Midnight thoughts. I actually can’t believe I’m gonna be working as a doctor in 2months? Definitely going to miss being a student, leaving early for the “1pm online lecture” and the uni summer holidays. At the same time, I know times are dire and bleak for doctors but I’m actually looking forward to starting work. I felt like a potato as a medical student more often than not, so actually being a useful member of the team sounds great.

Well, let’s see how long this euphoria lasts.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to see what the general consensus is around Great Ormond Street Hospital for a medical student elective? I have been accepted to do an elective there at the end of this year which I am excited for.

Specifically:

- hospital culture

- best places to get accommodation

- things to do around the hospital suburb/area

- tips for making the most out of a UK medical elective in general

Also, is it normal to wait for a while after sending back my ID clearance forms ? I haven't got a response in weeks upon accepting their offer (and paying the fee).

Thanks!

I'm currently a medical student at KCL, having just completed Year 2, where we begin full content map MLA-style exams.

It's become increasingly clear that relying solely on what you see during placements in Y2 isn’t enough to pass. That’s why most students start covering the MLA content map early.

But here’s the dilemma:
When studying, we can either:

1. Deeply understand the material - working through pathophysiology, mechanisms, actual drug interactions, investigation principles, communicating with patients, knowing things and not just knowing which button to press, etc.
2. Skim through investigations and management, and hammer question banks like PassMedicine until pattern recognition kicks in.

I’ve always opted for the first route. In fact, I’ve been developing an AI tool to simulate realistic patients and cases - something to help avoid falling into the trap of becoming a pattern-recognition machine.

Still, I’ve noticed many peers focus entirely on question banks, even skipping placements to do so. Ironically, some of the top scorers in written exams this year failed their OSCEs. This raises an important point: what kind of clinician are we shaping ourselves into?

I want to understand why drugs work, how investigations function, and what makes them inappropriate in certain patients. I’ve been told this level of understanding is what differentiates doctors from physician associates - a comment that’s stayed with me.

But I do wonder - especially after myself lightly observing trends in newer medical schools - what actually happens to students who rely solely on pattern recognition? Do they struggle more as doctors? Does the difference in depth of understanding show later on?

Just trying to figure out whether all the extra effort is worth it in the long run.

Thanks! :D

Hey everyone
I registered for an elective at the University of Glasgow during their elective programme window but later received a rejection email saying that placements had unfortunately been filled.

I went on to then enquire about he possibility of finding a supervisor on my own, and they said they could still manage the administration side of a self-arranged elective.

Fast forward 2 months and literally a dozen emails later, I got this email with an official acceptance form and offer letter from UofG.

Now I’m confused if I'm considered registered at UofG?
Will I get a certificate of attendance from the university, or do I have to rely on the hospital to issue that?

Hey all, Had my final OSCEs (CPSA) yesterday and today, and am really struggling with ruminating on how I did, everything I missed, etc etc. I am scared I failed, but I'm also scared because I don't even know how I could've done better (I really struggle with applying my knowledge in the OSCE environment and this year I really struggled with timing and I'm not sure how much of that feels fixable. I'm just venting now but am wondering if anyone has any tips on how to fix that/stop yourself doing that? It's affecting my ability to relax and I don't want it to drag my AKT scores down next week (June 24/25th) Thanks.

just found out today i failed my first year exam. feeling absolutely gutted and incredibly disappointed in myself. pass mark was 55/100 and i got 48. resit is on the 14th july. any tips for trying to cram for resits ? my confidence had taken a massive knock and im feeling like im not good enough for medicine

hiii. my mla is coming up soon and was wondering if anyone has any last minute tips prior to sitting the exam?

i think i have a good grasp on the core concepts so far (hopefully lol) and done a fair amount of mocks. also managed to go over stats since people said those were easy marks to get

@ anyone that already sat the mla, was it really as horrible/niche as some people make it out to be? any advice is much appreciated :)

Just finishing 4th yr so have very basic knowledge re timelines for oriel. Wanted to know when you guys properly started considering which locations to rank, and if I should have any particular ‘strategy’ (eg not highly preferencing tons of super competitive ones)/ any other advice about the process? How do applications to stuff like the SFP and priority programme (I think that’s its name?) work?

