gooood morning!! just finished exams and cannot wait to tell you all about my experience in first year. it's been a hell of a ride. join me in this episode while i tell you about what i wish i did differently, the good parts, the bad parts... and what 'makes' or 'breaks' your experience. ☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: medbyfio.cominstagram: @medicmornings @medbyfiotiktok: @medbyfioemail: [email protected]: @medbyfio

it's that time of the year again - everyones' receiving their offers, working hard to attain their grades... but there's some that fall short. maybe it's your UCAT, maybe it's your interview performance - there's no time to dwell on that now, because the next application cycle is about to begin. if medical school is what your goal is, then you will need to take a gap year! and an excellent way to get work experience to plump up your application as well as earn some cash on the side is to get. a. job. this episode is all about jobs - both within the NHS and the private sector.☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @medbyfiotiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: @medbyfiotranscript (auto-generated, will have inaccuracies)Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of medic morning. I'm your host Fiona and today I'm going to be talking about Gap years and got beer jobs in general. So I have a job, right? I have a job. Working for a minute entry, you got company but also I have had so many jobs. I wanted to do. Like I wanted to be a swimming instructor. I want to do work at Starbucks. I wanted to do all these little things, but I know a lot of you are thinking of got peers, right? Because a lot of you might not have achieved your offers. You haven't received an offer yet, so you might be really considering a gap. You're seriously. So I'm just going to be talking about all the different options that you could choose from. And yeah, honestly a gap you're such an amazing way to save up and save your money because and you need you might not have enough time to work. So you're probably only going. Working on the weekend and even like some a lot of medical students are struggling to like balance that work and schooling. So I am really like terrify, I'm really terrified of starting medical school cuz I am just like there might be so much like school work that I'm not able to work on the weekend, and there's all that pressure on me right now, to make as much money as I can to suffice for the next 5 years. But honestly a guy. So amazing to really save up. So you have less pressure on yourself on first and second years. So like food, rents, all that stuff is covered well. So without further Ado, let's get started. So, the ideal job for people who don't already have an offer for medical school and are reapplying during their Gap year, is to find a job that is within the NHS or within like the medical field. So you can kind of incorporate that into your application. Do you want? Do you know what I mean? Like you can talk to your interviewer about your experience at a pharmacy or you can talk about your experience as a GP receptionist or something. So I'm just going to go through these jobs that are more cater towards Healthcare professions. So the first the first healthcare related job. I would really recommend is a healthcare assistant. Okay, so this is on the NHS website. Health care, assistance, help patients shower. They help people eat. They make the beds and use equipment to lift and move patients. They talk to patients and reassure them. They help patients use a toilet tidy. The wards and Tay, Patience temperatures and attend meeting with other Health Care Professionals. You will either work in an NHS or private hospital as well as the patient's home and a care home or hospice and you'll need to wear uniform, okay, so what the health care assistant role requires is just like gcses and good literacy and numeracy obviously this difference because I feel like right now there's like a lot of jobs but employees are getting like much pick here. So I think in terms of medical school applicants, you actually have a leg up because most medical school applicants are super rigorous and super diligent and academically inclined. So I feel like you to have a makeup because you have good gcses and that sense most applicants have good gcses and most applicants to have higher than The standard fours in GCSE, English and maths. But yeah, that's all that really is required for healthcare assistants. Most of these jobs are learn as you go, you know. So it's not like you need to attend a course or like an apprenticeship. By the way apprenticeship, you shouldn't take them because once you apply onto an apprenticeship that would be your further education or higher education. I don't remember. So you wouldn't be able to say medical school is your first first like degree because you're already on an apprenticeship. So make sure not to sign on to any like one year apprenticeship or any vocational courses. Make sure that you apply directly to the role to a job on the NHS website or whatever Europe flying from and yeah just like learn on the job and then get paid as well. So I think that's much better. So I'm volunteering in The next, the next job that you could get a copy of students is to be a phlebotomist. Now the bottom is collect blood samples from patients and send them off for analysis and testing, actually really wants to be a phlebotomist cuz I was like, oh my gosh, you like Junior, doctors, they have to undertake blood all the time. So I was like, why not? Like start. Now, you know, I get to have that experience under my arm and I also get to work as phlebotomist on the side on the weekend and I feel like it would be a good practice and good experience overall. And something good to talk about is that you get to that work on your manual dexterity and you really get to be Hands-On with a patient and experienced one aspect of being a doctor. Okay? So on the NHS website, it says that you can get this job through four ways. A college course, a college course is like a level 2 or level 3. And this is what you don't want to do, because you already have taken a levels. So this is like a college equivalent, which is not what you want to do an apprenticeship. I've already talked about not taking an apprenticeship because these are intermediate apprenticeship. So there would be different Pathways and they would find this out when you're applying to medical school and a lot of the time, it can mess with your application a little bit because then medical school with a first-degree. So yeah, make sure not to or look into it more carefully because I'm actually not quite sure. But yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't take an apprenticeship during my Gap year which would only just be one year. The next thing is that you could also apply directly to work as a phlebotomist. There are no set requirements although at least two gcses and a first aid certificates. So this is basically Eat like you just working learning on the job. Learning as you go you'll probably work under like a senior phlebotomist and you'll just watch learn to yourself. So yeah, there aren't any like a level requirements. It's mainly just GCSE is so I think that most medical applicants would have a leg up in that sense that you would have hired easier to use than the standard four and five. Okay. So the next job that I want to talk about is being a pharmacy assistant, okay? So Pharmacy assistance, help, Pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians order, prepare and dispense medicines. So you can either work in like a community for a clinic so Community. I think it's like those Tesco or as though or like like Lloyd's Pharmacy or something, but then Clinic is when you work like Ogp so yeah, I think I'm putting shit on my ass but I actually think that's true. There are no set entry requirements to be a pharmacy assistant that most employees will expect good literacy and numeracy and it skills. So it doesn't specify you having to have like a GCSE for an above and an English and math but it is implied in this website and Yeah, you could undertake further training to become a pharmacy technician, and yeah, I feel like I would be so interesting because you get to really understand the science behind medicines. You get to interact with patients, you get to really work with medicine firsthand and I feel like that would be a great first job for me. The next job is a GP receptionist. So actually I actually have a really funny story cuz I remember I was asking a few GPS. If I could Shadow them for a day and actually one of the GPS. Contacted was really rude about it. They were quite they were quite like, clothes off and uptight. I remember them. Emailing me going like, being a GP receptionist is really difficult and I feel like you're undermining like what actually takes like it takes a lot. A lot of training but I actually just wanted to shout out to the Jeep. So I was just very very confused but looking into it further you actually don't require much prior training. They don't have any High entry requirements, it's just good literacy and numeracy and it skills. So gcses just for for English and math above. And yeah again for all medical school African. I feel like that's quite a noble and like already sent the caliber of medical Africans are already so high. I think that this would be a good first job for a lot of you. So being a receptionist, you all know is just dealing with telephone query acting lighting with doctors and nurses, fighting medical records honestly, out of all the jobs, I mentioned so far like health, Assistant phlebotomist pharmacy assistant. I feel like I would hate JP receptionist the most honestly because the amount of shit that GP receptionist how to take out all the time. It's really really incredibly difficult especially since you're dealing with so many patient that I remember like just being at a GP and so many pieces of shouting at the receptionist and they just have to like take it and ask you to like lineup. And yeah, I like whenever the phone's open at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. a.m. and 2 p.m. it's just a hole wreck. So that's what I wouldn't want to be. But I do agree. Being a cheapy receptionist during your cat. Such and like invaluable experience because you really get to see the entire multidisciplinary team. So you get to see GPS, you get to see the nurses and Pharmacists and health care assistant. And you get to see a really wide variety of patients. You got to deal with my prescriptions and he can also talk about how you appreciate the admin and clerical work, which might be a bit more like mundane a bit more from monotonous. But you got to also appreciate that and talk about that in your interviews for your actual got here. Okay, so the next one I want to talk about is care home assistance. So Care Home assistant, you have to just work in the hospice you have to have a patient skills. People skills, you help vulnerable people manage their daily activities and live as independently as possible salary-wise. These are actually pretty much all the same like pretty similar in terms of salary. So 18,000 lb a year to maybe twenty-two thousand and obviously that can increase as you get more experience. But honestly, I think that the best weight I would have approached it is to choose a job that I could bring on to med school and it's like no come shift. So you can just like that's not enough, it's not on an annual salary. So it's just like, hourly check-in check-out and then you can pick what she asked you if you wanted to. And I think that's the way I would have gone it at it is to choose one that I can take on to medical school and also continue pursuing while I'm studying on the weekends as well. So yeah, care home assistance. There are no entry requirements again. So all of these have in common is that they don't really require any high level of gcses are, definitely not as difficult as medical school where you require like, sevens and nines for GCSE maths and English. These really only require a good level, so good meaning / 4, / 5 for GCSE English and math. I love the time they do require qualifications but again, if you apply directly to the company then I think that would be okay because they definitely take each person holistically. So they would see that you're on a guy. And you're trying to find a job that you can also get experience from for your application. So, yeah, those are the requirements for a care home, assistance. Now, I'm going to the career I actually personally wanted to do and I'll explain why. I'm so I remember, I really wants to work at Starbucks just because you get like a pretty coffee or something. But actually, the salary for Starbucks is actually not that bad. It's I think 12 times an hour for 450 1414, finding our house who really wants to be a swimming instructor. So if you're good at swimming, if you can swim. All you need to do is take a course, that's 200 lb I think, but swimming instructors are actually paid quite highly on average there. Paid 14 lb per hour, but a lot of places pay 18 to 20 pounds an hour. So if you can swim and you don't mind working with children working with adults, then that's definitely a job that you can take as well. I also wanted to be a ballet. But I think that required a lot more training for like 3 years of training so that was definitely not something that I wants to do Jeremih singular got. But yes, currently I work at met entry so I just work like wherever they want me on the social media side as well as making sure that their videos and met entries interface is going smoothly. And yeah, that's basically all I have today. Some further words of advice is that I really, really highly discourage you from pursuing one of those overseas work. So we've all heard a lot about going overseas working as an au pair, prepare to babysit children in exchange for housing and In exchange for like food and rent and stuff. But I really highly discouraged that because again there's a lot of Visa work involved and a lot of time working like, I don't know, I think there was like farming in exchange for like one night stay in Australia. I feel like a lot of the time that's just a lot of time wasted and I feel like I'm working oversees, a lot of the time you are bound to your Visa contract and that is personally, not something that I would want to do. I'm also in terms of volunteering of overseas like paying 2,000 lb or 3,000 lb just to go to South Africa or go to Australia, or Indonesia to help children and help animals. That's definitely, not something that you should do as well because there are a lot of Ethical and Welfare issues involved in that especially when working with children as an under qualified that. Student. So that is definitely something that you should consider before taking these volunteering and work opportunities overseas. I don't have a huge amount of knowledge on overseas jobs, but think about it this way. Working overseas requires a visa application. You also require flight ticket, and a lot of the time. You also have to pay for your own accommodation, your own rent and your own food and a lot of other factors as well, like, flu jobs and different things that are required when you're working overseas. Like insurance as well. I think medical insurance is not covered a lot of time. So before you work overseas, just make sure to put these factors into consideration, so you don't waste a lot of your time and you don't waste a lot of your own money and make sure that you are actually benefiting from it financially. Instead of instead of just paying a shitload of money under the premise that you are working. So yeah, I love the time. I feel like it's you don't like to be gained as much financially from it if you work overseas, because there are so many different things you have to pay for yourself. And I love the time, your salary doesn't even cover that. So, yeah, I personally wouldn't, but if financial gain is not something that you're worried about, then by all means, go to it, but I'm just putting this out there. So a lot of people can Kind of learn and do your own research as well. So yeah, that's all I have for today. I hope you enjoy this episode and I hope you found it useful. Their mind, that these are all my own opinions and I found all of this research on the NHS Government website. So if you have any questions, just make sure to check the website and do your own research into it. And honestly at the end of the day, finding a job is not that difficult. I feel like even though the job market is so saturated, a lot of time. These opportunities are just right under your nose. So all you do is go find it, approach hospitals, and approach, small clinics and ask if they need a helping hand. So it's really about Connections, and finding local opportunities, and your own area. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this episode, make sure to give a rating on Spotify, Apple podcast wherever you listening it from. And also, make sure to follow me on Instagram at medic mornings and met by few. And yeah, thank you so much and see you next time. Bye bye. 

