Fundraising for the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre

If you enjoyed doing charity work throughout your time at school, there’s no reason to give up this passion once you arrive at university! In fact, when I arrived in Nottingham two years ago, I was amazed at the variety of options available; whether you would like to donate your time or raise money, there …

Mission Zambia: Outreach Trip to Mwandi

Every year, during the summer holidays, a group of medical students from the University of Nottingham journey to Mwandi, Zambia in southern Africa for three weeks. Mission Zambia is a student led, not for profit organization, which strives to fight homelessness, poor healthcare and lack of education in rural Zambia. Over the next five years, …

Placement in psychiatry and running the London Marathon (Part 1)

Dan Townley, one of our final-year graduate entry medical students, describes his placement in psychiatry and shares how it motivated him to run the London Marathon to help raise awareness of mental health issues.  I felt a little unsure about what to expect from my placement in psychiatry – perceptions undoubtedly shaped by my limited experience …

Life as an international student

Accents, bad stereotypes and a culture shock; the typical ABCs of being an international student. Coming from Singapore, a tremendously westernized country, I did not believe I would struggle with any of these when I moved here to study medicine. That’s where I was wrong. Food Life is so different here from back home in …

Hello from Australia!

Hello and welcome from sunny Australia! My name’s Josh and I’m a final-year student currently on my elective at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. The Elective What exactly is an elective, I hear you ask? Well, after enduring the trials and stresses of final exams in February, the elective is our reward: a …

Fresher Fails!

You’ve heard them before, but here’s a quick refresh of what to do and what not to do in your first year! 1. “I’ll leave all my revision notes till the end of term and do them all at once” Inevitably you will miss the odd lecture or you’ll sit through 4 hours of Behavioural …

Re-learning to revise (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1) Mind maps/spider diagrams Ideal for the student who thoroughly understands and remembers concepts. Sometimes a prompt is all that is needed and leads to a “word association”. This gets you out of the rote learning trap and probably makes for more ingrained knowledge which is necessary to become a good doctor. …

Re-learning to revise (Part 1)

Revision is one of those mysterious concepts which is unique to every individual. There are those who need to go over everything multiple times before an exam to the point they can recite a textbook with their eyes closed; alternatively, you have the annoying but admirable students who learn as they go along and manage …

The Elective

Hi, Rob again. As I come to the end of my degree, I thought I would write a blog about what is undoubtedly the highlight of medical school for many — the elective period. This is an opportunity for clinical phase medical students to go anywhere in the world for a set period of time …

Shaking it up a bit — studying a semester of medicine abroad

Hi, I’m Amy, hei fra Oslo! Most medical students talk about going to a different country and practicing medicine one day, but the chance to go as part of the course itself is less well advertised. When I started my degree, I never thought I’d spend half of my fourth year studying in Norway, but …