Medicine 2023 Entry - Part 4

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Anyone out there with DC applying or reapplying for Medicine 2023, please join a friendly thread for mutual support and useful advice.

@Monkey2001 Dd got through to the interview stage, still no guarantee she will get a training place but she felt it went ok. She wants to do anaesthetics.

Has anyone been following the kerfuffle about FY place allocations for this year’s graduates? Seems they have changed the way of allocating places to make it more random - you no longer have a better chance of getting the deanery you want if you do well in your exams etc….

@Decorhate fingers crossed for your DD. I hope she gets the training place.
DD is 3rd year and I did hear a little about the F1 allocations. Is it totally random now but they don’t sit the SJT exam?

@LaLaFlottes it's totally random this year and has been awful to watch. Students at the top of their year getting their 18th choice of deanery. They'll have to change it. Heard of students crying in their final exams as so shocked.
Hopefully the BMA will come out fighting for them. I'm really not sure why this country seems to not want to keep its doctors.

@mumsneedwine that’s such a shame it’s caused so much upset. I have to admit, when DD was applying, I became quite knowledgeable about the application process, but am quite in the dark about how it works after Uni.

I think I had read that the SJT exam wasn’t popular either? Also that their performance through Uni had only counted a small amount towards where they went for F1 choices. It sounds like the system needs to be looked at again doesn’t it?

It very much sounds to me like “someone” is trying their very best to sabotage the NHS as much as possible. I saw somewhere that last year loads of graduate medics resigned from their allocated FY1 places rather than go where they had been allocated (this was specifically NI I think)

It is very odd that despite the doctor shortage, people running the NHS spend so little time thinking about retention and motivation of newly qualified doctors. When the allocation proposals were first announced it seemed bonkers. I know, for example, that there was a level of panic amongst Scottish students who more normally stay at home for University that they might suddenly have to go south, living in a high cost area. It will be particular hard for those whose partners are not medics. Especially when, given the shortage of training places, they will probably have to move again later.

DD and her medical school friends were quite sporty and outdoorsy, and Covid came right in the middle of their education. A large number of them independently decided to opt for unpopular deaneries, albeit deaneries with a lot of outdoors, even though they qualified for the big Cities and traditional teaching hospitals. (Feedback DD got was also that senior doctors in London hospitals were often too busy to give much time to F1s.)

The advantage has been that she got her first pick of rotations, and also found herself getting more responsibility that she had expected. In particular her first rotation was in a very busy hospital in an area with shocking deprivation. The fact they were a strong cohort, who supported each other, helped. Apparently those with least points are often clustered in a quieter hospital in a small rural town.

I can understand the idea of trying to spread talent around, but the plans do not seem to have taken on board either junior doctor nor deanery needs.

In some countries newly qualified doctors are conscripted to work in whatever place their government needs them for a couple of years BUT in return their accommodation is free and uni fees paid. Our country is trying to do this through the back door and junior docs are paying for the privilege of having to move to places they don't want to be or can't afford to live.
The old SJT system was ridiculous and the deaneries too large to give a meaningful choice of place (eg.ds's friend wanted Manchester and ended up on Isle of Man) but it's a fairly major F up to manage to make the new system even LESS fair and worse for everyone. No wonder they're all heading to Australia as fast as they can pack their scrubs!

Every other country gives priority to its own graduates (& doctors for speciality training). We don't. Anyone anywhere in the world can apply and is on an equal footing. Doctors who comment on this are called racist.

This new foundation system is a mess. Lots still got their first choice, but usually people who didn't got 2nd or 3rd. This year the algorithm means they've got 18th choice. Not fair at all. Not a way to keep staff.

As a soon-to-be med school parent, you’re right in the very worrying part of this @RockyHorrorShow All interviewed applicants to QUB this year got an email yesterday telling them about new funded places that the Irish gov are paying for, which you can propose yourself for under the condition of agreeing to work in the HSE (Irish NHS, sort of) after graduation. If my DD met the funding criteria, she’d probably sign up in a heartbeat because of everything you’ve all been describing.
So who determines and administers the FY1/2 allocation process? Is it the Dept of Health or the NHS itself or some other body? Just trying to understand how political it is, or if it’s more a case of trying to do the right thing but failing miserably through lack of consultation and proper planning?

So who determines and administers the FY1/2 allocation process? Is it the Dept of Health or the NHS itself or some other body?

It's worth pointing out that there is no such thing as "the NHS" any more. It was broken up into disconnected, sometimes overlapping and sometimes competing parts by the Lansley reform in 2013. One of these was Health Education England (HEE), which oversaw undergraduate and prostgraduate training for all healthcare professions in England. HEE was abolished last year and its functions were absorbed by NHS England (NHSE). The UK foundation programme is managed by NHSE plus the Departments of Health/Social Care in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales: https://foundationprogramme.nhs.uk/about/.

@Sybill That’s an interesting initiative. Is the HSE only funding students at QUB, or at other UK universities? Is there a link?

Edited to say: found it, it’s just for QUB, thanks!