this episode branches out from the traditional 'medicine' topics, and i discuss my instagram journey - from starting out as a hardcore, academic studygram and transitioning into a wellness and lifestyle page, i've learnt a lot along the way. tune in if you want to know exactly why you should start a public page today <3☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @medbyfiotiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: @medbyfiotranscript (auto-generated, will have inaccuracies)Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of medic mornings. I'm your host Fiona and today I'm going to be talking about a topic that is very dear to me. I have I'm not an expert in this area of any means, but I'm going to be talked about social media and the title is why you should start a study G. And in this episode, I'm just going to be done by the wise and how you should start your Instagram. And honestly, like the benefits of starting one overcoming that embarrassment and shame and awkward phase of, whether your friends are going to find you weird. Are they going to judge you, you know, things like that. So without further Ado, let's jump right into it. All right, so first, let's talk about the reasons why you should start one and this is not only towards study G. So you can talk about either you can have a niche. So maybe you can start a fitness Instagram or you can start a lifestyle Vlog. I know the lots of people have like, very lifestyle, very aesthetically put and pretty account, but I personally don't think my my like living arrangements right now are very aesthetically pleasing but like having those lifestyle content on your page is just so like motivational for me, I don't know why. I just want to have like that lifestyle of having like cucumber water in the morning or fucking like going to go into like a wooden backgrounds. And like I said, it's an all that stuff is like just so motivational for me, but you can have a Lysol page, you can also have like, you know, a wellness or Just being maybe like an what's it called when they sure like, eating like food like a food page of food food, Instagram, like a multitude of different niches that you can kind of like dabble into. I started off thinking, I'm going to do like a medicine Instagram, but then now it's slowly evolved into more like a lifestyle. Getting your head in the right mindset and focusing more on like, wellness and growth and focusing only on yourself and not others focusing on your own journey and just a bit more of my individuality. And my own personality is shining through that content instead of fully educational and a-levels and Medicine, which is basically want my $6 for. But for me, it's around, I'd like to keep it neutral. So lots of people can indulging it at the same time and also see a bit more until you my mental health Journey. But the first reason why you should start a CG is because you spend time on Instagram, anyway, so use that to be more productive, adhere me up, we're not trying to be a lie of dollar in here, right? That's his prerogative. That's his. I remember when he did like that, you should a video of how to, like, how to procrastinate about to be at it. I think it's taken down, but that just reminded me of that, but we're not going to do that here. So be more productive when you are mindlessly, like, scrolling on Instagram, like, I spent two to three hours daily just fully like, scrolling through reels and that's not a problem in itself. But inherently, I was just building up this like habit of going on my phone so often. And I wasn't even thinking consciously, when I click the Instagram button, I was just scrolling my lissy and honestly, Now, as I'm like becoming more a bit more known in the Instagram Community, I feel like I still kept up the same amount of time but I've just have more to come out of it. Either have more accomplishment and have that sense of achievement. Every time I spend like 2 hours of it and it might seem a bit like contradictory like are you trying to reduce your screen time? But you can do that while still being like a content creator or like a digital Creator. I feel like even if you were a Creator and you spend 2 to 3 hours a day, it's really not that bad because you are also making contact for others to indulge in but you are like using that time productively and I feel like that was one of the reasons why I want to start. I was already using so much time on Instagram anyway so why not get something out of it. The second reason documenting your journey is like, I'm one of those people who I take photos of everything, like two photos videos from. Like even the young age I just took photos of every fucking thing. Like I have I have videos of myself since I was fucking like 10 years old, 12 years old. But if you're someone who just loves taking photos like documenting the whole journey just seeing your growth on Instagram is actually crazy. Like I scroll down from when I first started like 8 months ago and I just see the contact I made and it's cringy. Yes, of course. It is. Of course you're going to find that cringy but it's there for other people to make sense of. But also for you to see your growth, like you can see how your content has changed and how your mind that has matured over the years. And it's something that I really do see myself pursuing even in medical school even like after medical school for It's too early to say but I really do see myself like pursuing this long-term. And yeah, it's a really great way to document things. Especially if you have like no clouds or you just you just dump all those photos and low photos on Penn and you can delete them off your phone and it just it just makes much more sense for everyone, you know. So the third reason why you said sorry I said a gram is because the helps with people pleaser Tendencies. And I'm reading this off my laptop, I'm going to have a look on my tank top because I watch the tiktok of someone saying something similar, but I'm going to read it aloud. Okay, this is this is from a guy called Justin schuhmann. And he said, some of you don't realize that creating content is one of the first steps and getting over your people pleasing. And it shows when you create contact, you have to at least for a moment. Be willing to believe that you deserve to take up space and be willing to believe that what you have to say. And your story matters and is deserving of being hurt. Do, you know when you're doing in your real life, when you people, please when you curate and construct and perform this version of yourself, You built it to be tolerable and palatable to other people. You're giving them your space. It is an active demonstration of the fact that you don't think you or your story matters. So if you want to practice being yourself, Showing up here and telling stories taking up space for the world to see. Great option. So I really really agree with this. Like, I don't think that it is the one way that will like creating content and like posting your life on Instagram for the world to see. It's definitely not a fix like a quick fix for your people, pleaser Tendencies, but I was definitely like I was a fucking doormat. Okay, I let everyone walk over me, I was at extroverted kid but also very like quiet and I didn't really show my internal thoughts and I was kind of scared for people to judge me especially insects for him. I think that really showed. I was definitely going through it. I was just crying roads, but I think going on Instagram or and creating this public profile, it's really helped me to distance myself from my personal past. So right now I have a personal Instagram, and a public Instagram. So it, my personal Instagram. I feel like is where I post my relationship. My friendships, you know, things that people really care about my personal life. So, maybe I have a few achievements that I personally wanted to attain or things that are related to me and maybe like 6 form or GCSE friends or just things that I find really personal to me and only for my small community of what six hundred followers to see. But my public profile is a different personality where I kind of talk about anything really. So I talked about health at Patient. I talked about awareness and PCOS and I talked about my brain tumor and I talked about those of different health issues and current like politics. And I really enjoy that being able to talk about something that is so topical and not so much about myself, but just the general like climate and Healthcare. I think that's really important and I really like that having a platform enables me to do that but going back to the point of being a people-pleaser it's definitely help me. Social medias, definitely helped me a lot with my people pay your Tendencies and that I don't really give a fuck about what other people think of any more. Like if they are not like supportive of what I do and if they you know, domini or make me feel a bit like I'm barest or why are you talking about this like or send me a post of myself and they're like, laughing about it. And then not something that I would upset right now socially since I've become a lot more confident and a lot like take a lot less shit than I used to and I think I know my self-worth now and social media has definitely helped a lot with that. The fourth the fourth reason is that wall like Financial benefits, advertisements and paid promotion and sponsorships and PR like to get free stuff. It's not as common as you think is still does happen. I've definitely gotten a few like fair share of sponsorships but I don't really, it's a lot of time starting as a small content creator. It doesn't happen as often as you think. It's not as frequent as you think. And a lot of people start like a study G or like public Instagram for the wrong reason. And it's to become famous and become this Hotshot, like big star overnight and it just doesn't happen. I think these Financial benefits do come with time. Of course, like when you hit 100K, when you hit 250 500k, like 1 million, of course you're going to have like, management agencies are going to have people who are working in public relations, people who are actively managing your Instagram for you. And that really does help with bronze getting to know you and Brands reaching out to your manager who then reach out to you, who doesn't get all this back and forth with you. I think starting a social media should not be based on the premise that you're going to benefit from it financially. But it definitely is a full-time job in that you're constantly managing your own Instagram. So you're keeping an eye on your emails, just checking daily and thinking of content like everyday. I kind of struggling with it sometimes, but honestly, like having an Instagram is one of the most fulfilling jobs that I've ever had. Anyways, it is so rewarding especially when people the Army and go like, oh my gosh, I got an offer from Sheffield as well. I can't wait to see you next year after, of course, that's kind of intimidating initially, but I know that people mean well, and it's so great to see how everyone's come along with their medicine offers and people are just messaging. Me saying, thank you for your stories. Thank you for sharing your brain tumor on your PCOS journey and often I love the time I get these damn about what should I do regarding my medical issue? And honestly a lot of time and just like go see your GP but I'm not even I'm not even a medical student. Why are you asking? But yeah, it's great to see how people are so inclined and so encouraging. And so supportive in my comments and I just love and that's another accomplishment in itself. Another achievement is that you get to really impact someone like. I personally don't see it myself, but if I can even impact one person then it just made my day. So yeah, I haven't really talked about the study G part of it, but I will talk about it now. So you having a study G, I don't think I constitute a study G because mine is more like lifestyle catered but there are different types of study G that you can make your account to kind of feel like. So, if you're struggling with showing your face, or if you're struggling to, you know, put a nature accounts. I know lots of people are like, oh, I'm not fully ready to go. Back to showing my face or commit to putting my name on this and I just want to do it behind the scenes, you know, just not let anyone know it's me. And it's kind of like a secretive thing and that's completely fine. Your prerogative. I have, I know there's this one account called study. Oh. A her name's you throw and she is absolutely amazing. I think you should definitely follow her. She doesn't show her face but it's not a secret account. She shows her desk, set, up being there, all aesthetic and everything she has LED light. She has a little I think it's a snow globe. I'm not too sure. But anyways she's starting Audiology and she's amazing. So go follow her right now but honestly, it's Not a big problem if you don't show your face. I personally chose to show my face because you know I like to put a face to my stories and uniqueness and who I am and just sharing my brain tumor journey, I think it would make much more sense if I shave my face. Since I'm showing a lot of videos and clips of myself, having that brain tumor in the first place. But I know that's not everyone's staying. And that's not everyone's cup of tea and that's totally fine. I also know a few other medicine instagrammers. So has studies underscore that Harriet who I talked to a lot. So she posts a lot of notes. So some study grammar is like to post their handwritten notes, which are beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. And they write on your iPad or just had written on paper and it's just gorgeous. I know it's not the most popular. But it's definitely like just beautifully written manicured, handwritten, Nothing Like Us. They would like anatomical, diagram Jessica's. But yes, those those are two types of Instagram that you could chew rates your feet into looking. If you are starting out and you're not too sure and feeling a bit embarrassed or you just not fully ready to commit. That's definitely an idea for you. Also one one thing I guess so much about study G and starting a public Instagram and general is that you're going to feel embarrassment and you're definitely going to feel like awkward in the first place. I remember until I was like four hundred followers in, I don't care to buy for $5. By the way, I don't like timestamp it by number of followers, but that's just How my brain kind of works. Cuz it's always in the back of my head is just like a little counter but I just don't remember the exact day. I think. It was during the summer, probably during the summer, maybe like September or something. But anyways, 400 followers in, I didn't tell anyone that I had medicine account. So I never told anyone. I didn't put my username anywhere for me to plug, like I didn't even put it on my Tik-Tok. I don't think cuz my grew faster than mines around, but I didn't put it anywhere. So I just let I remembered some of my in real life friends, found it and they followed it and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so scared cuz they're going to see it and they're going to think, while what a fraud like she's is such a faker. Like she's just posting her picture, perfect life. But in reality, I know she looks so much worse than that. She's so much more like not put together or not manicured, not groomed at all. It's just What figure, you know, and then it was not like that at all. Like I feel like I gave people too much shit and didn't get really give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but everyone was so supportive to my face, at least. I'm pretty sure is. Some people have talked some bad shit about it, okay? Go getting over your embarrassment and your anxiety and your awkwardness. It's going to happen maybe like after a few weeks of doing it consistently because having a public Instagram, you kind of don't feel the pressure of your friends and your family watching you. Just imagine that. It's just people, you don't know and I kind of lump them all together into the group that people I don't know. And It's so much easier when it's like that, it just takes all the pressure off your shoulders, then I wouldn't post anything on my public that I wouldn't like be proud to show my friends. And I think that embarrassment and anxiety and this awkwardness definitely goes away. So, Make sure not to push your studygram like dreams or like your goals of starting an Instagram back just because you're having a bit of embarrassment over it because I promise you that social pressure from your peers and your friends and your family, it will go away. Trust me. Also, just wanted to add that another reason why you should start a study G is because you get to meet so many like-minded people. I am not MediCal Steven yet. I start in September, but I've met so many medical students and so many doctors that it's not even networking anymore. Its just making so many different connections and so many friendly, like faces that it's a little community, and I love that. There's a little medicine in the UK Community. There's like medical students who are supporting the junior doctor strikes, and I see it in my stories all the time. And I love that everyone's so supportive of the strikes and I love that there's going to be so many friendly faces. Like, I know this girl called Wellness medical Leia. She also goes the same unit as me as I will be attending, but she's so sweet. And she offered to give me her medical school notes. And that's just another kind gesture. That I feel like a lot of the time you're going to receive from starting a social media because you got to really make emotional connections and make these friends on Instagram. I have so many I've made so many friends on Instagram, but it's just crazy how you can reach so many people and you can make so many networking connections and it doesn't even feel like you're forcing. It's just you me people, you follow them. They follow you back and you get along with like, five going. And then a lot of time you just not We make friends and it's great. And also I feel like a lot of the time having a study G can actually make you feel more academically productive. Now, I am not going to sit back and say, like, I am a direct product of this. Of course, I started my Instagram after my elbow was I remember my first purse actually. It was like just finished biology paper 3 went poorly but, you know, we move. But yeah, I like it definitely challenging academically because you can see that everyone's kind of on the top of their game and you can see how hard everyone else is working and that kind of motivates you to study harder as well. But for a lot of people, this can also be contradictory because you see a lot of people studying but then that can kind of make you feel demotivated instead. So it's kind of really about personal preference. I personally think that, It's really motivating and seeing everyone works so hard and seeing everyone reap the benefits. I see so many people like graduating from medical school. I remember match week was last week, so in the US where they medical students matching tutor specialty, it was so motivating saying that all over my feet. Just everyone going, like, oh my gosh, I match them to the OBGYN. I matched into like, internal medicine and surgery and Orthopedics, and it's just, it's just beautiful. And that's definitely where I want to be one day. It just might take into specialty that I love. I know. Matt doesn't exist in the UK, but I definitely want to kind of experience that where I find out where I'll be working for the next 5-6 years. So that's it. Yeah those are what? Five six reasons why you should start a study G and if you do, remember to message me on Instagram and just let me know. Bye bye. Before you leave. Make sure to follow me on Instagram at medic mornings, and Med by few PS. I did like a little name, change the mediocre doctor kind of got a bit of negative traction especially since a lot of people were like you're not a doctor yet and now I kind of am I, okay, I know. But I still think the username is super talk to you so I'm just going to keep it for my website but for a my Instagram it's at my birth. You also make sure to Give this a rating. Give this partisan rating. If you're listening it to Spotify, I feel podcast wherever you're listening it from. Make sure to give it a racing with the Stars and shit. Thank you so much. It definitely helps me a lot and see you next time. Bye bye. 

