So, I'm actually on a graduate entry medicine course where most of us are early twenties and up. I'm 24. I, clearly naively, had expected that people would be much more mature on this course due to our ages and the type of course. Boy, was I wrong.

I feel like I'm back in secondary school. Cliques have formed, and some are talking so much shit about people. I found out just yesterday that they were saying some stuff about me, including making fun of a guy for even talking to me. I was bullied as a teenager at school and I swear it's brought it all flooding back. I feel so self-conscious now.

One of the most egregious things is they've made fun of one of our course members for being gay, and another for having autism. These people are going to be DOCTORS. It's absolutely disgusting.

It's really hard to report this stuff as I didn't witness it all myself and it's hard to prove, plus what could really be done?

Has anyone else noticed this on their courses? Grad entry or standard? I have been so taken aback by it.

(originally posted on the general UK uni subreddit but posted here as well - I am very sorry if this post is inappropriate or against the rules or something I'm not used to posting)

Never posted anything on reddit at all before but I am in desperate need of assistance and idk what to do.

Basically I’ve lowkey been depressed since 13 but it wasn’t that big of an issue before and I could mostly kinda function (at least academically) + it’s pretty likely I have ADHD but never got diagnosed with it cuz I’m pretty sure you need parental input for that and my parents don’t really believe ADHD is an actual thing 😭.

I crammed everything last minute for GCSEs and got all 9s and 2 8s since GCSE content is fairly easy. Tried the same thing at A levels and obviously failed miserably but still managed to pull off an ABB and somehow got into medicine with that.

Idk what happened but after my last A level exam my functioning completely collapsed and I basically spent the next two months completely catatonic in bed and barely ate or showered or did anything but sleep. Idk what I was thinking but I somehow thought that when uni started I would magically be able to pull myself together and be normal again and be able to study and socialise and allat. Uni started over a month ago, and for the first week or so I actually went to lectures, but after that (I’m not sure why) I completely gave up and became non functional again and I’ve been lying in bed doing absolutely nothing for the past month. (I know this is genuinely so so disgusting 💀) but I have not showered for WEEKS nor have I brushed my hair for a month and have been eating literally one meal every 2-3 days for weeks. 

I have been to ZERO lectures or teaching sessions or clinical skills sessions, I’ve had almost ZERO interactions with any of my flatmates, done ZERO socialising, etc. I know it’s entirely my fault that I’m so behind and it’s my own choices that lead me here but I’m genuinely dying of anxiety and I feel like I’ve ruined my entire uni experience and my career in medicine and basically my whole life. I’m pretty sure literally everyone has friends except for me at this point (which I know is my own fault), and I don’t actually care since I’ve had issues with social isolation since 13 and so don’t really feel loneliness anymore at this point, but medicine is an EXTREMELY social degree, and although LECTURES are fine because you kind of just sit there and listen and don’t have to socialise, we have teaching sessions (which are mandatory to physically attend) where we have to actually sit at tables in groups like we did at school (and in the FIRST week it was fine since nobody knew each other, but NOW everybody’s going to be in established friendship groups and all the tables will just be people sitting with their friends, but obviously I don’t HAVE friends so when I DO go back to lessons I’m literally going to be the only one either: sitting at a table by myself, OR sitting at a table where everyone ELSE at the table is friends with each other and they’re going to be wondering why I’m sitting there and wishing I would leave and ignoring me the whole time - both of which are unbearable embarrassing 💀).

My academic tutor knows I’m really behind and I emailed her asking how I should catch up and she basically said “just look at the online resources”. I booked a GP appointment for depression and asked for meds and said I do NOT want counselling (I don’t think it’d be useful for me or would really do anything) and they had a mental health nurse call me 2 weeks later who basically said “I can ask a GP for meds but they’re probably not going to prescribe any because of your age” (I’m 18) + told me to go to my uni’s wellbeing services for counselling 💀. I went to my wellbeing team and they said they basically can’t really do anything and I should speak to an actual GP to get diagnosed with depression which would let me access the “Disability Inclusion Service” and MAYBE they can help me. So then I had to wait ANOTHER week for the mental health nurse to call me again, and I told her my symptoms hadn’t improved at all and asked again for meds, and she said she’d try to get me an appointment with an actual GP so they could diagnose me and I could ask them for medication - but they haven’t contacted me since so idk if that’s actually going to happen. I don’t even know if this is actually depression or some type of ADHD burnout, but if it’s the latter I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about that since I’m pretty sure diagnoses for ADHD take ages.

