The inner workings of a grad med's brain

25 facts for 25 years

2009-02-03T08:12:00.000Z

1. I have an unhealthy obsession with radio 4

2. I have sand boarded the deserts of Huacacina in Peru

3. In my ideal world, all men would still wear 3-piece suits, don monocles and tip their top hat as I cycled by on my Penny Farthing

4. My signature song on karaoke is 'Islands in the Stream' by Dolly and Kenny

5. I have 'The Week' delivered every Friday and think it's the best magazine available in the UK - buy it!

6. I'm still not sure where Israel and the Gaza strip is

7. One of my guilty pleasures is watching Tyra Banks drive mentally unstable wannabe models crazy on America's Next Top Model

8. Despite have a degree is engineering, I still can't do my times tables up to 10

9. I tend to obsess about people who treat me badly, and dismiss those who care for me

10. I can draw the brachial plexus unaided

11. People say my older sister is the double of me and she used to say I looked like Lance from Neighbours so she was really just taunting herself

12. I lived in Australia for the first half of 2007

13. I tried to do a Closer crossword with Laura on Wednesday and failed miserably. It was a low point.

14. Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to have managed to get into graduate medicine in my home town and have my house.

15. I like to cycle through Leaze's park despite the children that laugh at my fold-up bicycle

16. Pisco sours are my favourite cocktail but alas they are not widely available in the UK so I settle for margheritas

17. I tend to watch Judge Judy episodes for hours on end on youtube at the most unhelpful times i.e. when an exam is pending

18. I go in monthly cycles of desperately wanting a partner to wanting no-one at all

19. I adore my china tea set and wireless radio

20. My bed is my favourite place to be

21. I know several people that I see and greet regularly but don't know their names, but it's too late now to ask them so I'm stuck - Argh!

22. I worked in an orphanage teaching in Peru in 2006 and as a health care assistant in India in 2007

23. The only people I really trust to drive me anywhere is my mam and dad. It makes getting around hard.

24. I make a mean dahl, thai green curry, risotto and falafel. How am I still single??

25. My scent is Hugo by Hugo Boss

Half a year in...

2009-01-13T20:15:00.002Z

I started this blog almost a year ago and slowly documented my acceptance into Newcastle medical school only to be overwhelmed by the workload and go into hiding as I desperately tried to hold on to my newly found medic status.

It turned out that the first lot of exams in November were not at all as bad as I had worked myself up for them to be. They were difficult but entirely do-able and the questions I messed up were simply parts that I had neglected to go over enough through revision.

Newcastle university has been a tremendous experience for me so far. I've been able to relive my university life the way that I would have done could I have gone back in time to my first year at Imperial. The medical school has so far been nothing short of brilliant in terms of the support and feedback we receive as fast track students. Our exams were marked in 2 days with 3 PDFs sent to us containing detailed analysis of the questions we had answered; it really does put Imperial's 3 week (usually a lot longer!) return policy to shame there.

This week however has been a terrible blow to me personally as a student I knew quite well who dropped out late last year committed suicide. Everything in my own little bubble Im currently in which consists of medical texts to PBL talks to feedback sessions have all been shifted into a new perspective. I was so close to a break down before the exams thinking that this exam meant everything and if I failed it would be the end of the world but it wouldn't have been. Nothing is ever worth taking your life for and it tears me up to think how bad this person must have felt to do this. I've never had such a tragic event happen to me and it has shaken me big time.

2008 Re:View

2009-01-02T19:02:00.000Z

Where did you begin 2008?
In Jesmond dressed as Pat Sharpe. I started as I meant to go on. But then I took off the mullet.

What was your status by Valentine's Day?
Single but still living with my ex. Boo-yeah!

Did you have to go to the hospital?
Oh yes I was in the General in the early hours of a Saturday morning after my mum had a fall and it was HELL ON EARTH! I also had to visit patients and elicit ICE (Idea's Concerns and Expectations for all you lay people ;P ) which is pretty hard when they've had a stroke I tell thee

Did you have any encounters with the police?
I think I played Roxanne a few times

What did you purchase that was over $500?
Well if by $500 you mean £250 then yes, yes I did. A laptop, my tuition fees and a house - ommm!