this is the most unplanned episode i've ever done. no planning, no researching, just straight vibes. you're going to hear about EVERYTHING i think about my gap year, from making new friends to realistic travel to starting my social media... you'll hear it all in this episode.☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @medbyfiotiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: @medbyfiotranscript (auto-generated, will have inaccuracies)Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of medic mornings. I'm your host Fiona and today I'm going to be talking basically about Gap year advice. So I'm currently 7 8 months into my car. So I feel like I have a good grasp of what exactly you got, your consists of, you know what I've done? German got your dad's been productive, what I would have done a little bit to change it but overall I'm just going to be talking about my experience and Avery just conversational matter because I know the my podcast have been very structured recently. You know how questions I've had guests over but I haven't really had much time to sit and reflect on my God. And this my podcast and I do whatever the fuck I want. So we're going to be doing that today. Without further Ado, let's get started. Okay, so results say that was when I kind of started knowing OSHA it, like I'm going to have to start planning my God. Because I was there was so many different things I wanted to do. Like, I want to try skydiving, I want to go make some new friends. I want to find new hobbies and I genuinely thought that I could, there was a whole year of me doing this. So I was like, the sky's the limit, you know. I can do whatever the fuck I want but now it's kind of like my mentality has shifted into a bit more mature and a bit more understanding that even though there's lots of time, you kind of have to prioritize because I felt that's my Gap year. Even though it has been very productive, there just simply wasn't enough time for everything, but like having an empty year sounds like a lot. But honestly there Enough time. So, what I did was I currently work a part-time job with Med entry, some of you might know, but I have been an ambassador for them. Since the summer of 2022, I believe ya the summer and they approached me and there were like, you've done great on your, your cat. We'd love to have you as an ambassador. And honestly, I was more than excited cuz I love my country. I love what they stand for, their programs are amazing. All the packages that I used, you know, not blaming other companies, I use, but they were by far the best that I have experienced personally, you know, there you got packages are amazing. If you want this Concord, you can just go on my website just a sneaky frog there. But yeah, Medici has been great as a company as, you know, as my boss They've been amazing. So I work part-time at Med entry as for right now I've done that since that summer and yeah it's been great. I got to earn money as well as you know, tutor people in Ukiah. And honestly what I was going to ask for. You know I'm getting paid and then why love? Which is like medical education and staying in touch with the medical admissions stuff. So I get to work with you do interviews and interview preparation for other people. But as of right now I'm just doing some you got stuff to prepare for the next admission season like personal statements as well. So I remember I was kind of going through people's personal statements. I've gotten love trading, to your key things to look out for a key things to not do in your personal statement. It's quite rigorous, an objective process. So I personally was very invested in that part as well. Yeah. That was that's most of my work that I've been partaking in and where most of my you like small income comes from. And my God. I'm also doing my driver's license test right now. So a lot of you know that I've been fully invested in the whole doing what you might not be doing in uni thing, you know. So and you need I probably would be stressed the fuck out and not have enough time to start to learn to drive and I'm on my third lesson right now, I'm on 66 7 hours in and I'm learning automatic. Automatic drivers don't know how to fucking drive but that's not my fucking fault cuz I just want to know how to drive. Like, I don't really care about the stick shift, or the manual or the gear stick or you need to know the clutch and everything or it's just too much are too clumsy for me or I can't be bothered. So I'm going to have to drive automatic. So I'm going to have a category B license at the end. And I'm planning on taking my driver's test in July, I believe ya July, and that's quite exciting. I love my driving instructor. I use passenger right now, like so yeah, if it's something you're interested in my my experience has been wholly, great butts. It's a bit like franchise so I'm not too sure. Aside from driver's testing, I was want to talk about my social media Journey. So social media was something that I really, really, really wanted to do for a long time. I don't know specifically what it was. I think I started my Tik-Tok in your 12, so I remember one takes out that I posted it. Caught 10K views the first to tell that I ever posted like, for serious reasons, was, you know, those medical application videos that are like here is where I'm applying and then put all your stats down and the cute video of you. I remember the song. It was visors, a cat and it was like and we both look Asian cuz you know how, you know how it looks like when you're drunk, you, you're like squinting apparently and that's what and we both look Asian. And then my friends are just laughing at me because I did get the song. I was like we both look Asian but you're actually Asian but it's making fun of Asians. So those on me I thought that was funny but going back to the actual topic it blew up. I think she likes 15 K views at a time 15K. Which I was insanely like shocked but I was oh my God, guys on Tik Tok famous, it's you know 15K which 15K is great but at the time I was like holy shit like this is a lot and I was getting, you know, it like a few hundred followers but not too much. And then I started doing another video, I believe on like a 4-stop and it was kind of productivity-based and I was kind of like, I might double into the Cenote, Tik-Tok, it was very easy to blow up and I found I found it relatively good at first, so I really like that. There was a bit of me. That was kind of like this is a lot of attention, but the other side of me was like, oh, I could actually use it for good, you know. I could actually like become one of those people who I looked up to so much I was like oh my God, that's Faith. Christina eliyahu. I just recently collabed with oh my God, she is so amazing. But I looked up to her so much and a few other Med YouTubers and a few other, like met instagrammers. I was like, holy shit, like they can do all. They're just showing that you can travel. We can have fun. You can have friends, and you can do all the stuff in medical school. And I'm like, I want to be like that. You know what, I want to show my journey and I've always been someone who's, you know, taking pictures and videos of everything. So that was me trying to diversify my portfolio in got beer. So I just wanted to try everything, you know, try everything, make a podcast are so YouTube channel starts at 6, outside and Instagram. And try all and see which ones are feasible to take into Medical School United, which ones are worth my time. And for, right now, that's Instagram and tiktok and my podcast, obviously, I'm taking my podcast to medical school. I don't think I'm going to do too much to my YouTube channel, but honestly, the YouTube channel was just where it got your memories and I really enjoyed that while it lasted. So, yeah, my camera is just sitting in the corner right now, but hopefully I'll have some use for that during my got your trip, which I'll talk about it more later. But yeah, my social media that Journey has been great. I feel like slowly progressing and I've slowly kind of gotten a better gist of what my contents should be. I hate the word in Spencer, like, no one, no one come up to me and call me one because that's just it. Printed me out, even though yeah, it just has me up, but I think that's my growth has been very organic, it's been great. And I've gotten a better understanding of, you know, of my, my followers, My listeners who I kind of want to portray and put myself there. As I thought I was about to see myself as a medical student, but honestly, I don't really mind that because if I am in medical students and that's going to be, you know, a lot of my life and I genuinely do. You love medicine in that. There's so much Beauty in healing people and I could just talk about it all day, honestly. So yeah, that's where my origin came from and how I really started my Instagram journey journey or whatever you want to call it. Okay, moving on to traveling. So I used to think like that. If you didn't travel, you are such a loser and I've changed a lot since then. So I'm going to say, I used to be so, so, so like far-fetched. I always tell people, you know, going to Australia for a freaking year during their Gap year. You know, people, people going to Latin America for 3 months. Actually, I saw lots of liked am doing that. But honestly, I was like, I want to be one of those people, you know, spending so much time, like going to South Africa to volunteer with children and like, Wildlife and everything. I just wanted to do that, you know, that pierced the time to go travel for a year and go work and you can get free accommodation of you, if you do a certain quota of like working every day. But honestly, I don't think that's really happened that much. I'm definitely planning some trips at the moment. So I have done Iceland with my family. I went for around 10 days to Iceland, it was so expensive. Like if you are on a budget, don't go Iceland. Yeah, I just want what I found me and it's been great. I feel like I have a better relationship with my family right now cuz you know we are understanding boundaries were respecting each other's space where respecting that each each of us have our own like timelines, and my mom's, and my dad's not to like overbearing, especially with Asian parents. I talked about this a lot, but sometimes Asian parents can be a Overbearing, but we were talking about this, the other night, how, my parents aren't really Asian parents, because a lot of the time, they don't even show up to parent conferences, they don't check our phones. They don't check like anything. They don't really put too much pressure on us academically. So I'm really grateful for the fact that my parents are understanding and your respectful and that sense. But yeah. To the point Iceland with great expensive, don't go there. If you're poor like me, like me personally but my family was fine with it. I also went back to Hong Kong, so I grew up in Hong Kong, and I live in Hong Kong, and I was born there and I did all my primary school and middle school in Hong Kong. So I went back there to visit my grandma primarily but I was also meeting my friends and honestly it was so great to meet up with everyone who I've grown up with with everyone who you know has seen a difference Tell me because I've matured so much emotionally and so has everyone else. So it's so great to see where everyone is on their little timeline. And honestly, it's like no time has passed. You know, when you see old friends of yours and it's so amazing to see how everyone's kind of matured at the same time, there's definitely people in my old school who I feel like our kind of, you know, talking in the emotional capacity for it. But overall, all my friends who I met, most of them are actually medical students. So, it's great to see how everyone's kind of struggling a little under Journey, but that's going to be me next year, so I can't really say anything. But yeah, it's been just so great meeting all my friends. Most of them are medical students and they're just talking about, you know, their Health Care System, how they get to do, like what flu jobs on each other and that was so insane to me like flu jobs on each other. I'd like a practical to ask and I was just so amazed. I was like, damn, I want to try that but it's in the UK. Probably would never happen. Yeah, it's just been so great. I really loved going back to Hong Kong, even though I probably wouldn't go back now cuz I couldn't be bothered to take another 13-hour, flight back to Hong Kong and there are no, really, no real ties, find me back to Hong Kong but since my family is all here and everyone I know is here. Yeah, possibly maybe one day, but not anytime soon. And this here I am so excited. I'm planning a gap year trip with two of my friends. We are going to France to Switzerland. After that, we're going to Croatia. We're going to Budapest. We're going to like everywhere that I haven't been so Europe. I've never really being except my son Which was last year. So I'm really excited to explore and do all the things that I got for your student should be there and you don't have fun with your friends, have fun and meet new people. Speaking of I let's talk about friendships, right friendships and got peers. It's tough to make friends honestly at the beginning. I was so stressed about, you know, I have to be making so many new friends, so many new friends cuz I don't like up here, right? And I'm going to like lose my Social, like my social skills, I'm going to become this loner and this person who just stays in the room all day and even though that's not that far from the truth. Even though that's not that far from the truth. I feel like, I've grown so much as an independent person, like much more than I have in the last 7 months than the last 7 years genuinely. And, I mean, that with my whole heart, like, I have grown so much matured and emotionally like invested in myself as an individual. You know, I used to get so much like social anxiety. I used to be so influenced by others that perceptions of myself, but starting the social media Journey, you know, starting this whole putting myself out there and naming myself and branding myself. As this person, I feel like it's been a lot of growth. And I really think that a guy fear is one of the best ways to grow in your Independence growing, your own skin and Put yourself outside of social standards and away from pressures of your peers pressures from your new Union varmints. There's definitely people who thrive in the environments, you know, people who I met, who are exactly the same. But also sometimes an Instagram I scroll through and I see some of my 64 and friends, and my high school friends that have changed completely. And it just made me think, like, their personality must have taken a hit, or maybe like a different approach. Because there's people who are genuinely, like, not true to themselves. And I feel like a lot of time you can lose your identity, and you need a lot. And even though that very well might possibly happen to me, I feel like I definitely have a better. What is it called? Locus of control enough. So we learned this in Psychology if you want to search that fine, but internal locus of control is when you feel like everything is within your control external, locus of control is when you're like, oh God, or like an external Factor, like, oh, it's because of, you know, the universe or The God or Gods will or God's plan not to shit on people because that's completely know what I'm trying to get at, but I feel like I have a better grasp of myself and what I personally, I'm able to attain an able to put within my reach and I don't know if that makes sense, but we're going to go with it. So yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Like Independence was a big thing for me and got here where I was just able to put myself in my own box and allow myself to navigate without the piers without peer pressure. Without parental pressure without anyone's personalities or anything. So I was just in my own opinions doing my own thing and it's been so great. So far, I thought meeting new people. I was on basically every social platform, you name. Like I've made so many Instagram friends through social media. Like I said, like I was just like, anyone want to make friends and I met so many people and so many people are just like, so kind and reaching out to me and just be like, hey, do you want to be friends and I just keep in touch with so many people. It's amazing. And I really appreciated and Being a part of everyone's though, medical Journey. But yes, so I met a lot of friends like a lot of pre-medical applicant friends who are on the same path as me and maybe I'll see you a few of them and Sheffield. Do you know that is kind of concerning my kind of scary. I'm really scared that people are going to be. Why do you look so different in person? that's what I like my biggest fear, but yeah, I really hope I live up to everyone's expectations, cuz on me, that's like, I'm just not used to it honestly but yeah, I'm making new friends and got beer has been great. I've made a couple friends actually cut a couple and my clothes Circle who I talk on the daily with. But overall I would say, my Independence has healed. I've definitely gotten a lot more confident in myself as a person and also as like just loving myself in general and I think my got here has been so beneficial in doing that. Finally, I just want to wrap this up by saying if you're considering taking a gap year, take the fucking Gap year. I always say that but I have never been more in love with myself than I am right now. I have never been more confident in my own skin that I have right now and there is not a single person who regrets are God. Genuinely like people will shit on that and be like, oh my gosh, you're just going to like waste a lot of time. You're just going to lose a lot of your academic knowledge and your academic abilities. And you know what, I kind of agree. I kind of agree that you will lose a research go. If you will lose a little bit of your knowledge, your a-level biology chemistry psychology in college, but that can be regained so easily the amount of skills that you learn on your Gap year or so invaluable. You know, you're personable skill, is your social skills. I would like Independence and having a scent of your own identity, that is an invaluable experience that you can really attained through a gap here instead of emerging into uni immediately. And I am the biggest advocate for it. I am the biggest I was say every where I'm going to be one of those. Oh my God. Are you about my Gap year? But it's just, it's just become part of my personality. I just one, I promise you. I didn't talk about my copier that much in person. I know a lot of my friends can advocate for that. I'm just saying like final notes, just if you're considering it take, take it, just take it, just take it. I love you. Have any questions. Feel free to DM me on Instagram. I'm always available. And yeah, I always check my request daily, pretty sure. So if you want to talk, I'm there and this has been such a great conversation, going to be quite easy to edit, to be honest cuz I haven't started that much especially since I'm going to conversation. So I don't really have to like trip over my words. I just think of them and if they come to me, they will. So yeah, it's been a great. Thank you for listening to this episode of medic morning. If you enjoyed it, please remember to like it on Spotify or apple music, wherever you're listening on and make sure to follow me on the mediocre doctor and medic mornings on Instagram. Where do lots of human has often and I will post a lot of units Snippets of each episode every week and yeah, see you next time. Bye bye. 