That’s fascinating @NoNotHimTheOtherOne , thanks for sharing that. I had no idea of the history or how complicated the whole thing has become. And since 2013 too - yikes

@Peachy2005 it is interesting and as my DD has an Irish passport, she’s keeping a potential move there as a future option

Peachy, that makes some sense. My understanding is that post agreement the ROI would like to see more students from the North, especially those with Irish passports, be able to study in the South. However the regulations which essentially require 4 A levels and a language at GCSE for competitive subjects like medicine, are too onerous for even top NI students. I assume there are some technical problems in just offering concessions for some EU citizens living in the UK, as they will need to treat all EU citizens equally. Perhaps the work round is to buy the places at Queens. (Cheaper for the students as well as living costs are lower.)

In case any of you have not seen this petition to save primary care....
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-gp-practices-shutting-their-doors?source=whatsapp-share-button&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=whatsapp&share=f6b45ffc-7908-4b32-9368-c4e91c4d52a4

Thanks @Monkey2001 I will look at that.

Can I ask - what are your DC planning to do over summer? Keen for my DD to travel - she's going for a short break with uni pals but she's keen to go further afield for a while (her course only has long summer breaks this year and end of 2nd year so want her to make the most of it). She may be on her own, may be with another medic. Does anyone have DC who have travelled with Gap360 or any of the other student oriented holiday / gap year companies? Recommendations gratefully received (and I know she needs to keep in mind the period for resits).

@Africa2go My daughter used G adventures on her year off as she was by herself, and thought they were excellent. She was working abroad and did one G adventures in New Zealand and then later travelled by herself for 8 weeks in Australia- and actually preferred the travelling alone, although she was nervous about this before. She said it was very easy to meet people and basically met with many of the same people along the way. She used a company to book her hostels and some trips in advance, but probably could have managed without that. She just wanted to be sure she always had somewhere to stay. One for her friends travelled alone in Thailand/ Vietnam and Cambodia and again loved it and found it easy. I think the key is going on an established route, so you are likely to meet lots of people at hostels- which seem pretty set up for this, doing introductory drinks/ games/ walking tours etc. Another friend of hers who travelled alone to Japan however and did not find it as friendly.

Ahh great thank you, I will look into it.

Has anyone else got a DC in panic mode about end of year exams? I've had a couple of forlorn texts from DD. I don't know what to say to her. She's worked so hard and says she's now second guessing herself and thinks she's going to fail. Any words of wisdom?

@BungledBundle Has she had any summative exams (i.e. ones that count towards progression decisions) through the year, or is the only assessment at the end of the year?

Hi @NoNotHimTheOtherOne , thanks for such a quick reply! No, she had an exam just before Christmas which she did very well on but obviously that was half the material, and it didn't count towards the final year mark.. For her med school, it is just these two exams in May (with a chance to retake later on in the summer). She's been working for weeks - and all through the year, every night really, consolidating. Though lectures only stopped a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how to support her or point her towards support. She is normally not overly pessimistic eg with school exams.

That does make it difficult, as you can't point her towards previous examples of underestimating how she'd perform. If she did prepare seriously for the mid-year exam she should reflect on how her perfomance in that compared to her anticipated performance. I know a "real" exam is a very different thing, though. The medical school I work in has exams throughout the year to try to avoid these very-high-stakes exams at the end of the year, but we still have students who get very anxious before exams despite having performed well in previous ones and putting in just as much preparation for the next one.

I was the personal tutor for a student who's just about to graduate. I had several years of them explaining to me before every exam why they were certain to fail. They never came close to failing an exam.

DD has had 2 exams through the year so far and her end of year exams are not until June (she's still on Easter hols).

For DD (and I expect quite a few medics) she has struggled going into exams as there is so much matieral to cover that she doesn't "know" it all - during her school years, she knew the syllabus inside out / back to front etc. I think its a new experience for them - going into an exam where they haven't covered everything in the depth they're used to for GCSE/A Level.

In DD's case, parts of the exams have been multiple choice where she has to choose the "best" answer - she says in a few cases, she's picked her answer then gone back at the end, second guessed herself, changed it and it was wrong - her original answer was right.

So my approach with her is to stress that its OK not to know everything as thoroughly as you might want to (to try to eleviate some of the stress and be at a disadvantage due to panic) but to go in and trust her instincts with the answers.

My daughter is similarly worried. She has now had 2 of her 3 exams and thinks they haven't gone well. I am now stressing on her behalf as well, as her university are expecting nearly a third of the cohort to fail and resit in July! That seems an awful lot for AAA achieving A Level students. I just keep trying to reassure her that resitting would not be a disaster and there's always the option to redo the year.....

I agree with @Africa2go completely. You don't have to have memorised every detail and be able to recite scripted answers to questions to pass these exams. You're expected to have learned (very different from memorised) most of the key points and be able to apply them to a variety of scenarios.

In DD's case, parts of the exams have been multiple choice where she has to choose the "best" answer - she says in a few cases, she's picked her answer then gone back at the end, second guessed herself, changed it and it was wrong - her original answer was right.

This is quite common. Most medical school exams take this form (all of the written exams in later years are likely to, as the final national exam is entirely made up of single best answer questions). Often there will be an answer that is much more likely than the others unless there's a particular detail in the scenario that means it can't be correct. Students do sometimes overinterpret little details in isolation and start wondering whether a much less likely answer must be correct in this particular case.