Did you know anybody who got married?
No

Did you know anybody who passed away?
Yes again vaguely

What sporting events did you attend?
Well I watched a gay rugby match but I dont think that counts.

Where do you live now?
Back to where I belong, Newcastle Upon Tyne in my own house where I am the landlord and I say put as many bastard posters up as you want with pins or blu-tac

Describe your birthday:
I revised the circulatory system as my phase I exam was imminent :-s go me!

What's the one thing you thought you would never do but did in 2008?
Get into grad med! It was a Mariah Carey Moment (against the odds)

What has/have been your favorite moment(s)?
Definitely getting into medical school and probably taking blood for the first time - a real adrenaline (or should I say epinephrine) rush!

Any new additions to your family?
Yeah Thomas II was born

What was your best month?
Probably September when I finally moved into my new house and met a load of brilliant people at Newcastle uni

Who has been your best drinking buddy?
Too many to think erm... claire rasul for red wine nights, sarah for forth action, skidz for free booze at boring PhD conferences, belima for drag at molly moggs ...

Made new friends?
My facebook friendship list expanded beyond comprehension seeing as I probably speak to about 10% of the 600 people that were there. I had a cull.

Favorite band of 2008?
I would have to say Kings of Leon as Sex on Fire is just incredible when youre pissed in the middle of a crowded bar

Favorite nights out?
My first night out in the Czech republic with the boys and all the nights out at uni

Favorite book you read in 2008?
The unbearable lightness of being

Favorite film?
There was a lot of shite out this year. A lot. I enjoyed Wall.E though. I walked out of Dark Knight and wanted to walk out of Mamma Mia but it was too cold so I endured Meryl Streep committing career suicide in front of my eyes

Any regrets?
Hmm yeah I should have celebrated my 25th instead of thinking I was going to fail med school

What do you want to change in 2009?
My front garden needs some real attention! Im thinking a vegetable patch is in order what with the credit crunch et al

Overall,how would you rate this year?
Well on balance a fair year, but I think 2009 will top it easily

Have any life changes in 2008?
Well I began my path to doctor-ville and began to nurture my God complex

Change your hairstyle?
Nope same old dirty blonde shizzle

Get a new job?
Yeah I quit TBS and worked for the NHS as an engineer for the Summer before med school

Do you have a New Year's resolution?
To keep up the vegetarianism

Get married or divorced?
I married Boron after a long affair with Tortora

Be honest did you watch American Idol?
If by American Idol you mean X-factor then yes. If by American Idol you meant American Idol then no.

Start a new hobby?
Cycling & yoga. I may be able to touch my toes come 2010!

Been snowboarding?
No

Are you happy to see 2008 go?
Yep bring on 2009

Been naughty or nice?
Mostly nice

What are you wishing for in 2009?
To pass this godforsaken accelerated year!

Mathematicians take heed!

2008-07-27T13:24:00.004+01:00

T-mobile, you are a genius! You have managed to rip the fundamental laws of mathematics up and finally offer a solution to what was always considered impossible; what value can one assign to ∞ in an equation?

It was always considered that infinity was an unlimited number that was undefinable and therefore a value could never be equated with it and it's use lay in limits (i.e. where x tends to infinity but can never reach it). However, when signing up with T-mobile for Unlimited mobile broadband in May it seems that my antiquated notion of what unlimited meant was foolish. For today a letter arrived from T-mobile saying that I had exceeded 3GB and was therefore contravening their terms of use. It seems that unlimited means 3 x 10^9 bytes(obviously) as per the small print which I surprisingly did not read.