hi guys!! just a little reintroduction as we've got loads of new friends here. please remember to leave a rating on spotify, apple podcasts... wherever you're listening it from. thank you so so much for y'all's support and so excited to give you guys some new content!!☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctor

in this episode, i answer ALL of your questions about a-level biology - how to answer application questions, how to revise effectively and more. hope i gave good advice!! if you have any questions, feel free to message me on all platforms! i'd love to hear from you <3timestamps[0:42] best online resource for biology?[2:32] what to do after getting past paper questions wrong?[4:10] how to revise all a-level content before the exam?[7:04] best tips for revision? i understand topics but struggle to get marks[9:11] maths + application in biology?[11:39] how did you revise?[14:37] how to identify what the examiner wants you to say?[15:52] are notes or mindmaps efficient?[17:37] another episode on chemistry / maths?[18:08] how to answer application questions[20:32] exam techniques?[21:14] how to revise effectively? i spend so long revising but it doesn't pay off☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctortranscript (for SEO only - auto generated so WILL have errors)Good morning, guys. Welcome back to another episode of medic mornings. I'm so excited to be starting today's episode because I am answering all of your questions on biology anyting, biology related and there's a lot of questions. So I'm going to try my best to answer all of them. But if I haven't then, send me a DM and I'm more than happy to help you. All right, let's get started. I haven't seen any of your question, but I'm looking through them right now, and these are some good questions. The first question is by someone who asked, what is the best online resource that you have used for biology? If you know me, I'm like, the queen of using online resources. I don't know if it was just me and my school, but everyone had a laptop or an iPad of some sort. So I used only the Kaboodle app. I don't know if you know it. But for ocra, there is a caboodle book that has the original Oxford book and it's the best resource. It's the textbook that all of your students should have aside from that, I didn't really use any online resources. I want you to buy, that was just my personal study Style. I also use the cgp book. If you're familiar with that, it's a handbook. It has all the cheat sheet, it has like equations formulas, small things you need to know but it's not really in much detail. So if you're looking for a good textbook, that is OCR certified go on crib oodle. I also want to explain. Why do you do sheep? Especially since I procrastinate a lot. I want to say more than the average person. I would say, when I'm on YouTube, I just start procrastinating and just click on to other videos that aren't really related to biology. And also, the concepts for YouTube is really differs from person to person. So I'm just a person that doesn't like you, do you shoot for apology but if you do, I would recommend mr. Murray, he helped me during my exam. Where he did these predictions and he's been quiet spot. Actually. So you would be doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't look at Mr, Maury, during your exam season. Another question by someone who asked? What did he do? After do past paper questions, did you memorize the answers? You go wrong. So far, I've tried memorizing questions. I got wrong. But I have so many to go through. How did you manage? This is such a good question and it's so specific. I love that. I personally did not memorize the answers that I've gone wrong. I know a lot of people do this specific method where they input the question that they got wrong on annke and over time, you'll come and revisit again. But for me personally, I think that once you get a question wrong, you get it wrong once. But then you'll redo the past paper. Again, that's what I did. So I just read the entire past paper and because in biology, there is only so many past papers, you can go through. So, a lot of the time, I just repeated the past paper over and over again. And also one piece of advice is to not dwell on those like question that you got wrong because, especially in biology, it's very content, heavy. And there is a bell, Application but it's always within the specification. So as long as you know the contents as long as you are 100% sure on the textbook and everything within a textbook then you are completely fine. Don't worry about it too much. Someone asked any examples on how to revise all a level bio contents to our exam time. Do past paper questions, I did a YouTube video on this, it's titled how to make a schedule, and if you call my YouTube channel, you will see. But I'll quickly brief over again. So a level by a lot of content. We know it's the most content, happy subject. So the first thing you want to do is not stress about it too much. You want to do your your 13 content first, because we underestimate how much we actually remember from your 12. Your 12 content is the basic and the fundamentals of your 13 and you will definitely never forget it all. It's just impossible to forget all. So my biggest is to go through your 13 content. First, make sure you get on top of that because basically and you're 13 you're learning the same amount of content as your 12 but half the time so you need to know all your your 13 content by April. I'm assuming. And then on April you want to go through your your 12 content. So perhaps every single day you should write two or three chapters. So within cells topic, we had one topic where I was just cell membranes and dimes the arrangements of eukaryotic cells. So I would just do eukaryotic cells and cell membranes in one day. And then the next day I would do another topic so you should arrange it. That you will not miss any topics out and you should be extremely diligent with your time. Biology is one of those really time-management fussy subjects where you have to be excellent at time management otherwise you will never get everything done. So just be diligent, I personally, I stayed at school till 6 p.m. every single day and that's definitely not healthy. But my house was like a two-minute walk away from the school. So I had the facilities to do that, but some people who need to travel who have strict curfew staying at home. To revise is also good. I spent a lot of time in my bedroom, but if you're able to manage your time wisely than you're able to revise, all of the content as well as get your past papers in especially for biology, I would say that content is more important than past paper questions. So if you can park Why is knowing the content first then application is something that you can do further on right before your exam. Someone asked best tips for revision, I understand topics, but struggle to explain it to get marks. Biology is inherently a very content, happy subject. So the main thing is that you should understand the mark scheme, the first thing you should do is consolidate your learning. So use Anki, use Quizlet or any method that you're comfortable with any apps that are facilitated for flashcards spaced repetition, all these techniques, utilized them for a revision for your content first. And when you understand topics, but he struggled to explain it. Then that means that you struggle to understand it in the first place because understanding content is inherently being able to teach it to someone. So just pull your biology, classmates to one side and maybe every lesson, just teach each other a topic. Perhaps, teach you some other, you know, the entire genetic topic and just add on ideas. And that's kind of how you Regurgitate that information over and over again. Another tip that I have for revision, especially for those who struggle to explain it is, literally do the past papers from the very beginning. So, I think OCR goes all the way back from 2002. So start from those past papers, those past papers, from 2002 to 2016, I believe are the old specification and even though they're the old specification people are like it's not reliable. Honestly, the exam technique required from that. Time. To know, is basically the same, they have some stuff. That's not an arse back. I know they have a lot of food stuff like cholesterol but honestly for most of it, it's very relevant, it's very applicable to our specification. So make sure you do some old past papers as well as their useful. Someone asked maths and application with a broken heart emoji. Okay, formats and application in biology, they're fairly simple for me because I took psychology and that was incredibly difficult. Especially we had research methods and we had like six different significant tests that we needed to remember, but math I would say is I think you get given the equation. So you just need to know what the little symbols in the equation mean for biology. I think that means a t-test. You need to know spearman's Rank and Saturday patient. And yeah, I think that's it. So, those math equations, that you will be given just remember how to use them. And also, the small equations, like, magnification. Just remember, magnification is image over actual image size over actual size, and lot of people struggled with that. And also, For Maxi, part of biology. I think it's fairly simple. I think chemistry is where it starts to get really confusing. But yeah, for biology, just remember that the equations are given to you and just know how to use them, know the significance test. So I think they'll be like it's a significant or not and you need to know the probability, if it's over 5% or something. But yeah, those are really the only things that you need to remember about biology maths, it's really not that complicated, a lot of the time, teachers overcomplicate it, but just remember, it's very straightforward. You just need to know the probability. The statistics you don't even need to remember the formula. So you're good. The application part of biology is where a lot of people struggle, because it's worded. So weirdly of the times, they're like one Mark, and then one more questions are easier, but when it comes to the essays, sometimes it can be there. Cool. So what I did personally was I didn't highlight any of the key words. I make sure I just re-read the question over and over again and write what you think is relevant. So overtime, over doing lots of past paper questions, this becomes more easy and I promise you it gets easier. I promised, how did he revise? Someone as I spoke, a lot about this in my text. So I revise easing and key the most. And I also revised using past papers, and that's about it. I made notes, I made really, really pretty looking though. It's on Google. So, I highlighted a lot of it, I made comments on the side. So if you know, you can I comment on some highlighted text, right? So I use that a lot because it was kind of like little sticky notes on the sides. I also put sticky notes on my bedroom wall which did absolutely fucking nothing. I didn't look at the notes once but I feel like just seeing everyone else do it like put sticky notes on their wall. I thought it was super cool and I wanted to try it. It didn't work, I will not be doing that again but which one to make. So I'm so sorry for my really curly boys. I usually don't sound like this, but I have had the flu for the past few days so this is what you're getting, okay. Nick's someone asked how to memorize content long-term for me. I didn't have this issue a lot of the time, it's just because you're cramming so much information into your brain at such a little time. So that is why your information is falling out. But what you have to do is just right over and over again, get a piece of scrap paper. Do the blessing technique, which is when you just look at the text book 4, 10 minutes. I'm right everything that you know down and reread it and go over with red pen. What you have missed out and then get another piece of paper. The next day. Don't even look at the text, but just write everything that, you know, from that topic and see if there are any irregularities. See if there are any mistakes with in it and just keep doing that every single day. So I really struggled with the next topic. I also really struggled with translocation a lot. So the process within translocation like the pumping of H+ ions, the movement of sucrose from a high concentration to a low concentration. So I use the birthing technique for that, I just drew all out. I wrote the entire process down and that's kind of how you get it to go into your long-term memory. Especially since it's a semantic type of information semantic is basically when you input information into your brain, due to its actual Eating instead of just putting it into your brain cuz it's there, you know, you actually have to understand it and that's how it gets into your long-term memory because it means something to you and it's attributed to something and your mind recognizes it more and that's how you get it to stick. Someone also asked how to remember or identify what points examiners want us to say, there is no cheat code for this. There is no, short-term hack or hit. That's going to help me help you. You're going to have to do that yourself, through lots of past papers, lots of dedication and time. So you're going to do past papers every single day. You're going to dedicate 2 hours to biology every single day, because that's what it requires because of its large Content Volume. And essentially this is just something that is unavoidable. I agree that sometimes it can be really difficult because examiners want something. But then they rephrase the question so weirdly but if it's really difficult than other people will find it difficult as well. So you're scored on a curve and the most important thing is that you do your job and You look at more past papers, the more past papers, you come across the better, you will get. So make sure you just put your time. Turn off your phone, turn on your Forest app. Just do your revision and it will come. I promise I promise some of that are notes or my maps efficient, I didn't do any money or any sort. I remember I didn't mind maps about the Maasai, Mara topics when our teacher for stuff to make some, they had to make it all pretty and stuff. But no, I did not do any my maps. I think personally their waste of time especially in biology because you're trying to link topics together and I can see how it works. So you can say oh the cell biology is involved in the plants topic. It's involved in the the breathing and exchange surfaces topic cell membranes are involved in the alveolus. And that's how it connects together but I personally didn't find it useful at all. I also know that you could make money online. So maybe I would have made my maps online. But I also made notes. So I already went through how I made notes on goo. But make sure you make them really pretty, make you make them really pastel highlighted. But also remember that tables charts and graphs are going to be your best friend. So whenever you get any information, I remember there was a thing called Divergent and convergent. I think you have to put these pictures and these words into tables and charts and that's how I organized my mind into a more like simplistic layout. So you want to compare these directly against each other. I don't know if this makes any sense, but if you struggle with this, then send me the arm and I'll explain it in a bit more detail. Someone asked as well. Could you do 140cr come and Edexcel maths? Of course, I don't do math. I did psychology or CR and I know lots of people don't do those or a psychology since it's such a small subjects, but I will definitely do one for OCR chemistry as a lot of people to OCR chemistry. Okay I'm checking my account now or questions. Okay, I've got a lot of questions here as well. One person ask tips to answer application questions. They'll be the death of me low. Oh my God. I genuinely paper, 3 and biology was literally the bane of my existence. I hated it so much. And also, why are the great battery's so low for paper 3? It's probably cuz everyone hate to do this as well. But application questions is the only way to get past them is two more past papers. I know that's not what you wanted to hear as a person who also struggled with application a lot doing more past paper questions delegating answers with her friends as well asking them what they wrote down and looking at the Mark scheme memorizing the mark scheme and then writing that Mark scheme as the way you would answer. All of those questions. Moving forward is the way I would answer application questions. A lot of people are also asking, I know the content but can struggle to hit the mark scheme. This is such a common topic and all my questions. Oh my gosh, it really is a big struggle. Yeah, I would say biology is one of those subjects that takes a lot of dedication and time and patience to get to that stage where you can achieve a consistent, a star. I mean, the mop before I did my actual exam icon a not the a star. So it really depends on what paper is. I think a lot of people will feel lucky and some people feel like they could have done better on each paper. And personally, I feel like you will never feel prepared, you will never feel a hundred percent prepared to take an exam. But just trust your content, trust your revision, trust everything that you've done, because application questions are hard Are difficult, but once you revise more once you put the time in on the hours and and the past paper questions and then it will show and I promise you, it will get better because the start of your 13 always seem so hectic and it seems like such a difficult exam to overcome but I promise you guys it will get better. A lot of people. Also asked, could you talk about is on techniques and specific Mark scheme answers for exam techniques? I think main questions like multiple choice questions. I personally did those last I always skim read the multiple choice question but I left them for the last because if the time came to where I could just guess and move on, I think the main technique and the main denominator in this is to do more pass paper questions and I know that sounds very disappointing. but it really is the only way and the only consistent way and the only proven way to improve Someone asked how do you effectively revise? I feel like I spent so long revising but doesn't pay off. This sounds a bit like a burnouts. Essentially during your revision. You should feel like every session is doing a little bit, you're learning a little bit and after each session, you should consolidate your notes through a key and that's why I did if you want a more in-depth on keeps toriel. Look at my YouTube, or look my Tik-Tok. I think, if you're struggling to see any change in your grades, or in your test results, then the main important is to take a little break, especially since burnout is so intoxicating out, I really struggled with burnout during the last period of my exam like the last month moving on to my exam. I mean, I literally went to a beach two weeks before the exam and I procrastinated on YouTube the entire one week before the exam, but it's really important. And to recognize burnouts and when you're burning out, it feels like everything you're doing is pointless, it's useless and it can feel tiring to revise. And at that point you have to question whether you're spending your time productively because there's a different type of productive. You know, there is actually productive and feeling productive but you're not actually doing things so feeling productive. As when you're doing the revision, putting the hours in but nothing is actually encoding inside your mind. When you start feeling burnt-out, it feels like you're doing things. It feels like you're doing these notes, you're writing these papers and you feel like you're at the top of your game. But when it comes to the exam, you don't remember any of these things and That's kind of what it feels to burn out and also procrastinating a lot is also a sign of burnout. So, take a day off, take a day off to not do your revision. Take a day off to just relax and allow yourself to take that break because in the long-term, you will thank yourself. Because if you don't take breaks, then that procrastination. It's just going to extend more and more and more until it eats into your exam revision time, and that's all to mately the worst decision ever. Lastly, I just wanted to make a small encouragement and word of advice for you guys. I know biology is so difficult. It honestly was the most difficult subject that I had personally aside from psychology, but it is so rewarding when you see the results and you see the hard work pay off the goal is In your reach and it honestly is in your reach. A star. And that is so itchy vable, I promise you. If I can do it, you can do it. And I'm so proud of all of you. I know that you can achieve this biology grade and your medical school acceptance is. I can't wait to hear from you guys. Just a word of encouragement that got a start is attainable. And it's not a dream, it's not a hope and it's a reality. For all of you guys that you can do this. Thank you for listening to my podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. And as always, if you enjoyed, make sure to rate me on Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever you're listening it from thank you for being my journey, and thank you for supporting me always. I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of the day and see you guys next time. Bye bye.

