A fellow medical student held onto my arm and marched me across the seminar room, first in one direction and then another. Dragged and tripped all over the place, I felt utterly out of control. The whole thing was to be repeated again. But this time I had to imagine I had long tree roots […]
Category: Students
Siddhartha Yadav reminisces about his BMJ Clegg Scholarship
The BMJ has now called for applications for the Clegg Scholarship 2010. So, I think this might be the right time to talk about my own experiences as a Clegg Scholar and how I have fared since then. If you ask me to name one thing that Clegg Scholarship is all about, I can’t. I […]
Frances Dixon on medical professionalism
I was flicking through my Student BMJ the other day when I came across an article on Medical Professionalism. This is a subject that I have been thinking about recently, mainly as we have just had the first of our “Personal & Professional Development” sessions at medical school. […]
Ohad Oren: Routine operation, impeccable performance
“Bring sac close to peritoneum, drain its purulent liquid content, and have the shrunken pouch squeezed through this tiny hole.” Such was the senior surgeon’s instruction at the conclusion of a gallbladder removal operation. […]
Grace Tan asks: “Are medical students being discouraged from attending scientific conferences?”
One of the top five reasons given by medical students for not regularly attending meetings is “discouraged to attend by department and university,” a survey by the American Association of the History of Medicine, an academic society devoted to the history of medicine and all aspects of health, has found. This finding resonates with me […]
Miriam Longmore: Iran puts MTAS in its place
Iran has done what the United Kingdom has not dared: it has devised a single exam to be taken by its 20,000 doctors who are competing for 1600 residency positions. The UK system seemed to me unfair, but then an Iranian doctor explained Iran’s system. Rather than the UK’s online medical training application service (MTAS), […]
Frances Dixon ends year one at medical school
So, one year of medical school finished, just five more to go. What have I learnt this year? As well as a load of useful medical things, and how to do my own washing and cooking, I have learnt some things they don’t tell you about in the prospectus… […]
Ohad and Michal Oren: Cordon Sanitaire hospital; a humanitarian road map
The corridors of the hospital were packed with worried expressions. Individuals were hysterically clarifying the status of their relatives following a vicious violent eruption between Arabs and Jews at the outskirts of an Israeli settlement. […]
Tauseef Mehrali on meat free Mondays
My grandfather used to counsel my mother’s worries about my insatiable carnivorous tendencies as a child by suggesting that the only solution would be to ensure I gain a butcher as a father-in-law. I would frequently be teased at dinner parties when it looked like I was struggling to make it to dessert with mock […]
Ohad Oren: How can medical students adapt to their ever changing profession?
“Medicine is an ever-changing science” goes the familiar message on the opening page of most medical textbooks. Judging by the rapid pace at which textbooks expand, you have to wonder whether that would be a good enough reason to abandon the written word for good. Lateral epicondylitis used to be learnt through reading and repetition; […]