I discussed this curious redefinition of unlimited with a delightful chappie from T-mobile who did not seem phased at all by the brazen lies his company told to trap me into this Godforesaken 24 month contract! It turns out that I had a choice; I could have my connection throttled or I could upgrade my unlimited package. How can you upgrade an unlimited package? I hear you say (this is what I asked John Doe at T-mobile). Well apparently you can upgrade to the other unlimited package where they have defined unlimited as 6 x 10^9. Ahh right I see.

So infinitey now has a dual value that only T-mobile may control. If you pay enough money infinity can even equal 10 x 10^9! (The '!' is not a factorial by the way but a mere output for my shock and horror). Wallis take note cos you were like totally wrong.

Jobsworth

2008-07-01T13:02:00.000+01:00

I have been 'working' at the Royal Free hospital as a medical engineer for almost 2 months now. I use the inverted commas because the job has been a bit of a joke really and really has made me question how on Earth the NHS has survived as long as it has. They have been paying me the best salary of my life to effectively sit in front of a computer and divert calls. Why on Earth would the NHS do this? It turns out that my degree in medical engineering wasn't enough for them to trust me to fix any high risk equipment (syringe drivers, infusion pumps etc) despite my years experience working on them at my previous job. A fear of litigation was palpable about the department. They would only let people with level 3 certificates in the specific devices work on them. Oh and of course they wouldn't send me on the day course to get the certificate because I was just a temp. It begs the question why on Earth they hired me in the first place really and after 2 weeks of asking this to various members of the management I resigned myself to the fact that they were happy to pay me a lot of money to answer the phone and fix sphygmomanometers. It's sad really but the apathy amongst the staff is catching and though I feel quite disgusted by the lack of focus on where NHS money is being wasted, at the same time I have to pay the bills.

I ain't your mate, mate

2008-05-23T16:23:00.003+01:00

Sometimes in life I do inexplicable things time and time again: picking off scabs too early, sleeping with my contact lenses still in, drinking til they're cute etc etc but none of these make as little sense as my re-applications to Fitness First gyms, which I make every other year almost. Like a moth to the flame I am drawn to them and as soon as I utter "yes, I can spare 5 minutes," I begin to wince at the thought of the upcoming hard sell.

At least today I made sure I did not fill in any contact details (don't fill them in unless you want Buzz from the gym to call you every week saying yeah mate totally rock offer on and all that), and I didnt even attempt to feign any interest in the fact that the gym had lockers and tvs (like wow!) So we got down to the nitty gritty and the usual spiel about me being so incredibly lucky to there today because they have a special offer on today and today only.
"So, mate, we can give you this Fitness First bag, powerpack of earphones and water bottle, one sunbed session and a towel plus the admin fee which is worth £170 for only £30."
"Right... I don't want the bag, I dont want a towel, I dont want the powerpack nor the earphones or water bottle"
"You have to have them though..."
"OK, well it seems that if your company is prepared to give me £170 worth of stuff for £30 then surely they'll be making a saving giving me nothing but a membership card, right? Save themselves £140 here and now?"
"No mate it doesn't work like that"
"How does it work then?"
"You have to pay the £30 and take out a 12 month £45 per month contract"
"Can I go away and think about it?"
Those immortal words obviously meaning there is not a chance in hell I'm getting stuck into another 12 month contract with you guys. Bye Buzz! I guess I'll settle for the Royal Free gym which in fairness is crap compared to Fitness First but there are no contracts or 'admin' fees to deal with.

You're Hired!

2008-05-11T16:24:00.004+01:00

I found myself back in the hot seat on Thursday as I awaited the medical engineering manager at the Royal Free hospital to interview me for a new job. To tell the truth, I couldn’t have given two hoots about getting this job and I approached it with a somewhat indifferent borderline destructive attitude. The night before I had caught up with some Imperial buddies and drank a few too many coronas (something I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing before an interview for medical school!) and my research about the department was pathetic (a Google search and scroll on the hospital’s website).