why do some premeds hate on people who watch grey's anatomy? in this episode, i answer this question alongside my own personalised list of the unrealistic (i.e would never happen in the NHS) and unethical (i.e the GMC would catch you faster than you can say "i did CPR on a DNR patient") scenarios. hope yall love this little fun ramble i put together <3☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctortranscript (auto generated so WILL have errors)Hi guys. Good morning and welcome back to another episode of medic mornings. I'm your host Fiona and today I'm going to be talking about Grey's Anatomy, which is my absolute favorite comfort show. Right now, I've watched it around like two years ago, so I'm pretty familiar with all the characters I've watched up to season 8 and refused to go any further than that. Cuz that's when it started going downhill. I'm going to be talking about the perceptions of Grey's Anatomy within the medical community as well as what they represent and accurately perhaps any of the unethical scenarios with in there. It's going to be a ride. So buckle up and let's get started. Okay, so the first thing I'm going to be talking about is why people hate other people who watch Grey's Anatomy. And this is especially especially as a pre-medical students. So I remember when I was pre-med, like, I feel like whenever I said, oh, I love watching Grey's Anatomy. I will also get a lot of like reactions. Like oh, you're just going into medicine just because you watch Grey's Anatomy. And I think there's always that perception. That's when someone watch Grey's Anatomy. They, they don't understand the idealistic, you know, the glorified and the rose-tinted perception of medicine that is completely not true. You can watch a TV show while understanding that is not the case in real life. You can also watch a TV show just for fun and you don't have to like make everything your career and you can watch TV shows like just for fun just for humor is just for bags. Just Jokes. You don't have to. You don't have to take it so seriously and I have two reasons why I think people hate pre-med to watch Grey's. Anatomy of the first one is that they think you're in it for the luxurious the hot sexy seeing the relationships and how glorified it is. So I know Grey's Anatomy like it's probably the number one medical TV show. I know another one called Chicago, Med is a lot more realistic but Grey's Anatomy is so popular because it fits in with a narrative. Doctors are so sexy medicine as such a, you know, such a sexy profession and in reality, it's that's not true at all. But people think that's, you go in for the money for everything that Grey's portrays which is not the case in real life. The second reason why people hate Prima to enjoy Grey's Anatomy is because of medical people being 100% altruistic and I think that because the show is portrayed as very dramatic and very romanticized that people think that pre-meds are only in it for that kind of lifestyle and in a career where you're supposed to give your all your 110% to your patients to the safety of your patient and to prioritize them over everything including yourself that is seen as selfish. I think that's also another reason why I like actual medical people hate Grey's Anatomy, so much is because it depicts it in, such a different light. The public really doesn't know the extent to which Health Care is so different and so far stretched from what it's actually portrayed. As I mean, Shows like Grey's Anatomy just undermine the entire profession. So it's actually okay to be selfish in your medical career. I think putting yourself first and put in what you're good at first end, put in your mental health and prioritizing yourself over patience, is definitely a mindset that everyone should have. Honestly, I think that I talked about this before, but medicine people are held to a higher standard than the rest of the population, competitiveness and jealousy. And like, just comparison in general, is such a big bang within the medical community. And a lot of people will do, whatever it takes to scoring you to put you down. And if it takes just a silly little show, a silly little TV show to put you down, then they take that as an opportunity. And so for my medicine girl, he's out there keep watching. Knocked me, keep fantasizing and romanticizing it because life is too short to not watch TV shows you like. And yeah I just love like even as a medical student, I feel like in the future, I'll just have a rough day at work and really struggle with medical school, but when I come home, I'm going to have this conference show. Eat my dinner. What about Grey's Anatomy? And it's going to be such a fun life. I feel like This part is going to have a lot of spoilers, so if you haven't walked past season 8, then this is not the episode for you. So just click away. But if you do like spoilers or if you've already watched the entire like, eight seasons then, keep listening to the first scenario that really irked me and what prompted me to start this episode. It's when is he cut the lvad wire? And basically, I don't know exactly what the lvad wire does. I think it's something to do with like the heart and the is like a artificial pacemaker or something like that. Feel free to correct me. But basically, when she cut the lvad wire, she just said she quit and then she left. But then she persuaded the chief of surgery to come back. And she just got a slap on the wrist like, honestly, that is so absurd. I feel like that just shows that General public who are watching this. They don't get reprimanded at all. She had the wrong intention, and a malicious, not malicious. But a definitely, a very unethical decision to put Danny to cat the patients under so much pain and his heart, literally stopped. And she as a provider definitely abused her position. So I'm surprised that she even got out of jail. Like, she didn't even have her medical license remove. She was still able to become a practitioner, or physician and honestly, in real life, I think she would definitely have gone through the legalities went to Medical Court richly. It's insane. How she even got away with that and was able to start practicing within like 2 weeks. Anyways, the second scenario. I feel like is a very prominent theme within the show is sex and on call rooms and I know it sounds like It looks insane. I mean well I definitely know in reality on call rooms are like, no one has a time or energy to actually have sex in them. But I mean I'm pretty sure their stories of people doing frisky things and Encore rooms but nowadays I feel like everyone just so tired and so ready to go home to their spouses to their significant others who are actually waiting for them at home and especially since like even if you date another talk to her marry another doctor. It's very rare that your schedule is like mine. I'm sure like there are issues with you making sure your annual leave is. At the same time you take the same weekends off, but often times it's very hard because basically in the UK in medicine, you have different rotation at different horse. Who's I'm pretty sure. So, it's Often times you are at different hospitals even if you go to the same Medical School even if you have the same like deanery so it would be very hard to align your schedule. Yeah that's another thing like everyone in the TV show is so unloyal like the person with the longest standing relationship is just Meredith and Derek and Everyone else is just like hopping around with each other, everyone slept with everyone. And that's just insane to me, like, never never would have happened in real life, especially with not with like medical professionals like get yourself together. Okay, the next one is at, everyone seems to be extremely promiscuous, attractive, and single. Okay. In America, I understand that their interns, right? So they're going to be 4 years of undergrad. Four years of medical school and then they're going to be interns after that. But I'll all the time they take a so, like average to got peers, so that would be great. Let me do the math. They are 29 in the show when they're in turns, 29 years old. And I'm not saying that all 29 year olds medical interns have to be single, but there's a very big chance that a large percentage of medical interns are going to be married or in a long-standing relationship. And I kind of believe that like all the main characters were single at the beginning of the show, like, that is just completely unrealistic. And it's very difficult to imagine that they don't have, you know, they haven't met their significant other in college or university or medical school, that is strange. Okay, 4th weird thing. That is completely wrong. I wouldn't happen in real life is that they're choosing? What specialty they're going into. So I remember in the beginning. Christina was like I'm going to do cardio thoracic and Meredith didn't know what she wanted to do, but like it's been saying that they're choosing specific Specialties when they're interns in the UK. Basically, you have rotation and this is when during Foundation year one and Foundation Year to each choose specific Specialties that you want to try and you're going to spend four to six weeks and there's rotation and then you're going to switch Specialties after four to six weeks. So they don't have the authority or the power or the you know that they're not allowed to pick and choose what specialty they want. They always seem like they're complaining. Like, I have to do scut work. That's what all Insurance do, they? Most of them just do you like administrative work, typing up notes, patient notes and patient reports and generally, I don't know about America, but I think that even as an intern even in your chosen specialty like surgery, they don't have the authority to be like choosing cases that they want to do like stealing each other's cases. Like that, just not a thing and it's very strange to me, but I guess they have to make that for a TV serve. It makes for good TV and shows that they have some kind of authority over you stole my case that kind of thing. Okay. Number five, the fifth thing in Grey's Anatomy, that is completely wrong. Is that in real life? Hospital list. Don't wait in the emergency department to wait for ambulance in Grey's Anatomy. There's a lot of waiting around, like, waiting for a trauma, or waiting at the helipad, like the helicopter had. And I just found out really strange because his doctors definitely do not have the time to be waiting around to be waiting for the next, you know, accident, the next gunshot wound or something. So yeah. Ashley. I thought this was pretty funny but definitely is he would never have been able to, like spend that many resources on a deer, but I don't know if you guys remember that scene, where there was a deer who was like injured, and she had to, like, bring her interns along with her. Not only did she use those resources on a deer, a freaking deer, but she also wasted time and effort, and, like, learning time for those interns. I know, I would be pissed if my consultant decided to bring me out to save a life, but she also like wasted a lot of Human Resources. I don't know if that's the correct way to say it, but those interns are the workforce. So in the NHS that would definitely never happen, you know, everywhere is understaffed that would dress. Not happen and also is he in general was so like such a lousy doctor. Like honestly, do you remember that time when she ordered these unnecessary like scans for a patient? I'm sure did like to see these guys and everything. It was so weird just like she ordered a bunch of different scans to prove a point when they were trying to see, like who had the best case for the whole day and who would get the sparkle pager or something. But Yeah. Okay. Now I'm going to be talking about the ethics in Grey's, Anatomy. I know why it was such an issue because a lot of unethical thing just went past our noses and we just completely ignored it. Okay. So the first thing is Alex and his relationship with a patient. Also, there's a lot of scenarios where doctors are having relationships with patients, which is completely completely wrong. There, just a power Dynamic that is, you know, imbalance and it's so easy to be in that position of abuse. I remember, is he's relationship with Denny duquette, and that was just extremely, like, an ethical because as a provider and as a physician, you have to have a professional boundary, which is definitely blurred when you're pursuing a romantic relationship with them. So, you have, It's really difficult to provide diagnosis to provide medication and to see the patient and an objective light when you are in a romantic relationship because of her proximity with them. You're obviously going to think of them similar to your family and that's the same rule of doctors, not being able to diagnose and prescribe for their family is because lines are so blurred and you're going to you know exaggerate or underestimate or see symptoms differently. So yeah I think that was completely unethical and it's a very common theme in the show. I think it's just to keep the audience watching and engaging. The Knicks another Coast Mario is when dr. Addison Shepherd. So. Sheppard's wife told Izzie to keep the baby alive till the morning but the baby died. And then the next morning is he told Addison that the baby died. And then Addison said, she knew the baby was going to die, but she told is he after that this was a learning experience to not be so emotionally attached to patients because as he had like a track record of, you know, being very involved with her patients Madison made up this whole thing to just teaches you a lesson and that is so. So so unethical first off I feel like as Izzy I would be hurt but I would also emphasize deeply with the baby's mother and father. Because imagine your parents and you have a newborn baby at the hospital and you realize that is dyed. Not only did it die it died, right? As a teaching lesson to a new intern. I think, what's most unethical and the scenario is that Addison didn't notify the parents before the baby died, she had knowledge of this. She knew that the baby was going to die because of its its terminal illness or something, but she didn't notify the family, which is the first thing you should come and of do when you have a prognosis for the patients, which is the baby and The parents could have spent their 12 hours that is he was trying to look after the baby to actually spend time with her baby. Those 12 precious hours could have been spent a bit more differently and I think that's why she was unethical because she withheld, those prognosis her results. Her predictions of what might happen to the patient and she treated it as a life lesson as something that could be easily discarded and have little emotional attachment to. And I feel like it's really hard for me to describe the feeling but it's just completely and morally, and ethically wrong. Also, you know how Medical students and shadowing, work experience placements, whenever your shadowing, a GP, the GP, always has to say, I have a student here with me today. Do you mind if they sit and listen and watch, you know what shantara interaction? That's what happened at my work experience, placements, anyway, but I know that in hospital, placements as well. You have to tell the patient that there is a learning opportunity for the student watching and shadowing and being involved with your treatment of the patient, and they always have to give their verbal consent. So I feel like that was also a poor decision made by Addison where she didn't obtain the parents consent which obviously they have to give consent because they are the parents and they are the legal guardian and the baby has no decision-making abilities for themselves. So obviously the pair How to give consent. And that's probably the biggest issue here to a lesser extent. I feel like is he having that emotional trauma and you not knowing this was a learning experience, but being put through that traumatic turmoil with the baby dying in her hands, as an intern, while addison-new the entire time that the baby was going to die. It's just incredibly upsetting for both a z and a baby's parents. Okay, the fourth unethical snare that I really want to talk about is that unauthorized unauthorized. I'll talk to you by Izzy and Christina. This is hilarious when I first watch it. But honestly and unauthorised autopsy is the best way to be sued to go. And have your medical license revoked. And I say that because there are so many boundaries are crossed first off, the patient's family, specifically and explicitly said that they don't wants an autopsy to be performed. I feel like the whole like autonomy beneficent nonmaleficence Justice, the four pillars can be applied here but very Loosely since this is not the patient is the patient's family. But first, a ton of me, I think because patient is already dead. So Family has to apply autonomy. So they have their opinions, which must be followed as a provider. You're not able to force them or coerce them into anything. So doing the autopsy was unethical because they explicitly said, no, but beneficence actually in the end it kind of benefit to them because they found out there was some kind of genetic which altered them and it could be passed down to family members, but that was still an ethical. Because in terms of non maleficence, even though the patient was already dead, it is harming in that it ruins the reputation of medicine and public and it undermines the role of a free-will, it undermines the role of Physicians being on respected and Lou. Is the Public's trust and Justice. I don't think really is applicable to this. So even though Christina and Izzy found that there was some kind of complication with genetics and they were like, oh, we saved your life today but is still an excusable and they totally should have stood Okay. The next and last and ethical standard. I'm going to be talkin about today is the DNR for Izzy during her cancer. So basically, is he had a do not resuscitate order. I think as far as my memory goes, I think she had when she had cancer, she had a do-not-resuscitate, but then Alex karev her boyfriend and Doctor when she was in like respiratory distress or something or like Cardiac Arrest. He decides to keep doing chest compressions, and that's just the first thing as a physician. There's so many boundaries here. First of all, he should not have been in that room because he had a romantic relationship with her. And he obviously cares for her deeply. Then that would override his mental abilities to think as a physician. And to think as her provider first Foremost and he just completely like this regards. Her decision to do a DNR. Dnr's are put in place for a reason, especially since she was at stage 4 cancer. She was a terminally ill patients, you know, this is something that people don't usually take very lightly during chest compressions. There are many other injuries that can form that can harm the patient. So, for example, displace ribs, you can actually break their ribs or their sternum, which can directly injure the heart and the lungs, and that is definitely something that is taken into account when signing a DNR. So by disregarding the DNR, Alex also puts his own selfish needs ya, even though it's true. Only romantic at first glance, I feel like it's just very idealistic. And in real life, he would probably have lost his medical license. He knew exactly what he was doing yet. He just chose to break all the ethical boundaries. All right, sir, that's the end of my rent for today. I hope you enjoy listening to my very cringy long explanation of why Grey's Anatomy is still the best show. Despite all of its flaws and it's an ethical scenario and all of its inaccuracy is I still love it. If you enjoyed please remember to follow me on Instagram at the mediocre doctor and at medic morning. I do a lot of Q and A's so make sure that phone to keep an eye for that. Make sure to check out my website the mediocre doctor that's where that sides. If you want to purchase my notes or contact me or DM me. Remember all my DMs are always open. And Yeah, that's it for the day. See you next time. Bye bye.

