Medicine at Cambridge

I chose to study medicine at Cambridge because I'm interested in the traditional course structure. We have two years of pre-clinical teaching, one year of intercalation, and then three years in the hospital of clinical experience. What makes studying medicine at Cambridge really unique is the scientific basis of medicine that's really key alongside this quite unique set of teaching methods. You understand the reasons behind the things we do in medicine, not just learning if this then that. So we have three courses, a standard course which is six years long, there's a graduate entry programme which takes graduate students each year onto an accelerated four-year programme, and then finally for people who are very interested in research we run an We are actually putting into practice the phrase education in a research-rich environment. So the teaching facilities at Cambridge have been really good. We get lectures, seminars, practicals and supervisions. With the supervisions you get a chance to interact with an academic who may well be researching that particular field, and so that doesn't just mean you get to consolidate the lecture material, you get to go far beyond it. Because of the unique hands-on cadaveric dissection component, we have 40 plus donors and they're generous people who've donated their bodies in order that our students can learn anatomy from them, so that's very special. Students move from needing to be taught to being able to learn for themselves. The greatest resource is Addenbrookes Hospital and the regional hospitals. In fourth and fifth year we have these things called student-selected components or student-selected placements in the hospital. It just means that you can pursue the things that interest you and the things that you're passionate about. This year I was able to watch 12 births and I'm particularly interested in pregnancy and in birth and it's such a special moment in any family's life and I was able to be there to see this happen 12 times, it was amazing. I got to spend some time in the anaesthetics department. I'd been taught how to manage the airway of a patient and I realized that what I was doing was holding the head of another human being in my hands very literally keeping her alive and I was doing that as a fourth year medical student, I was literally keeping a patient alive and that was exactly what I was hoping to come into medicine for and I was getting to do that nearly from day one, so it was fantastic. It's an important aspect of studying medicine is you're not just sitting there reading textbooks, you learn a lot of transferable skills. Living nowadays for most jobs communication skills are really really important so I think Cambridge trains that into you really well. So I want to be a doctor after I graduate but after having some research experience I'm tempted to combine it with a bit of research. So I'm very interested in becoming an obstetrician which is a doctor that deals with pregnant women. Once I graduate my plan is to have a career in neurosurgery. Alongside that I've been bitten by the research bug since I've been here so hopefully I'll be able to do some clinical research or laboratory research alongside my practice as a doctor. In the final year students apply for the UK Foundation Programme. We have a very high success rate there and following on that students will then go on into a wide range of careers including general practice and psychiatry, academic medicine, medical specialties, surgical specialties across the board. If you're thinking of applying to Cambridge I think my message is absolutely go for it. I would suggest getting some work experience in a hospital or GP surgery and asking them about the challenges of being a doctor but also the positive points of being in the medical profession. It's a lot of hard work but the rewards are absolutely worth it every single time.