Nevertheless, I answered the questions fairly well and my lack of want for the position allowed me to be totally relaxed which made me far more forthright with my questioning of the interviewer about the rates of pay and hours I would accept. I left thinking that I had asked for too much money and the flexible hours were unreasonable but within 20 minutes I had the job! I’ll repeat that – 20 minutes! If only medical schools were so hasty with their decisions; it would have relieved me of many sleepless nights. I start on Monday morning doing pretty much the same job as I was doing at the Princess Royal, but for more money and less hours(!)

It just goes to show that a little arrogance and cockiness seems to reap awards. Of course I would never advocate this as a way of getting into medical school; medical engineering is far less competitive and less regulated. There is a case to argue however that it’s OK to believe in yourself and know that you are good enough for the job. I think I, like many medical school applicants and medics, have a tendency to be very hard on myself. So let’s pat ourselves on the back now and again and take stock of the hard work we have done and the achievements we have attained.

Sunshine, lollipops and GHB

2008-05-09T15:52:00.000+01:00

My relaxing day in the rare English sunshine was cut short today when a friend of a friend with whom I was sharing a picnic and a few drinks on Hampstead Heath decided to take a substance his group of friends called “G” (later I found it to be gammahydroxybutyrate or GHB). Across the group my friend noticed this guy slump down awkwardly and suddenly onto the grass. His back became blotchy and his breathing was shallow. His friends told me it was a mix of paint stripper and drain cleaner which usually made the user “really horny.” Yeah, he looked well up for it all slumped over and unconscious – bloody idiots! They were adamant that I not call an ambulance; no doubt because they were worried of being questioned about where the drugs had come from. Perhaps they did know what they were doing since apparently this happened all the time but I made my excuses left the park and on my way out got the ranger to call an ambulance.

He is OK after having his stomach pumped and no doubt I shan’t be making these friends of friends just friends(!) but it did get me thinking about how someone could ever justify abusing their body with something so crude not once, but regularly even after experiencing unconsciousness. I think I have a lot to learn at medical school; how is it possible to be sympathetic to such self-destructive behaviour?

Unconditional Firm Confirmed

2008-04-26T20:47:00.010+01:00

You are live on Channel 4; please do not say fuck or bugger. The votes have been counted and verified and I can now reveal that I have firmed my unconditional offer from Newcastle to start the GEP for medicine in September, after receiving all my replies. So in the end it was a nod from Newcastle GEP, Barts GEP and Southampton GEP and a shake of the head from Imperial GEP. Odd how things work out isn't it? If you'd have asked me who was most likely to take me I would have said Imperial seeing as I am one of their babies effectively, but none of it really matters as my home town has accepted me back with open arms. I'm coming back to God's allotment.

On Wednesday I attended the open day which just whet my appetite and got me incredibly excited as we explored the medical buildings and did an example case study in groups. It's surprising how much knowledge we managed to pool together on the board from a tiny paragraph about a man with chest pain and I have retained a hell of a lot of information just from that one session. I almost became 'coffee boy' but from what I gather nobody saw that I managed to pour an entire cup of black coffee over myself whilst trying to graciously hold my specially made vegan lunch, knife and fork and paper cup - to no avail. Maybe everyone *did* see and just thought it was all too tragic to comment so averted their gazes elsewhere as I mopped myself down. Nightmare.

So now I have officially firmed, the inevitable nitty gritty details are becoming apparent. Where shall I live for starters? Well my older sister is starting her PhD in September so we have decided to buy somewhere near the university instead of wasting money on rent. The agent I have been using, Marilyn, is a curious lady indeed who seems to have some amazing filtering mechanism between her ears and brain that converts "I want somewhere safe, well-lit, around 120k within cycling distance of university" into "I want a house with a giant nob spray painted on the outside, which upon internal inspection has no windows at the rear as bricks have been hurled through and which smells like an ash tray for 100k with links to university by a 30 min bus ride." So upon hearing this she says "Isn't it funny I have several that match what you need entirely! Let me book you in" Bless her. Through YourMove however I have found a place in Fenham near the General hospital that is almost perfect and has room for improvement for 120k so I think I may have this on in the bag if my sister likes it too.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good bye

2008-04-17T08:06:00.003+01:00

And then he was unemployed. By intention I hasten to add, but nevertheless it still feels strange to have so much time on my hands and to not have my Iranian supervisor constantly over my shoulder asking if I have completed my paper work.