in this episode, i am joined by Chloe and Naabil, two second-year medical students. we talk about what it's like studying medicine at Exeter, what you should and shouldn't buy before starting, the expectations vs reality of studying medicine and so so much more!! i had so much fun talking with these two and you should 100% check them out - links below.☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctorChloe and Naabil's socials:instagram: https://www.instagram.com/very_junior_doctors/chloe's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themedicmap/naabil's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naa.n.khan/☆ timestamps ☆00:00 introduction00:46 do you need to buy a stethoscope before starting med school?03:05 what books should you buy before starting med school?05:28 is med school as toxic and competitive as it seems?10:40 expectations vs reality of being at med school?19:28 how are students ranked within medical school?23:28 do you need to attend lectures?31:04 research opportunities in med school?33:16 support + mentors within med school? (p.s medic 'moms' and 'dads')36:20 the junior doctor strikes and the BMA39:36 is there anything aspiring medics and med students can do to support the junior doctors?

this was an episode that i have wanted to record ever since i started this podcast. absolutely loved sharing my thoughts and opinions with yall. as per usual, make sure you give it a rating if you enjoyed!☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctortranscript (auto generated so WILL have errors)Good morning and welcome to another episode of Medic Mornings. This is episode 5 and today we're going to be talking about Asian parents, and stigma and medicine. I'm so excited for this episode, honestly, like ever since I started the podcast, this was an episode that I knew I definitely want to do and because I know the experience is so Universal in Asian kids in general. I think that it's so important. We talk about this and these stigmatize, these misinformation that Asian parents usually have. So yeah, let's jump right into it. First thing is, why Asian parents actually want children to be doctors and for me, personally, I think my mom and my dad didn't really fall into that category. My mom definitely wanted me to be a vet, so she was like, why do you want to be a doctor? Why do you not want to be a vet, like your ex and ex friends? So that was just my experience, but she was fine with me, doing medicine. It was either medicine Dentistry, law, Veterinary, and anything out of that. She was kind of picky and iffy to begin with, but didn't really mind. I think for most Asian kids is because our parents are immigrants in. Our parents know what is like to struggle to be unemployed to have low income, to not know where your next bill your next rent. The next meal will be from and I can kind of see how Asian parents want the best for their kids, you know, in their own way. They medicine is a very stable career, traditionally was a very stable career, there was a 100% employment rate. After graduating, everyone who graduated with an MBBS, with a medicine degree was going to become a doctor, and it's only until very recently that this was changed. I think, last year there was incidents of having, like 200. 300 doctor is not being able to get Foundation your post, but usually it's a very stable career and that also adds into what's a lucrative because In other countries, like in Hong Kong. And in the US, it's a very high-paying job and there is no denying that doctors usually start off with in that you're going to start off with in a 50,000 pounds, down the drain but then you start making money and then eventually starting your own practice and going into private practice can get you an upper class salary but for the reality it's a lot of work and a lot of parents think that it's a get-rich-quick scheme. But in reality the UK just doesn't pay that much Also regarding the pay. In Asian countries, like Hong Kong and China. And those are the only two I know about. But I'm sure and Dubai and other Asian countries is also very respected. Pay is excellent in their countries and It's just a matter of which country pays well. I know lots of Eastern European countries. Don't have that great of pay, but in Asian countries is definitely paid. Very well paid very lucrative Lee and that adds on to the reputation. Another thing that I find kind of crazy and ludicrous is that parents think that it's a very prestigious career and that's just simply not the case, especially with the nature of the job. So doctors are quite literally saving lives and that scene as you know very Godlike, lots of people make references to the doctors and particularly neurosurgeons, having God complexes and like literally being the hands of God. They're saving lives there at the Forefront of human life and they witness death and new life every single day. And I think that's why doctors are also, so praise and Asian communities, because they value. So much as well as valuing, family and Community. It's just praise and worthy. You're wearing scrubs 24/7. You never get to have a break. You're constantly working at the hospital, doing Scott work as a Jew, You're always having to get sleepless night and worrying and stressing so much about your patient. There's nothing about it that screams prestigious to me, other than the perceived salary. But I think historically doctors were at the bottom of the hierarchy. I remember studying about this in year, 9 science. GCSE, I think when we talked about the black death and we also talked about MacBeth where the doctors were actually, they weren't addressed by their name, they were just called the doctor and that was how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth like called their doctor because they were in such a low place in society. And also in the Black Death they wore like these big beaks and these huge. Like we call them pit PE right now but they kind of look like fully dressed up in a gown and you just never saw their face. And that's because they were like not deemed to be useful enough. I think this is a very controversial opinion, but the third reason why Asian parents want their children to be doctors is because they are excelling academically, and doctors are literally, like the hyperbole of academics. They are at the top of the academic chain, they are seen as studious and Incredibly hard-working. And I think that their Asian parents define success in an academic view. That's because they don't know anything more. I think in the 21st century where social media is rapidly accelerating, even if I was a social media influencer with millions and millions of pounds, my mom would stay. Put doctor higher than social media influencer, and that's because of this academic role in it. Asian parents and Asian communities don't know. Anyting other than success in Academia, like Success is defined by how academic a person is. You know, what their grades are higher. Grades is equivalent to higher success and this is just something that's been traditionally and historically very prevalent and Asian communities and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I don't know why parents want their children to be super-smart if it doesn't bring them anything in life other than a career, I think it's also about Asian parents living vicariously through you. They raised you to be something that they've always dreamed of and that's why they put so much pressure on children to do their best in school because they had opportunities that they didn't have previously. And I completely get that. Honestly, I can see, my mom is point of view but I still don't think that it's appropriate because even though they want the best for you and they're weird way, they also have to respect that, their children could have different Hobbies different interest, different career goals, different aspirations, and that's just something that they should accept. But I feel like a lot of Asian kids like myself didn't have the card or didn't have, the means to stand up to our parents to argue about to talk back, and that's something that needs to change. I personally was not pressured in any way by my parents to do medicine. I think that it was a result of my brain tumor and a result of my hospitalization that I realized I want to become a doctor now. You know, I think that medicine really is a great career for me, but I understand that there's going to be a lot of Asian kids who struggle with that identity and really knowing who they are within medicine, within a field that they don't want to pursue in the first place. This isn't really a reason, but I think that a lot of the reason why there's so many Asian kids wanting to go into medicine is because they don't know anything else. They don't know anything different because this pressure was put at a very young age. We are shaped into this mold into this biology chemistry math. Mold, that doesn't allow us to explore anything else. Anything else outside the stem community, so kids aren't allowed to explore their Arts. Their English talents. Also side note, I'm literally sitting next to the radiator. Like, can we just talk about how fucking cold it is right now? Like I remember and summer, I thought it was the troll global warming. The UK was hitting 40 degrees Celsius. For a whole week. And now it's like negative degrees and my feet are so cold. Okay. Moving on, I'm going to be talking about what has happened. As a result of these occasions? They come has four kids and I'm going to be talking from my perspective and I'm going to be talking about what could potentially happened. So I think what a lot of people do generally is that children love to do everything opposite of what their parents told them to do. So my mom probably told me to I clean my room and I would do anything but that. So I thought that my mom wanted me to do medicine and she, I thought that she would like, pressure me even though she didn't. I felt the indirect pressure of becoming a doctor do to Asian and society's standards. So I will just reject that notion and do anything in my power. Not to do medicine from your 72-year 10. I consider doing psychology law, business management, considered during economics. I want to take English literature as an a-level, I wanted to do, physiotherapy I wanted to do Dentistry. I wanted to be a vet at one point. So I've considered all these professions and I probably know a lot about them by. Now, I know all the entry requirements for dentistry and law. For example, how to know all the entry requirements for a business management, but that's not the point. So I would just do everything in my power to not do medicine. I think I even said I will never do medicine because it takes too long to become an actual doctor. At one point look where I am now. Insane to see how I've grown and developed over the past few years. So what can we actually do to come back? This Asian stigma surrounding medicine, personally, on the micro-scale just having conversations with your parents and showing them statistics showing them, everything about the NHS, and how detrimental it is for doctors and Healthcare professionals, is a great way to start. I showed my mom and my dad, all the things are happening with, the junior doctor contract, the strikes, they already know about the strikes. They were BBC, but I talked to them about how should the salary is? How those things about Prestige, do not apply to the UK, they are treated like shit by the end. Chess By the NHS managers, and it's really difficult to buy a house because doctors have to move around the country for training every six months, every 3 weeks, every 6 weeks. And it's really hard to settle down until you've gained a consultant role. Because even in training, you're going to be moving around and not something that I'm just going to have to sense as doing medicine. But also I love that were able to have these conversations with the older generation because what they might have thought about medicine is not necessarily true now and that just helps stop the spread of misinformation and then discussing it as something that is lucrative. And so prestigious, I visited my grandma the other week and she knows I'm doing medicine and she just said, in Chinese, you must be earning a lot of money in the future. And even my mom stepped in to say no in the UK, they don't learn that much. I was actually pleasantly surprised when she said that because in the past I was really struggling with opening up to my parents but now I'm glad that they know the realities of working as a doctor and how they can further support me in that regard. I think for a lot of Asian kids. I didn't have it as bad but if some Asian parents just really don't understand how different it is in these times. And I know that a lot of people are struggling with harsh and strict parents that are an open to have these discussions. And yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing medicine, just because your parents forced you, you know, in the end it's going to be you that's doing that degree. That's going to be working on God. The hours in the hospital it's going to be you that stuck with the consequences and doing a job that you hate sucks. And if you like your job, you'll never have to work a day in your life. So I don't know if that sings true. I'm going to have to get a rain, check on that, but When an Asian kid gets into medicine it like the highest form of praise and I'm not going to lie. I feel like I've use this to my advantage a few times, like knowing the weight of what a medical student means to my Asian mom. I use it so much. I dyed my hair pay. And, you know, I just said, well, I going to medical school, so I can do whatever I want now. And yeah, that's literally everything I say I can stay up late. Now, I can go out whenever I want and it's just because I've achieved. One goal that I feel she has for me as far as my career goes. Another thing that I found kind of frustrating was as an Asian person going into medicine, you're going to have these questions about Did you go into medicine because your parents forced you to and it just inevitable that people are going to ask that because there's that there's an understanding that Asian parents are harsher on their kids and no one's going to believe that you did it because you wanted to not because of that external coercion and pressure from your parents. You know, there's you're always going to look like a pushover and even though I feel that's in my head sometimes I understand that these longstanding perceived Notions are not going anywhere. As long as you're an Asian person working in medicine, there's always going to be that little voice in your head. That's like, you did this because your parents wanted you to and I feel like that's just something that you have to get over and as long as you know, that you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it for your own self-satisfaction and for your own inner goals and that's all that matters. At the end of the day, fuck whoever says that you're doing it for someone else to satisfy your parents, that you're always going to be, you know, dependent on them because that's just not true. As long as you find it within yourself and you truly love medicine. Then that's really all that matters. That's all for today. Thank you. So, so, so much for joining me on this episode. I absolutely loved it and I just love talking to you guys just being involved in. Asian representation in medicine and fighting those stigmas and preconceived notions is genuinely something that I really love doing. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please give it a rating on Spotify. Apple podcast wherever you're listening it on. It would really help me. And follow me on Instagram @medicmornings for more q and A's. I do lots of updates on my reels and my page. So make sure you check that out, and thank you, so so much again. Goodbye. See you next time. 

