff was one possibility for arriving at grades this year. Total scope for inequality in standards both in the setting and the marking. Not quite sure how well that would go down with staff whilst exam board staff are presumably surplus to requirements, possibly furloughed for the spring/summer, in that potential scenario.

Can't help idly (or should that be wildly) speculating here on the likely odds on all Oxbridge offer holders making their grades this year ? If it comes down to teacher assessment, surely the nagging fear of being confronted by a candidate/their parents requesting a recount if a slipped (CA) grade was likely to cost an Oxbridge place. Possibly backed up by a head with an eye to the stats in next year's prospectus.

If there's a limited quota of As, and certain people in your physics/history/whatever class need an A and some only need an A, surely the temptation is there.... Not saying it would happen, just musing.

Yes, @SATSmadness the same discussion happened last year. There will definitely be some schools which take offers into account when allocating grades, and there will be some which rigorously do not. My impression was that Oxbridge (and probably medicine) offers would be down this year because they will feel a lot like unconditional offers.

And it really devalues the A* for the DC who would actually have achieved them if they had sat the A levels.

I'm a bit confused about what it means when they say they base grades on the equivalent of last year. For example, DD is pretty confident of an A star in physics, yet because no one last year got an A star, the school won't award any? Is that the case?

She only needs an A (if she gets offers) but that's not the point surely.

@opoponax - so true.

Sadly some of the "competition" that our dc have already come up against in getting to this stage has been 19 year olds with such As in hand (or even an A in hand potentially potentially counting as the equivalent of a predicted A) . The "early entry" applicants in particular.

Was hoping Gavin Williamson would put out an informative announcement today to steady the nerves of dc/parents about GCSEs/A Levels but it's looking unlikely now.

Was hoping Gavin Williamson would put out an informative announcement today

You do know who Gavin Williamson is, right? Same Gavin Williamson as last summer.

@SATSmadness I just hope that whatever they come up has a sufficient level of moderation to mitigate the risk of unfair inflation of grades so that our DC's A level results actually mean something. But yes @NoNotHimTheOtherOne, the track record doesn't exactly inspire. My (much) younger DC asked me this morning why they keep GW in a job he obviously can't do!

Yes, I just knew that MN'ers on this thread would spot the "tongue in cheek" quality to my statement .

The last I heard about the mini assessments that would be set externally were that they may be offered to take on a voluntary basis. They would be like end of topic tests though and thus the schools could choose the ones for the subjects they have covered. Originally, these were going to be externally marked, then externally moderated but who knows - not the schools yet and that's for sure.

One time when the info was supposed to be out the week starting x date it came on the Friday at 10.30pm.

But the end is in sight. Hopefully before they go back on 8 March there will be more of an idea what will be happening!