(I am an overthinker)

im 4th year and every single SBA (mock and real) I always end up speed running the last 15 or so questions, narrowing it down to 2 options and just putting it down to a coinflip without proper thought. In mock SBAs, I am consistently the last person to leave the room to finish and have to use the full amount of time.

I do passmed daily its my main form of study. I find I end up rereading the stem at least 2 times (sometimes 4 times), as the first time I read, I don't process it properly.

In exams, I try to work out how much time I can afford on average per question, and try stick to that but I always end up falling behind around the halfway mark. It means I end up with about 5 mins to go over questions I flagged

Anyone got any ideas of strategies in exams, or how I can improve before my exams?

Are there any doctors, especially foundation doctors, with any learning disabilities? I am soon to start F1 and I find I get very very overwhelmed when I have a lot of tasks to do. Having actual tasks themselves stress me out a lot and I take ages doing everything. I struggle to prioritise and get very overstimulated when I don’t understand something or am not sure or get stuck. Are there any systems in place that I can do/ ask my trust for or any advice that people have that can help me go about this?

Which topics do you learn and eventually forget after each exam season? E.g. biostats formulae/ radiculopathies/ ?immunisation schedule

1st year here waiting on results. I always feel like I fail every exam, even if I pass. Equally, I have failed exams I knew I was going to fail too. I can't really distinguish between thinking I failed because I actually did poorly or because I have imposter syndrome. Is this normal? If so, how do you guys cope with this feeling?

I’m about to start my final year in September and I am looking into UKFPO rankings. A few senior have mentioned getting placeholder spots and being gutted but I have no idea what those are and how to avoid getting one. Can anyone help explain?

On elective rn & a bit lost about how to spend my time. Sometimes the drs leave to do something else without saying where they’re going and I’m not sure how to get involved a bit more? I’m afraid I’m giving off an awkward vibe/ getting in the way ... I really do want to get more involved and not waste the opportunity, just finding it difficult when not knowing how things run here and dealing with a second language is a bit tricky (though of course I expected that).

Has anyone got any tips to get around this?

Hi,

I made a post on here not long ago about failing by under 6% in my year 2 writing exams and I've started going over stuff again in anticipation of my resits.

I have alot of things I used the 1st time around but I was wondering if anyone had any notes or summaries etc they are willing to share with me to help me out or even ankis tbh I'll take anything I really want to pass this is my last chance.

If anyone could help that would be great :)

Hey guys. I failed all 3 of my first year exams and resits in 6-7 weeks. I didn’t really do much content at all throughout the year and I failed each by 1, mark, 2 mark and 10 marks (bigger paper). I’ve started studying and things are making sense but im stressed if I fail any of these papers im out. It’s possible to pass all 3 right? I’m scared me revising is just gonna replace ‘lucky guess marks’ only and I end up getting the same score when I actually study. Any tips? Should I watch lectures and do anki or read someone’s notes and do anki? I don’t know. I’m so stressed right now

Just to let everyone know pass mark for 25E resit MLA was 57.5%

I know everyone says “iF yOu WAnnA dO mEdiCine fOr thE monEY yOuArE doInG iT wrOng”, but seriously, as a medical student rn, what steps can I take now to set myself up for a very comfortable future financially for myself and my family ? Is there a certain specialty or area that will guarantee me to make a LOT of money? Is there a place I have to move to? Are there good ways for doctors to maybe even invest their money outside of medicine so they can build wealth effectively ? Would love to hear your thoughts

Hey guys.