I decided to leave because my landlord decided to sell the property I was living in and (unbeknownst to myself) was well within his rights to cut short the 12 month tenancy agreement. Although that did piss me off, it was actually a relief seeing as I have recently broken up with my partner with whom I shared a room in this particular house. So, for the sake of my mental health (rather than my financial health) this probably worked out for the best.

I flew off to Eastern Europe the weekend before the big move up North and was stunned by how beautiful and romantic Vienna is. The architecture never fails to impress as you meander through the city and the place oozes culture. I dined in Sigmund Freud's favourite coffee house whilst a tour guide explained the troubled life of Mozart to me - I felt like a proper intellectual. We stumbled across a beer festival in the town centre where we sampled the local delights and finished the day on a horse drawn cart through the cobbled streets. It's definitely the most romantic city I've ever been to in my life. We left Austria for Slovakia in order to catch the flight back. Bratislava was a complete anti-climax really and, though it is a shame that it's only fame is from the ghastly torture porn flick Hostel, at least that's a talking point when in the city.

We flew back with RyanAir - the airline that sucks all the fun out of flying. A new rule they have imposed, as an interesting side, is that should you not check in online before your flight you have to pay a £3 check in fee(!?!?) which in itself is annoying but they know you arent going to refuse to travel for £3 BUT, despite having already queued for an hour to get to the check in desk, you can't pay this fee there (of course not) and have to join another queue to pay the fee which is twice as long. Good job I'm so anal when it comes to getting to the airport on time as we were about 3 hours early yet were still running to catch the plane!

I'm back in England now and have moved from Sevenoaks back up to my parents and envisage being here for about a month. My plan is to get another biomedical engineering job over the Summer in London near my sister's house in Hampstead to earn a few quid before medicine starts in Autumn.

Barts have started giving out the GEP offers now according to New Media Medicine, but I am yet to receive any decision - sigh. Im really anxious to get all my decisions so I can firm a choice and feel secure in the knowledge that I definitely have a place.

Spanners and stuff

2008-03-30T18:06:00.004+01:00

I thought I had pretty much resided myself to the fact that receiving an offer from my top choice Newcastle would have meant the cancellation of all other choices and the 'firming' of the said offer. Wednesday's trip to Southampton for the BM4 open day changed all that and placed that cursed proverbial spanner into the works.

What struck me most was how laid back all the current BM4 students were and how well structured the course was. I believed reading weeks were only bestowed onto blessed arts students - not so on the BM4 course evidently. Tuition fees can be spread over the 4 year course to suit you, accommodation is free if you give up 3 days a month to work as a warden, all travel is chargeable to the university and they have the coolest simulated ward I've ever seen (granted this is the *only* one I've ever seen but still!). In these wards robotic patients need their NIBP checked, bloods checked and ECG analysed. I recognised all the biomed machinery instantly; from the Dinamap NIBP monitor to the IVAC syringe driver and felt a warm feeling inside knowing I would now be utilising these devices rather than fixing them :-) The potential candidates with me were all also really canny and everyone had similar personalities and humour which I know would make for a great team spirit amongst our year. We exchanged email addresses and a facebook group will no doubt be popping up soon such are the times we live in. I was forewarned that a poking frenzy may be cast upon me should I decide against Southampton - all the more reason to keep an open mind and consider BM4 carefully I guess. My only criticism of the course would be the prosection approach to teaching anatomy; I would prefer at least a mix though the current students said that outside taught classes dissection was perfectly possible at the morgue as long as you butter the moritician up!