PLEASE BE HONEST: IS IT OVER FOR ME ACADEMICALLY YES/NO? What’s the percentage chance of me actually catching up with everything I’ve missed so far? And how would I do that? I know that there’s a thing where you can take a year off uni and come back and restart first year medicine the following year, but that is NOT AN OPTION for me (my parents are south asian and don’t believe in mental illness and if I were to go back home to them and tell them that I’ve been doing absolutely nothing this whole time they will GENUINELY kill me). My ONLY option is somehow catching up with all the stuff I’ve missed so far and continuing on with the year. 

Does anyone have experience with missing the first several weeks of 1st year medicine content and did you catch up and how? Wtf do I do???? I have a fitnote that lasts for another month which excuses all my absences, but if I miss TWO MONTHS total of content I feel like I’d never be able to catch up. So is that possible or not? I know i just need to stop being such a bum and just start looking through the lecture slides from week 1 but I feel like I literally can’t and that it’s too much (and I KNOW it’s my fault that it’s “too much” and that it’ll just CONTINUE to get MORE “too much” if I keep avoiding it but still 😭) and I can’t get myself to concentrate or actually absorb anything and I feel like I’m too stupid to be able to understand any of it anyway.

Is my opportunity to make friends over? I know everyone just says stuff like “join societies” or whatever, but realistically everyone IN those societies will already have formed established friendship groups by now, and I’m genuinely so socially inept and awkward that it’s unlikely that people would be willing to include me or let me into their groups - so is it over for me socially as well? If it IS impossible for me to make friends at this point then how am I supposed to survive teaching sessions where you have to actually socially interact with people???

Please help idk what to do and I really feel like I’ve completely fucked my medicine degree and also ruined my entire life. Can someone give a step-by-step guide or something for how I should fix all of this because I really feel like it’s over for me.

TLDR (but pls read the whole thing if possible): missed around a month of teaching content for 1st year medicine (so lectures + teaching sessions + CBL and PDG sessions + clinical skills sessions and basically everything) + have done 0 socialising. Is catching up academically (and socially) possible and how?

Final year student here! In the run up to exams I thought it’s be fun and helpful to share your most handy, fun or outlandish memory tricks that have helped you during med school and exams.

No specific specialty, but would love to hear them!

Hi all, I’ve got the UKMLA in approximately 3 months (11 weeks to be exact) - is this enough time to get through the content map, complete passmed questions and pass the overall exam?

Thanks, any additional advice would be much appreciated.

I’m a final year med student in a UK university and have been looking for an elective placement in ENT in May 2027. The problem is the at all the trusts I emailed have said they only offer observational placements and our trust does not have any availability during this period.

I was wondering if anyone had any luck in the past with a hospital that offers hands-on exposure and where?

If anyone has done an observational elective in ENT/surgical specialty, how was it?

Hii, for anyone who goes to Keele med school, I’m first year, is the exams in January just a mock or does it count towards the end of year grade.

Thank you!!

so I've been in medical school for about 6 weeks and I'm feeling so lost in all aspects. I'm struggling to figure out what i should actually be doing during the lecture, for the first couple of weeks i would go through the lectures beforehand and make resources so i had a better understanding while it was being taught. However, that became more and more difficult as no some days we have 3-4 lectures per day and they don't always put up the slides with enough time for me to properly go through them beforehand. But now, for some lectures going through the content feels like its taking me hours and I'm not even coming of it with a decent understanding of the topic in relation to the learning objectives. I think the area I'm in a fairly okay position is anatomy but even with that i feel like i understand the content but I'm not able to retain much of it even with anki reviews. whats not helping with this is that our learning objectives with anatomy aren't always covered in the teaching or the pre/post work materials provided so to even cover it by my self I'm unsure of what to use as a resource(and in how much depth) without overloading myself with info.

every medical school coping strategy I see online has said "find ur people" "make good friends" and i just have not been able to do that. to start with i was unable to secure uni accom despite firming the uni in May, therefore I'm in private accom. so not many first years live in the accom I'm at.I think that has played a major role in my ability (or lack of) to make friends as I'm also an introvert around new ppl and find in hard to socialise, i now think everyone has managed to make their own friend groups and I'm just awkwardly hanging near one where I'm not really talking much.

Just spent the past week doing arrhythmia, specifically AF and Peri-Arrest for Brady and Tachyarrhythmias and recently finding out they changed the guidelines for them after a fair few questions lol because I only got the updated questions recently when doing passmed

So as a result I'm wondering how do you keep up with guideline changes so that you aren't stuck with old, outdated knowledge?