in this episode, we talk everything EPQ - why it is beneficial for medicine, how you should approach your topic idea, how to start lab research (for those artefact students) and towards the end, i talk about what i wish i knew before starting the EPQ!websites that may help you which are referenced in the pod:what statistical analysis should i use? --> https://stats.oarc.ucla.edu/spss/whatstat/what-statistical-analysis-should-i-usestatistical-analyses-using-spss/referencing generator --> https://www.mybib.com/library + downloads --> https://libgen.rs/☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctortimestamps are as follows:[0:35] thank you[1:44] topic idea[4:17] the research process + how to structure your essay[10:15] process of artefacts (how to do your own experiments)[17:46] what i wish i knew before i started the EPQtranscript (automated - will contain inaccuracies)Good morning and welcome back to another episode of Medic Mornings. I'm your host Fiona and today we're going to be diving right into the EPQ qualification which is (I did the) AQA one. But I know that a few other exam boards have, Edexcel and OCR have one, but it's called something different. But I'm going to be talked about the EPQ, which I did and I know is the most popular ones. So, here we go. First off, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who listens. Honestly, everyone has been so overwhelmingly positive and so kind, thank you so so much. Honestly, when I made this podcast, I thought there was going to be so much hate because I'm not a medic yet. Not technically, I haven't started Medical School. I've gotten in but I haven't started and I was definitely nervous that there's going to be some people who are like, you're not a doctor yet. You're not a medical professional yet. Why are you talking about this? But if I could even impact one person, I would be overjoyed. So thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much guys for your support. Anyways, enough of that sappy sh*t, we're going to move on so I'm going to talk you through the process and what I did personally, I did a lot of experiments and then towards the end I'll talk about what I wish I knew you before doing the EPQ, and what I wished I would have told myself before I started So the first part is coming up with a topic idea. This is by far the most important part because you actually will change your topic idea throughout, and sometimes you have to adapt your experiment, sometimes you'll have to adapt your essay in order to manage the feasibility because sometimes you can start off with a very vague question and then towards research and towards righting your actual essay, you will realize that there is so so much to write about. And that's why you need a really good Mentor to kind of guide you through that. But I personally knew exactly what I wanted to do. I came into the EPQ thinking, I want to do something that involves bacteria and I want to do microbiology. I want to do all these experimental techniques and be proficient. I said, I want to learn from the science technician. At my school, I want to learn about, you know, bacteria assays on these different techniques that people do in the lab. And my school has been so supportive doing that, but your topic idea does not need to be solidified. Honestly, I changed it a little bit before I was like, oh my God, I'm going to use all these different types of bacteria, but I change that after 2 just e coli. I wanted both a gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria but the costs were definitely not feasible. Like I don't know what I was thinking with the school budget but I'm still so grateful that they allowed me to do it. So our school implemented this rule that you needed three different topic ideas. So the topic ideas have to kind of be similar to each other and even if you are dead set on one idea, you should still come up with some alternatives. Especially when you're talking to your mentor and they will give you some really good advice on which topic idea would be most feasible and which you can write the most content and the best argumentative perspective and definitely the most important part is coming up with the topic idea in the first place. Okay. Moving on. The research process is the second part which I'm going to be talking about today. And the thing about scientific articles is that it's a completely different type of writing, it is not like a section but it is not like those BBC articles that you see on the health website and you kind of get dumped into the deep end with scientific EPQs because it is just a completely different style of writing. For example, when you read these scientific articles, it becomes very obvious that there's a specific structure. So you have to have the title and then you have to have the author under the title? So I just put Fiona in them and my school name and it starts off with an abstract which is like 50 to 100 word shorts. Conclusion, like an overall discussion of what you actually achieved in your experiment and what their goal was etc. And then you have your introduction after that, which is a longer version of talking about the background of your experiment. What made you want to do in the first place? Your motivations for it on some background information. So for me, my experiment was on how metal ions can actually inhibit these bacterial specimens and I use copper silver and zinc ions, and in the introduction, I just talked about how each bacteria slowly died from these metal, maybe the metal ions, cause the membrane of the bacteria to break down at, or maybe inhibited, a part of respiration within the bacterial cell and it was just a little bit of background information within the introduction after that. You then talk about the methods area which is where you put your methodology, your experiment, your equipment, what you actually did and you can put some pictures in there of your experiment as well and then you can talk about the results after that, which is what we actually found. Don't put any raw data. I just put some standard deviation, some numbers. We also want to talk about the significance of the data. You also want to talk about the main numerical findings from those experiments. Then the last part, not the last part of the last main part, is a discussion, in which you evaluate the points, the parts of your experiment that did not go right or wrong. So I talked about how my experiment lacked ecological validity. It lacked reliability because there was not specific enough equipment. We didn't have micropipettes, we didn't have spectrophotometers. We didn't have that good equipment, because it was in the school lab. And then after that, you have Acknowledgements, which is why you say, thank you to your teachers that helped you or the mentors that you have or any outside perspective that you had, so maybe you talked to your professor? Maybe you talked to your parents, maybe you talk to your teachers outside of the school, it's anyone really.The last part is Literature Cited. Literature Cited is different to a bibliography in that you're not allowed to write bibliography in scientific articles. I have no idea why but it's just is that. All right, so, Some notes about the research process, you want to get approval from your teachers and mentors from an early stage and by November, I think you should have sent that. You might be in the process of talking to your teachers about your research idea. You also want to keep an e folder, all the PDFs that you say. So for me, I use Libgen.rs. it will save your life. It has every single book. I don't think I don't think it's pirating, but You know what? You definitely want to do a lot of prior research on that topic before you start any big writing into your essay. And this is just because you need to make sure that your topic idea is concrete. And also if you are writing a scientific article, which you probably will be if you're listening to this podcast, You should always write the abstract last and this is because you will write about your finding and get to a later stage with it. And if you start writing your abstract first, it starts getting messy. You start getting a little bit biased because you're trying to like skew your data, or skew your argument towards what you've already written in the abstract and trying to like manipulate unconsciously your data to try and fit that narrative that you've already written in your abstract about your findings. And that is just completely unscientific and not something that you should be doing especially later on and University level, I think abstracts should always be written last no arguments there. Okay, so this part is going to be about artifacts and if you're not doing an artifact I will use a timestamp in the description so you can just get this part. But this is just for people who are interested in doing a lab experiment, which I have advice for. But if you're also interested in this, if you're interested in publishing and doing research in University, you're welcome to this in the head. So here, I came up with the equipment. I came up with a risk assessment and risk assessments and let me pull up my document first. So, the risk assessment is a major part in your EPQ because you have to present a solid amount of understanding into lab safety and fire safety, and the hazards that working with specimens and working in the lab might spring. So I use Excel and I made a really cute risk assessment. And I'll tell you about the headers that I used. I used hazards description, impact description, or how it would impact. Theoretically, I use the probability that impact and the score. So I use a numerical scale from one to five, one being the lowest level of harm and the five being the highest level of harm. And I also talked about risk mitigation meaning if something were to catch fire or if the bacteria did become pathogenic, what would be the next steps? And the next course of action to mitigate the circumstance and honestly, I only wrote five things that I wrote about bacteria becoming pathogenic, the spread of bacteria to the public, which is very viable. But in the school lab where you’re Washing your hands constantly. You're wearing a lot of coats. You're not actually touching the bacteria but instead like swabbing it and making very sure that you wipe your hands with antiseptic before you leave the lab. It's very, very low risk. The next few hazardous, I described for a sample collection. Bacteria, sample may be incorrect and I talked about fire safety, you know the Bunsen burner flame could cause serious Burns and also talked about incorrect bacteria being grown, so maybe it wasn't E.coli do with actually another strain. That was more positive unique and those were all very low-risk. So the risk assessment was shown to my mentor to the science technician and they all agreed that I was, okay, to go to the next thing that you should account for is the number of trials, you're going to do the number of Trials is, how many times are going to be during the experiment over and over again. So I did a total of two trials. The first trial I did was a pilot where I tested it for the very first time I went in Line, I had made my own method. I had crossed checked it with other studies, I had talked to it with my mentor but it was the first time that I was actually plan on doing it a lot and it was a really exciting experience just being in control of my own inner samples. My own dishes, my own equipment, was so exciting and fascinating, I found out, I was really passionate about it. And yeah, that was just genuinely something that I was super, super interested in. And then after the first child, I took the results, I did the statistical analysis and then there were some issues with the silver discs because they had like, change the different color or something. So we just altered that by keeping it in the dark and Not putting it in the oven stuff like that. And yeah, you need to be able to modify experiments as you go along, and that's something. You should always put in your evaluation. Okay? Finally is the results. So, when you're talking about experimental results, you always want to back it up with statistical analysis. For me, I did two different types of tests. I had one trial that showed normal distribution and one that didn't show normality. And I talked to my teachers about it and they said, I should do two types of tests, which is very uncommon, but I personally that their Kruskal Wallace test and the t test. This is something that you should check on. Scientific website about what type of test you should be doing, especially with the trials and the type of method that you're using repeated measures, independent measures, it's a completely different. It's something that I have never done before and you should ask for advice from everyone from your biology teacher just searching on scientific form. Honestly, the most important thing that you should take from this episode is that you have to display your results in a way that a non-scientific person would be able to understand and that because my mentor my teachers, the people that graded, my assessment had no idea about the statistical analysis that I was doing, and it was not something that I could easily explain especially. He said there were so many different variables. I could explain normal distribution, but I couldn't explain how I chose that specific test because it required a lot more discussion into like independent-measures repeated, measure. The type of designs that I did in my experiments and you have to be able to cut your results down into one or two rows of numerical data and simplified that into a way that a non-scientific person would understand. Because once you start talkin in scientific jargon, you start talking about the normal distribution without actually explaining it. Your teachers will just assume that you're waffling on. You don't know what you're actually saying and that's really important. You. Ossify exactly in layman's terms what it is that you're measuring finally where I T E section where I talk about, what I wish I knew before, I started the EPQ. The first thing, I wish I knew this that you should reference throughout rather than all at the end. I thought that I could reference at all at the end because you know all scientific literature is kind of similar. Right. I thought that I could do it all at the end because I could just search up again on the internet and search up for Batum and somehow find it again. Know that is not the case. I feel like we're that you think it was okay to miss out on one or two cited litchers. But once you get to a higher level, it would be a bigger mistake and a bigger issue. So, it's better to get into the habit of referencing while you go. The second thing. I wish I knew is that there are no footnotes for scientific, literature whatsoever. So, you know, footnotes where people write essays and they put these little tiny size 11 fonts at the very bottom of the page and it has websites on. It has like those referencing Harvard referencing types. And God does not exist in scientific literature, so don't waste your time on trying to do different notes because it should not be there. Cuz I think I wish I knew is how much the production log actually matters. It is literally like 60 to 70% of your grade, your actual artifact for your actual essay. They will read over it. But the most important thing is to show that you have loved everything that you've done as you went along. So, your production log is essentially a timeline of what you've done and I forgot on so many occasions to fill in my production log. So I had to not go back and think, oh my God, what did I do three months ago? And it was really stressful. Initially, I was really scared to give out my EPQ, because it was just a Surefire way to be subject to plagiarism. I am now open to sharing pictures of The methodology of my experiment on my equipment and videos of how I actually did the experiment and if you are interested in that, send me a DM on Instagram saying you're from the podcast and I will be happy to send those to you. And I hope they help someone out there who's struggling with their EPQ and best of luck to you all genuinely for sticking through that, you can q. And honestly it is difficult, it can be tiring and sometimes you might lose sight of the true goal because it doesn't really contribute to your University offer and as Iraq's way, except which of you, but we'll leave the hot. It is an excellent way to help your research skills to build those passions and to really find out what you love before you start going into University. I hope. You guys find a little bit more about yourself and really appreciate what to eat. If you have to offer it as an amazing opportunity. And yeah, thank you for sticking around on this podcast. It really is amazing to hear so much from all of you. If you are enjoying this podcast, please give it a rating on Spotify. Apple podcast wherever you're listing it from. It would really help me out a lot. Thank you for joining me again and see you next time. Bye, bye.