I have my Newcastle open day on 23rd April and am hopeful that I will have as much of a positive experience there as I did at Soton. The organiser has already gone out of her way to ensure I have a vegan option available to me on the day so this bodes extremely well with me as I'm usually politely told to bring my own packed lunch!

In other news, radio silence is still crackling from the admissions offices at the London unis. Hurry up!

Fog on the Tyne...

2008-03-22T09:42:00.004Z

...is alllll mine alllll mine. Or so the song goes. I received an offer for Newcastle's GEP on Wednesday quite accidentally at work over a cup of peppermint tea. Upon checking my Gmail there was the bitter-sweet UCAS track change email which makes my palms sweaty and BP elevate to dizzying heights. I read unconditional offer and was sent off on a tangent from my engineering duties phoning, texting and emailing family and friends.

It still hasn't really sunk in. I'm up here in Newcastle now for Easter with my family and am 96.76% sure that this is going to be my firm choice but I shall still be attending the other open days to make an informed decision. Merry Easter!

Track is whack

2008-03-12T17:26:00.002Z

I am in the midst of an epidemic affecting a large population of dwellers on the New Media Medicine forums I use - UCAS track addiction. I find myself logging onto track every 15 minutes at work and at home day and night as a matter of habit now. It's breaking the record set in mid-2006 when facebook hit Imperial and I couldnt help but meticulously upload and tag my entire collection of digital photos from my hard drive.

Like most addicts, it's been a downward spiral triggered by the high I experienced when I received an offer from Southampton. I need that high again, man. You'll soon see photos of me in Heat trawling the streets of Camden with my laptop and a bag of ice pops logging in every few minutes in a desperate hope for that elusive elation an offer brings. I know that UCAS will email my Gmail to tell me of any status change, but you can't reason with a track whore can you?

A massive pack came from Newcastle university yesterday and my jaw dropped and heart started pounding. Surely a rejection letter couldn't be *that* thick unless they sent me the minutes of my interview documenting all the silly things I said... alas it was from the medical engineering department job I applied to back in January during one of my (many) "I am not good enough for medicine, I'll never get in, let's sort a backup plan out ASAP" moments. I got the job but it provided little solace and I was back to track in a matter of minutes. God help me.

America's Next Top Medic

2008-03-05T05:30:00.001Z

I must admit that at 12pm today when I was told by a lady in HR that the Barts assessment would last up to 5 hours I very nearly walked out. I realise how selfish this must seem to people who didn't get invited to interview but since receiving an offer I have definitely seen myself becoming more and more disillusioned with the whole UCAS process for getting into medical school.

I mean is it not enough that I paid £65 for pleasure of taking the UKCAT exam which subsequently voided two out of the five sections completely changing my average? (not a small thing considering a cut-off score determines whether or not you get through to the interview stage) Is it not enough that I spent more time carefully carving out my personal statement than I did some essays for my literature course? Now you want me to parade around much like the penises on America's Next Top Model and do stupid mini tasks to prove my interpersonal skills. Tyra Banks will then come out and probe me until I weep about how my mum was a crack whore and my dad abused me but now I'm stronger and know Barts is where I belong. Then I'll do a fierce runway walk and smile with my eyes much to the amusement of the panel. Perhaps then I'll be let in. (If you don't indulge in the dirty pleasures of ANTM then please ignore this paragraph)

But I was proven wrong and am glad a certain other GEP wannabe persuaded me to stay. Although I am not allowed to reveal any exact details of the day, I realised that the different ways in which they assess you on the day makes for a far fairer and objective assessment of your merits. Instead of a sweaty, shaky 20 minute grilling where a couple of bored panellists decide your fate, you are graded throughout the day and given an average score. I found out that the process was developed in the 1970s for the army and is a very effective way of finding the better candidate. The down side to this was that all the questions in my interview were very broad rather than Barts specific so all the hours I spent researching the institution felt wasted.

I left feeling satisfied that Barts had given me a fair shot. And whilst in Sainsbury's a lady collapsed and I stepped in to help her. If I weren't a devout atheist perhaps I would have attached some significance to this event.