When should i turn it off. i do passmed ai on set specialties with ai + quesmed on everything each day (no ai). i feel like my scores are not good

need of advice of those who’ve passed the MLA for some study advice and reassurance.

idk im probs just deeping it too much ig.

my progress test is in jan and its my summative so must pass its our end of out written exam. progress test = MLA style exam so basically a really long passmed session.

i always find myself in this dilemma and always end up doing the same thing. I start off the year with approaching my learning in blocks of specialities and tackling the MLA condition list. Have passmed textbook ZTF yt videos older year notes several website open and run through them to make my anki card on each condition. Do spranki if it exists for the condition + top up by making my own Anki cards. Run through this for X number of conditions of that speciality on MLA list bash the anki cards do passmed after cover X amount of conditions in that specialty and add more Anki cards based on new conditions mistakes etc repeat for next specialty.

As you imagine takes A WHILE. fast forward several weeks down the line realises i have no time to do all this just bash passmed and quesmed to make sure I cover decent breadth of specialities and condition and retain enough knowledge to carry me in my exams

When i do my first method of going through learning and making cards for each condition it sticks in my head and I get to really understand and question about the condition it really helps i find especially on placement. But exams soon approach gotta balance revision and other classes placements etc so there is simply no time to be this thorough and maintain this because it cuts down on doing passmed and q time.

But i feel just doing passmed and quesmed is good for recognising and active recall it sometimes makes me feel my understanding is superficial but it is a necessity in order for me to pass my exams.

I’m not thinking of just passing my progress tests im worried about the finals UKMLA which requires more than just spamming passmed or so I’ve heard but really understanding the conditions which i feel can only be achieved if I am thoroughly learning the condition. I could be wrong here pls share your fellow wise words of advice

Basically do i just spam passmed how much were you spamming towards exam season daily etc. I feel like the max I’ve done in a day passmed is 80qs idk how some people spam like 300/day 😭

what is the ‘best’ approach. I’ve done a few progress tests now and i score fairly well in them despite never feeling like I’ve covered enough or was secure in my preparation before hand. But I can’t be second guessing my study prep and over thinking it’s esp for final finals MLA im guessing that point just full on ramming passmed was the main thing but leading up in the years before esp if ur uni did PTs what was your approach?

Hi

I’m in first year and I’m only 5-6 weeks in and I’m just making anki flashcards and I have 0 time to then go over them, and I feel like I’m not understanding concepts in lectures as well as my peers

My medical school provided us with osmosis but the subscription has ran out but I have no idea what resources to use to keep up or understand anything, and if I should be making anki cards because it’s so time consuming it takes me hours and I can’t review them

I’m only making anki flashcards as this is what I did during a levels but I have no idea how to retain any of this information that I’m learning and I often forget things after watching videos

Any advice is really appreciated I’m struggling so bad to the point where I’m considering not coming back after christmas😍

After 4 years of studying, I just realised that medicine is just a subject that requires huge memorization and a hint of pattern recognition. You can teach apes memorisation and pattern recognition but not calculus or complex logic. Medicine doesn't require the super complicated skills needed for other subjects like engineering for example despite the stereotype that doctors are needed to be smart. We might be barely on the average scale but a lot less than mathematician and physicists.

Just a rant. (Also sorry for offending your god complex)

I'm currently in the weeks of hell and have been using spranki on and off, but I feel like its not been great with the lectures. Some stuff feels too advanced, and some details from lectures seem to just not be included. I was just wondering if someone would be able to share a premade deck if possible, or give some guidance on a better alternative??

I cant search anything. Anyone with the same problem? Any alternatives?

Hey! I’m currently a 4th-year medical student and starting to look into elective placements for summer 2027. I’m particularly interested in going to Malaysia or America, but I’m also open to other countries if anyone has any recommendations!
I’d ideally like to do my elective in obstetrics and/or paediatrics, somewhere I can gain lots of clinical experience, learn new things and get involved as much as possible. At the same time, I’d like a reasonable timetable so I can still have some time to explore the country and prepare for 5th year alongside my elective.
If anyone has any recommendations for particular cities, hospitals or universities, or any advice about applying, costs, accommodation or what to look out for, I’d really appreciate it! Especially if you’ve done an elective in any of these places yourself. 🩺

I'm currently in Y3 studying Graduate Entry Medicine, and I'm finding the course pretty intense and challenging. The level of anatomy we're expected to cover feels like a degree in itself, and with the structure of the course, it often feels like we're essentially teaching ourselves a huge proportion of the medicine curriculum alongside the formal teaching. Our Anatomy module were crammed into Years 1 and 2 with 1 hour per week dedicated to it.

