Hiya! I’m Phoenix and I’m a medical student at Pembroke College, Oxford. For me, it was always Medicine’s ability to not only appeal to my scientific curiosity but my desire to better understand how people work on both a physical level and a psychological one that drew me to apply to Oxford due to the course structure allowing me to thoroughly explore those aspects of the vocation.
The Oxford medicine course is split up into 2 halves – Years 1-3 being the pre-clinical phase of the degree (furthering your understanding of the scientific concepts that underpin medicine) and Years 4 – 6 being clinical teaching which focuses more on applying the content from the first three years to a clinical environment in hospitals. A typical week in Year 1 and 2 would consist of around 3 one hour lectures a day alongside 2-3 practicals a week which can range in time frame. There are different practicals that you’ll be expected to complete in a week; some may take place in the demonstration room where you’ll get the chance to do prosections on particular parts of the body or you might have histology practicals which involve looking at specimens under microscopes (I wasn’t a big fan of these).
Tutorials can vary between different colleges but I’d say on average you would have 2-3 tutorials a week with an essay set for each. I know it sounds like a lot of work (which it is) but it is something that you quickly end up learning how to manage and funnily enough speaking as a medic, I would like to think that I spend more time exploring my interests outside of medicine than time on doing the work set. Not only this, but as you progress through the degree, the workload changes. For instance, currently in third year a typical week for me would consist of only 2-3 lectures with probably only 1 essay every two weeks. This year has felt a lot more flexible, not only in terms of time but in terms of content as students are allowed to pick their options in a variety of different medical sciences as well as produce their own research project on a topic of their choice.
The application process can be very daunting (believe me I know) but the best piece of advice that I could possibly give you is – be yourself. The tutors aren’t looking for robotic geniuses who already know the answers to all the questions (despite what many misconceptions portray) but are looking for curious, passionate individuals who are willing to go to great lengths to further explore their interests. This should encompass every single aspect of your application; be it your personal statement where you should use your own unique experiences to your advantage to relay to the tutors your specific interests or even your interview, where you should let your own unique character traits and personality shine through as your tutor will be looking for students that they can envision themselves wanting to teach and would enjoy interacting with on a regular basis. It’s always important to remember that it is not what you know but how you use what you know to come to an answer. Interviews are very similar to tutorials so it is very likely that you will be asked questions on topics that you have never encountered before but don’t worry the interviewer isn’t trying to catch you out, their aim will be to guide you through the process as you come to an answer. In one of my interviews, I was given the skull of an unknown animal and was asked to explain what animal it belonged to and why. At the time I was petrified because I had no clue what the relevance of the question was to medicine but still managed to give the question my best shot by thinking out loud and explaining my answer to the tutor (an answer which I got horribly wrong).
The realities of studying Medicine and its practice can be overwhelming. Dedication and commitment are necessary but the desire to be at the forefront of scientific advancement, embracing a constantly changing field to directly improve people’s lives, will make any challenge worthwhile.