Welcome to our new series, A Day in the Life of A Med Student. In this series, we ask a current med student to write about a typical day at medical school – whether this is on placement or in lectures to give you a flavour of what studying medicine is like!
In this blog, we catch up with Tahmeena, a first year medic at Manchester.
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Book our 2018 UKCAT Course07:55 My alarm rings, I turn it off and continue to sleep, as you do!
08.00 My second alarm rings. I turn it off again and go back to sleep…
08.05 My third alarm rings. I turn it off, but I can now slowly feel my sleep fading away so succumb and get out of bed!
08.20 I make myself a hot chocolate for breakfast and drink it whilst getting ready.
08.35 I set out for my PBL session which starts at 9. Normally I walk to my session but I’m running a bit late today so I catch the bus!
09.00 The PBL session starts. This week’s case is all about DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) and blood clotting. We read the case as a group, pick out ‘cues’ from the case, and then come up with a list of questions (which we call our ‘learning agenda’). We are each expected to individually go away and research all of the questions on the learning agenda, and then feed back what we have learnt in our PBL session on Friday.
09.50 My PBL session has finished – the first PBL session of the week always finishes super quickly compared to the second session.
11.00 I eat an early lunch, or you could call it brunch seen as I didn’t eat a proper breakfast! I’m having pizza – not the healthiest of options but when you’re a student, convenience is key!
11.50 I somehow managed to have a short 10 minute power nap. I think it’s done the trick as I’m feeling much more awake now!
12.05 I quickly look over some anatomy before my session, which starts at 13.15.
12.45 I set out for my anatomy session. I’ve left myself plenty of time to get there so I have enough time to walk. The weather in Manchester is actually decent today – not as sunny as last week but it’s not raining, so I can’t complain!
13.00 I arrive at Stopford Building (the medical school building) 15 minutes early for my anatomy session. I wear my lab coat and put my belongings in one of the lockers outside the dissection room.
13.15 The anatomy session starts. It’s my last anatomy session of year one of medical school – time certainly does fly! For the first half of the session, we focused on regional circulation (mainly the circulation to the kidneys and brain) and for the second half we practiced some BLS (Basic Life Support) on mannequins. What’s cool about these mannequins is that they have little monitors attached which tells you if you’re doing the chest compressions at the right depth and speed.
15.00 I arrive back to my flat after anatomy. The session finished earlier than expected and I got to practice chest compressions a few times – at first, the speed I was doing them at was too high, and I wasn’t pressing deep enough, but after a few times practising, I think I improved.
16.30 After relaxing for a while, I make myself a cup of tea and listen to the podcast of one of last week’s lectures. It’s an ethics and law lecture about blood donation – which relates to last week’s PBL case which was about…you guessed it…blood donation!
18.00 I finally finish listening to the podcast. I find that listening back to the lectures always takes so much longer than actually listening to the lecture live – which is why I aim to attend as many lectures as I can, even though attendance to lectures is not compulsory!
19.30 I start finishing off my anatomy notes for this week…I did some over the weekend but didn’t get a chance to finish them off.
20.00 I get up to have a break and also have my dinner.
21.30 I sort out my PBL learning agenda (ie. I arrange them in a specific order), ready for tomorrow morning when I will start researching and answering the questions.
00.00 I finally head to bed!