Back to Track

2008-02-26T17:30:00.001Z

The status of your UCAS application has changed... and so for 3 minutes as I logged onto track my heart stood still. Had they all rejected me? Did I inadvertently check a box that said 'if you check this box your application is void'? Was all this time and effort wasted? Eep!

Then elation. Southampton BM4 offer! Stunned! Amazed! Is this some horrible mistake? Post arrives. Welcome pack. I am definitely going to be a doctor :-o I will be going to an open day on 26th Marchto check out the university.

I need to stay focused though. I have a Barts interview coming up and apparently it's not going to be like the usual medical interviews so I need to get 'pre-empting' on those tricky questions that will inevitably arise.

Let me break the ice...

2008-02-01T20:52:00.002Z

Allow me to introduce myself in true blogospherical fashion by not revealing my name but by explaining the purpose of the ramblings I will be scrawling in this piece of cyber space for as long as it is feasible/I can be bothered. I must confess I am not the innocent blog virgin you may think I am. I am the (not so proud) owner of a long neglected MSN space that traced my adventures at Imperial College during my first degree in Biomedical Engineering. I am now in the middle of my application to study graduate medicine and, after reading a few amazing medical blogs, have decided to follow suit.

So in a nutshell, I graduated from Imperial in 2006 with a 2:1 and took off on a global expedition with my older sister for a much needed chill out. As you can see here, the trip wasn't the long chill out I needed but it was certainly 9 months of my life I will never forget. (I realise my half-hearted attempt to remain anonymous may have just been blown but I feel it is important to link my blogging worlds else I may end up with some sort of split blog personality.) After working in an orphanage in Peru and India, I started to think about the possibility of applying to a graduate medical course back in England. Since landing back in blighty I've been working in a hospital as a biomedical engineer fixing medical equipment which sealed the deal for me really - I want to be the doc working with people, not the engineer working with resistors and soldering irons.

Little did I know the amount of blood, sweat and tears it would take just to get into a medical school, let alone the highly sought after graduate entry courses. These courses are 3 1/2 years long and the NHS pay all fees bar year one so compared to a usual course you can save a whopping £12K! So the powers that be get us doe-eyed medical student wannabes to jump through hoop after hoop.
Hoop 1) Ensure your credentials hit the mark. Usually good A-levels and at least a 2:1 from a decent uni.
Hoop 2) Get a decent score on the United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) - usually at least 600/900 average to even be considered. (Some medical schools require the GAMSAT or BMAT but I'm not familiar with this route so can't comment.)
Hoop 3) Write a personal statement in no more that 47 lines that demonstrates your suitability for medicine without sounding arrogant and without resorting to cliches and without reading like every other Tom, Dick and Harry PS.
Hoop 4) Wait for the interview invitation. (Well it's not so much a hoop you're in control of really but it rests on Hoops 1 to 3.)
Hoop 5) Should you be lucky enough to be called for interview, you better get up to speed on how the medical school works, why you want to go there and only there and what you could contribute to that school. (Alas it's the game we have to play. They know as well as we do that of course we've used the other spaces on the UCAS form and the aim is to become a doctor regardless of the medical school).

And now I'm playing the waiting game. I can't afford nor would I want to do the 5/6 year traditional medical courses so against the advice of many applied purely to graduate courses. I applied to the GEP's at Imperial College London, Barts and the London, Southampton and Newcastle. The reason for my seemingly illogical choices is that these fast-track medical courses are only offered at 15 (correct me if I'm wrong) universities and since I only sat the UKCAT that further reduced the schools I could apply to. Looking at the stats you can see the application to place ratio quite frankly is enough to make me retch in sheer disbelief. I mean how can my chances be just 2%?!?

It's all pretty much out of my hands now so I'm taking a fairly fatalistic view of things (que sera, sera and all that). So here I am a fully fledged UCAS track addict hoping for a freakin' break man.