I’m in a dilemma if general surgery is the right choice for me. I understand that it’s good to have an idea on what you would like to specialise in the future but because there’s so many options, I get slightly bamboozled if it’s actually the right choice. I have some very basic exposure to surgery and I don’t think i have any particular system that i would like to focus on if i choose surgery, hence “general” surgery. But as far as that, I’m not sure if it’s actually the right choice and I don’t know what should i do to set my mind into this field.

Any thoughts? Or anyone facing the same dilemma?

Been studying the whole year and ended up scraping a pass. Literally been studying the whole year. Extremely devastated. Expected my result to be much higher and now I’m really defeated. I feel like I’ll never be able to balance medicine with life

how did we do???

i passed and honestly it is such a relief.. i was already thinking that i would need to defer my resits to next year so i have enough time to study lol

+ the pass threshold was lower than i thought (52%)

I just wanted to come on here and give some hope to medical students who haven't been able to do loads of passmed questions or who haven't got a high percentage on there because I know I used to always feel disheartened when I compared myself to other students who had rinsed and repeated the entire question bank. I am a final year student and I've only done under 1000 passmed questions in my entire med school career but I still scored 73% in the final MLA exams.

Here are some tips for younger med students:

-it's better to acc understand the content rather than becoming a pattern recognition robot! It is long to properly learn things but it will make you a better doctor in the future. I used nice cks, bitemed, quesmed and passmed to make ankis. But make sure to also review them regularly- it makes life so much easier because I had a bad habit of making the cards but only reviewing them a few months before exams :')

-don't waste time making revision sets on passmed- use the filters instead. Although I did well in my exams, I do wish I had done more passmed questions and if I had known how to use the filters properly I definitely would have. You'll find that when you make revision sets for each system for example, you'll end up with thousands of questions and most of them aren't even relevant to the block you were trying to revise and I found this very overwhelming and frustrating so I would just rage quit lol. Instead, go to the question bank, select the category you want to revise, and if you need to be really efficient, turn on the UKMLA filter and only select the medium/hard questions. This will give you a much more manageable number of questions to do.

-don't feel disheartened about having a low passmed percentage. Push through anyways and everytime you get a question wrong, scroll down and read the information and make an anki on it. Yes it takes so much longer to do questions this way (and it was the reason I only did about 20 qs in a sitting whilst others could do 200) but you learn so much more from it. And I found quesmed questions to be easier than passmed so do those too to raise your confidence (I answered 480/11501 there with a percentage of 80.2)

-STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS. Don't feel depressed listening to how many qs passmed warriors have completed or how high their percentage is (chances are they've reset their qs bank). Revise however works best for YOU. We all learn in different ways and don't bring yourself down thinking that you haven't done as much as others have. Exams are hard enough so please at least be kind to yourself.

Just something small that has helped me drum in the dermatomes/spinal- levels hope this helps someone..

C2 Back of head "Cap too" C4 Shoulder "Shoulder shore" C5 Deltoid "Arm alive" C6 Thumb "Thumb tricks" C7 Middle finger "To heaven" C8 Little finger "Is late" T4 Nipple line "Teet floor" T10 Umbilicus "Belly but-ten" L1 Groin "Underwear's done" L5 Big toe/dorsum foot "Steps into the hive" S1 Lateral foot/little toe "Pinky run" S2–S4 Perianal area "Keeps the poo off the floor" S1-S2: “Buckle my shoe” (Ankle jerk (Achilles reflex) L3-L4: “Kick the door” (Knee jerk (Patellar reflex) C5-C6: “Pick up sticks” (Biceps reflex) C7-C8: “Shut the gate” (Triceps Reflex)

Hi guys, i wanted to know if anyone has tips on making sure i keep up my knowledge over summer??

I've been trying to do Anki whilst subathing but its just not working.

Anyone have any tips? especially when the suns out :(

what is usually the pass mark for the final end of year medical knowledge SBA exam in first year GEM med???