hi, hello and welcome to this week's episode! today i do a deep dive into discussing why social media is (and isn't) bad for medicine. i talk about how it potentially tarnishes the reputation and image of future doctors, how it could lead to issues with confidentiality, but also see the positives (such as improving health resource access to the younger generation). i'd love to hear any feedback - comment on instagram @medicmornings!☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctortranscript:Hi guys. Good morning and welcome back to another episode of Medic Mornings. I'm your host Fiona. And today we're going to be talking about professionalism, I not medical student nor a doctor, nor any type of medical professional, but I do have a few opinions on this and it is a tot topic in the interview. So sit back relax and let's talk about it. (Theme music plays) Let's talk about the reasons why it can be appropriate and sometimes cannot be appropriate. The first reason is that it humanizes doctors. So we all know about the covid-19 pandemic. We all know how difficult it was for doctors for all Healthcare professionals to kind of deal with the shortages. Covid-19 has left us with our staff that were so there is going to be smaller Workforce. There's also issues with your medical equipment and drugs, being imported and being cancelled and delayed and whatnot, so that kind of showed a different perspective. So it allows the public to kind of peek behind a curtain, and also kind of makes the TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, Chicago Med see more mundane, and you can actually see the realistic day-to-day things that doctors actually do all. So, let's talk about the fact that social media has made it easier for students to get access to free medical advice and prospective applicants can actually get in contact with doctors for shadowing opportunities, stuff like that. Second thing about why it's appropriate is I think that it does engage people in Public Health & policy discussions. First off there are so many resources, BBC health, I know a lot of medical students that are on social media. Rachel Southard, Faye Bate, Rafi, Kharma medic, Dr Cellini. I think that's the same there. So many med influencers right now. Do really talk about like for example, the covid-19 thing about the vaccination, it was really interesting to see the medical perspective of it and how their vaccine actually works. And it does improve patient access to health information because they are at the forefront of the scientific discoveries alongside other PhD candidates and people actually working at Pfizer, Johnson's & Johnson's and provide direct information to a specific target audience. For example, to the younger generation and I think that is super important, especially now that social media is more prevalent, it does serve a greater purpose. Let's be for real, okay? No one who's under 20 watches TV anymore, and I feel like just scrolling on your phone scrolling on Tik-Tok scrolling on Instagram. You always see a few doctors that advocate about the recent medical discoveries. We talked about the Nobel Prize a lot and I think that's having doctors on these kind of social media. Definitely improve the engagement and discussion of younger generation in medical topics about why it is appropriate is because it can help develop networking. I'm definitely not a point where I'm actually not working on my LinkedIn because that's for old people, but but I think that having Instagram and having LinkedIn will definitely in the future, set me up for Publications. For example, I definitely want to publish in the future. I want to be more involved in Research In biochemistry and wet lab stuff and that's something I'm super interested in and having Instagram having more followers on whatever tiktok can actually set you up for Success because you meet so many like-minded people. Everyone knows someone and you get to discuss cases and ideas with other people on the recent research development and it is so amazing to have social media that can give us access to that. Okay, one reason why social media might not be appropriate is what we're all thinking and it damages or ruin the professional image that the public has in the medical profession. And there's always going to be that argument. That doctor swearing using profanity having sexual or intoxication images like drugs or alcohol having negative comments on Things that the medical profession usually did not stand for it can definitely do some damage to the public perception of medical industry. And I completely agree with that. There is a certain level of professionalism. Doctors have to adhere to the specially with, you know, the GMC. And as a doctor you're expected to have a lot more responsibility and a lot more accountability for your actions and I completely agree with that. But a lot of it is just that the public expects us to be superhuman. Yeah so public expects us to always be able to save the patient at whatever stage there at whatever progression their illness. Has I think. Honestly the public has such a skewed perception of the scientific advancements that there currently is. I feel like the more I knew about medicine the more I realized oh we really don't know stuff because for example, people have said for years and years now that robots are going to take over our medical industry and that is just simply not the case. There have been technological advancements in Radiology in surgery, but we are nowhere near the point. They're actually going to take our jobs and that is just a fact, like robots, cannot even read an ECG correctly. They cannot read a squiggly line, and I just, it's just insane that the public has this high standard for doctors particular. Honestly, they are just human and they know I have the utmost respect for doctors and the amount of skewed perception of doctor, you know, they're not allowed to party. They're not allowed to drink, they're not allowed to have a work-life balance, it's just so removed from reality. No matter what doctors do. We cannot live up to that standard and social media is an excellent way. If well, if used well too kind of remove those stigmas and to remove those expectations of doctors honestly haven't got theirs on social media that really helps with us. Okay, second reason why it might not be appropriate for a doctor's to have social media is because of confidentiality and confidentiality is essentially, when you maintain the patient's trust by not disclosing their information to anyone else, and that would be outside of your medical practice. For example, you know, your family members of the doctor or just the public. And I think that is my biggest fear. When being involved with social media is accidentally telling someone about a patient. I saw, you know, and it's so difficult as a doctor because you're immersed in a patient environment where there are so many patients and so many cool cases to learn from suddenly, you may find that He posted on social media. About that cool case. You just saw Oh my god. I delivered the baby today, but there were complications and people could actually piece your puzzle pieces together. Patient was in their mid-thirties and they had complications and the baby died. I know that person and, you know, the doctor can be in severe consequences, just because of that one piece of information they gave out and it's so important to not specify too, and also to be most careful of documents and paperwork that you might have on the patients. Okay. Another reason why it can be, problematic is a doctor has social media is because it can be very unprofessional. Especially if a patient reaches out to you on social media privately DM's you or comments in your videos or whatever and if they recognize you in real life and you know it say something inappropriate. That is not typical of a doctor-patient relationship. I've actually seen articles on this, hold on, if a patient, this is on the GMC website. If the patient pursues a sexual or improper emotional relationship with you, you should treat them politely and considerately and try to re-establish a professional boundary. Basically what that means. It's like you have to tell the patient. This is an appropriate for a doctor-patient relationship if you continue to display for. Me this way, then I will not hesitate to terminate the relationship and refer you to another GP or another doctor. And then it continues to say a trust has been broken down and you find it necessary to end a professional relationship. You must follow the guidance, and blah blah blah. So I read about this previously, you should always have everything in writing in verbatim basically means that you should write exactly what the patient said because there is a problem as, like, legal things happen. If they come out you for why did you choose to terminate the relationship? Then you have these notes on hand and that's important to protect your medical license as such. Also, another really interesting thing, I found another website is how to coat if you feel attracted to a patient and apparently this is to do to burn out. As a psychologist. I've treated many, Physicians whose burnout has manifested an attraction to patients. And while there is no vaccination to prevent it, there is a protocol of care. That sounds so bizarre to me. But in a way I kind of understand it. If you're feeling burned out, you might find some constantly find a way to end your medical practice. I'm so confused. I'm actually not quite sure. If you have any ideas of what the actually meant. Please send me a DM or comment on my video on @Medicmornings cuz that is so crazy. How can attraction to a patient mean burnout? So confused, moving on moving on, okay next is social media might not be appropriate because giving medical advice online is definitely something that is more likely to happen if you have social media in the first place. Giving giving medical advice online is definitely not advise for a variety of reasons. First off, which is it can be very vague and non-specific so that you don't actually know the patient, they could be giving their symptoms and a very vague way. For example, I have pain in my belly belly for patient, could be anywhere from your ribs to the very bottom of your past, and it can be difficult to specify that without a physical examination. It can also lead to legal issues. So you know how, when a doctor gives incorrect advice, it can be seen as more practiced, which the patient can then sue the doctor for and then the GMC would have to work that out beside lawyers. I can be much more difficult for that to happen. If it was online because different countries can have different regulations for that. And being online is a bit more wishy-washy because you can't exactly pinpoint a doctor in person. You don't have any contract with them. You, they have no obligation to you. No show up to court, so it can be difficult, especially if it's an online form, and they don't have their license with them. They don't have their name or anyting, then that's where I can get really difficult because of this, the GMC recommended that doctors should always identified by their own real name. And that's the last for accountability, especially on online form that can be a bit vicious there. Epecially the student room, yall remember ecolier and GANFYD. Get a note from your doctor. Say that should be like the student room saviors on the medical forms, but that's a discussion for another day. Anyways, those kind of doctors that are advising pre-medical students. They might want to use their right to free expression, so they can use a pseudonym and there's always going to be a digital Trace. That can trace you back to your original source. So doctor should always be mindful of what they say online and how they present themselves. And yeah I could come back to bite you in the butt but overall I think that professionalism and social media has come a long way. Like previously it was really frowned upon but now on Tik Tok Instagram. How to evolve into these shorts media content forms. And it's become more normalized to see the day in a life of a doctor and see what actually happens. to summarize, I love what this generation of doctors have done. I love that Doctors have fought this preconceived notion. That Medics cannot have both Medics cannot have an excellent work by 5 and they cannot have a family. They cannot love. They cannot find happiness. They cannot find things and hobbies and extracurriculars outside of the workplace and I love. Our Generation has normalized and redefined life balance actually is, and continue to fight these 80 hour work weeks. Continue to appreciate what the previous generation have done. And it's amazing and it's beautiful. Appreciate This generation. I'll talk to you so much for today. Thank you so much for coming and joining me on this episode of professionalism on social media. Let me know what you think on Instagram at medicmorning and see you next time. Bye bye!

In this episode, I answer some of your questions on med school interviews! Thank you to everyone who submitted a question - you can too by following @medicmornings on instagram and keeping an eye out for my stories. Q+A's will be done every two weeks!timestamps:[0:28] how to answer 'why medicine? why not nursing?'[3:30] if you had to reduce funding in an area in the NHS, which area would you choose?[5:18] tips for online interviews - i hate them because i have to watch myself talk[6:42] why choose to be a doctor rather than a pharmacist?[7:47] how did you answer 'why medicine?'[10:07] how to move on in an MMI after a station that didn't go well[12:38] how to approach acting and roleplay stations☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctortranscription:Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of Medic Mornings. I'm your host, Fiona and today I'm going to be answering some questions that you got submitted on Instagram. Let's jump right into it. {Theme music plays} I'm so sorry if I butcher any of your names. The first question is by Ayeshi who asked, “why medicine and not nursing”. I've had a lot of questions about why medicine, why not nursing or pharmacy or biochemistry etc? And these questions are very common, very stock questions that all medical applicants should be prepared to answer these. I talked about the extensive training that doctors receive, which gives them a more deeper and wider knowledge base, allowing them to solve more complex diagnosis in a way that nurses most likely wouldn't be able to because of their protocols that they often have to adhere to in the management of a patient. Doctors are able to think outside of the box more creatively and are more heavily involved in difficult cases, such as surgery. Just being more involved in academia is something that I'm really interested in. Secondly, while nurses have a lot of extensive clinical training, they can also now prescribe, such as nurse practitioners. This training never extends to intrusive procedures, like surgery, and third of all while nurses can specialize in certain fields, there's certain specialties within nursing such as nurse anesthetists (I can never pronounce that word) this is only one very specific field. Doctors often have a much wider variety of training especially during Foundation years of medical school where you're really subject to a wide range of clinical environments. Outpatient, inpatient. The fourth reason is just that doctors are able to be a team leader. While this is also available in nursing, doctors are able to lead the entire multidisciplinary team. I saw this in my own GP work experience where I saw the GPs allocating cases, according to each team member's strengths. So they gave the more prescription cases to the pharmacist, they gave the vaccination clinic cases to the nurses who were in charge of that at the time and they themselves took in new cases, new diagnoses. And that's something I'm really interested in. So that's how I differentiated the role of a nurse with a doctor. One of the most important things is that you should never be critical or derogatory of nurses in your answer because you need to show a solid understanding of the MDT and share why each role is vital. Okay, the next question is by Leiba who asked if you had to reduce funding in an area of the NHS, what area would you choose? That's a very difficult question. I would ask for a minute to produce my answer, collect my thoughts. I think that there's no right or wrong answer for this question in particular, because there are so many ways that you can argue. There is not one specific answer that is completely right or completely wrong. How I would answer this as the NHS is currently in a really dire state. So most funding to be protected is within the emergency services so the maternity wards, the GPs and Primary Care Facilities. However, those more elective procedures that can wait, perhaps travel vaccinations, research into less prevalent diseases such as malaria. Those parts can do with less funding. So that's why I would say. I would say allocate less funding to research that is not as important in this climate currently such as malaria, infectious diseases that are not present in the UK. And some elective procedures that are not important, you know, breast reduction bariatric surgery or procedures that aren't really essential because of this critical time in the NHS. Okay. Another question by Ruqaiyah, tips for online interviews. Literally hate them because I can see myself talk. This was an issue that I ran into during my online interviews because I use FaceTime on my laptop and I would record myself during my interviews and I quickly realized that my face was incredibly lopsided. I hated seeing myself talk, but I think this is something that takes more time and that happens even with face-to-face interviews. I think the best thing that you can do is practice and practice and practice, keep recording yourself in your bedroom. Keep doing fake interviews, mock interviews with your friends, with your mentors in school and over time you will see that your mannerisms, your behavior, your speech will become more coherent. You will also have much better body language, your hands will move more naturally while you talk. just record yourself. Consistently practice, consistently and you will become much, much better. Trust me. Next question. Why choose to be a doctor rather than a nurse or a pharmacist? I previously spoke about the nurses versus doctor discussion but this time I’ll talk about doctors vs pharmacists. both doctors and pharmacists have the aspect of prescribing medicine. However, I feel like medicine has a much wider variety of specialisms to choose from than Pharmacy. Doctors are more involved in the pathophysiology and a diagnosis of a patient, whereas Pharmacy is about the biochemistry and making sure that doctors don’t kill their patient. It's often the pharmacist that ensures the drug interactions, that there are no negative side effects and body physiology is all taken into account. Okay. Someone asked, how did you answer the question, why medicine? Okay, so this was how I memorized it, I memorized three main points. And every time I was asked that question, I would just regurgitate it. The first point was about my brain tumor. I had a brain tumor when I was 16 years old which was called a cavernous haemangioma. And I talked about my experience in the Pediatric Ward, and how I was immersed with doctors and nurses and the rest of the multidisciplinary team and how I was so in awe of the medicine behind it, I spoke to the doctor who did my surgery about what was actually happening in my brain, and it was so fascinating and I just fell in love. The second part is about how it entailed everything that I loved in a career. So that involved teaching it involved research it involved directly impacting the public. So, I'm really interested in social media and being practical and hands-on. And my practice, I also enjoyed that there was a lifelong learning aspect and that it was academically challenging but also morally challenged. There is no right and wrong answer often, it's a very big balance between science and Humanities. Not only do you study the science behind the diagnosis, you also study the science behind people. You always have to be involved in clinical judgement and having different perceptions of ethics. I think that is something that's really interesting to me. I also love that there were opportunities for further research, especially wet lab research. I conducted an EPQ on microbiology and it was incredibly fascinating. I enjoyed every single moment of it. I can't wait to conduct more research at University. Helen asked, in an MMI, how do you forget about a section and move on if you feel like it didn't go well. I've had this issue myself in all of my interviews, all four of my interviews. There was not a single interview where I finished feeling satisfied with my performance. Honestly, there were so many moments where I was like, I could have said something different. I shouldn't have said that, that answer was completely wrong but overall it turned out fine. We are our biggest critics and oftentimes, we will judge ourselves too harshly. These interviewers know how much pressure we are in. And they know how difficult it is. They purposely manufacture the environment to be demanding to test your ability to work under pressure and it's a very artificially manipulated environment. It also weeds out those people who aren't able to perform under pressure, so it's okay if you stutter, it's okay if you take a minute to think about your answer. The good thing about MMI stations is that every station is a clean slate. I don't think there's many medical schools that do traditional panel interviews anymore. I did a traditional panel for three of my interviews, just because it was online. But this year since universities are opening up, more face-to-face interviews are occurring, each station has a new interviewer. So just keep in mind that they don't know anything about the station that you just messed up. you just make sure that you put 100% effort into everything every single station, just make sure in the moment that you're trying your best. And honestly you probably didn't do as bad as you thought you did. Also the interviews are very fast paced like it is just question after question after question. So you have no time to panic or worry about what you just said. It's often after the interview that you start getting those feelings of ‘oh, I shouldn't have said that.’ Okay, she also asked, how do you approach the role play and acting stations? Oftentimes in a roleplay station they give you a prompt that has the storyline. For example, your neighbour ran over a cat or something. Or you are a medical student and your friend gave you last year's test answers, etc . And you're supposed to just read the card for one minute, and there's going to be an actor in the room. And you have to show one skill, for example, empathy, communication, teamwork, and Leadership etc. I personally didn't have any role play station last year since I was doing online interviews. But there are so many resources on MedEntry and Medify websites, which I'm sure are much more professional, and more understanding of this than I am. That’s a wrap! That's all the questions that I'm going to be answering today. Watch out for next next week's episode because I will be doing another Q&A in two weeks time. Next episode is going to be on professionalism, so watch out for that as well. And thank you so much for spending your time with me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe and see you next time. Bye bye! {Theme music plays}

Welcome to the very first episode of Medic Mornings! This is a safe space I created to have genuine and raw conversations about anything medicine with y'all. I felt really constricted by the time limits on Instagram and TikTok, not being able to really explore any topics in depth. It also felt too formal - my ideas and perspectives on medicine were restricted to a caption on a one-minute-long video. Here on Medic Mornings, we get down to the nitty gritty, welcoming imperfections and uncut conversations. Each episode will be 15-25 minutes long, perfect for every busy student while commuting, cooking or any morning get-ready activities! New episodes every Monday.Be sure to subscribe and rate this podcast! If you have any questions or feedback, make sure to direct them to @medicmornings on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you!☆ SOCIALS ☆my website: themediocredoctor.square.siteinstagram: @medicmornings @themediocredoctortiktok: @stinkybluebellsemail: [email protected]: themediocredoctor