I've always actually loved anatomy and had a keen interest in it before starting medicine. However finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with it alongside everything else... pathophysiology, pharmacology, clinical placements, and case based learning.

At the moment, I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at anatomy. I can understand it when I sit down and study it, but I struggle to retain the sheer amount of detail we're expected to know, particularly when there are so many other subjects competing for attention.

I have an interest in surgery, although I'm not currently set on pursuing a surgical specialty. I'm therefore curious about something:

Were any doctors here relatively poor at anatomy during medical school, but later went into surgery and found that their anatomy improved significantly once they started working clinically and getting hands on experience?

I appreciate that obviously you need a good anatomical foundation for surgery, but I'm wondering how much of that knowledge actually comes together once you're seeing patients, assisting in theatre, operating, and repeatedly encountering the same anatomy in a practical context.

Essential Examination book mogs.

GEM 2 student here where I am trying to apply for NHS bursary however they keep rejecting my application because the bursary team says there isn't sufficient financial information on my parents part. I have sent them their p45 and p60 form but keeps getting rejected, they are asking for my tax return or something form but I don't understand and my parents don't. Anyone else have a similar experience that could help please?

Hi everyone, I’m a final-year medical student trying to register a systematic review on PROSPERO. I’m doing it in my own time with a clinician who works at another hospital/trust, and there is currently no funding or formal university involvement.

PROSPERO has a section where it asks for the organisational affiliation or sponsor of the review.
This is under the section called "review affiliation, funding and peer review". Should I put “None” unless my university or the unit has formally agreed to support it?

I've still listed my university as my individual affiliation in the team members section.

Thanks :')

For context: I am halfway through my medical degree. I am not claiming to have an advanced understanding of clinical practice or prescribing (which makes this story even more frustrating)

Made an appointment with my university health centre with complaints of a dull pelvic pain and fatigue expecting PCOS as a likely investigative pathway. Nothing crazy imo.

Got scheduled with an ANP. Mentioned a 6-8 month history of continuous dull pain and painful periods/intercourse. Zero questions about GI symptoms. Zero questions about fatigue. Zero attempt at clinical examination. ANP did MSU/STI screen/pregnancy test and ordered routine PCOS bloods so well done for that. No conversation about potential imaging. Bit of a judgment call on but they chose to take the conservative option. ANP told me to book a birth control appointment and take paracetamol or use a hot water bottle for the pain. Bloods were done the next day.

This is when shit hits the fan.

The weekend passes. My birth control appointment is with an ANP. I request the NuvaRing (previous usage in home country). I shit you not, this ANP pulled up a pdf of the counseling guidelines and word for word read off the page. Just 2 months prior I was required to counsel on contraceptives in an OSCE. It was like a slap in the face to have to listen to the ANP stumble through without a care in the world.

Two days later I saw vitals and TSH (normal) have been uploaded to my portal. Decided the other investigations may have gone to a separate lab. I wait. For ONE MONTH. Nothing else was uploaded. No ring.

Rang the surgery to follow up and the receptionist mumbled that shes not able to interpret these results and will send them to the nurse (wtf) for review and will ring back later that day or the next. I wait all night getting pretty worried about my results at this point. No ring.

Rang again and a new receptionist answered. She tried to insinuate that my online portal had not been set up. I was so dumbfounded I asked her to repeat herself. I mentioned my partial results (and previous use of the app for years?) and her tone changed and she emailed my raw labs to my personal email in a .rtf file.

Multiple flags: elevated testosterone and tragically low Hb/MCV/MCH/MCHC with raised cell count. Great.

I rang back immediately saying I am concerned about these results and would like a follow up. Guess who I was booked with? A FUCKING ANP.

Icing on the cake. Who knows what’ll happen next week.

This was an extremely low acuity and stress setting and the consultations missed the basics, the results just sat unreviewed, and reception was just absolutely useless. The only reason it got caught is that I knew to chase it.

Bit worrying to think about how many patients that are also affected. I understand my gripes extend to more than just ANPs and reflect a general incompetency of the NHS but I felt I needed to share a case study.

TLDR: ANPs and admin being incompetent conservative in their care decisions

ive got no more motivation to go to the wards anymore. i dont enjoy talking to people anymore i find it exhausting. im scared because i do love medicine, i used to love going to the wards and make the most out of every opportunity but now i dont even feel like myself anymore. and im scared i wont be able to find my passion for it again. feeling like im going down a slippery slope. i just want to feel excited to see patients and go to placement again rather than dreading it. i feel terrible and upset that i dread placement - how am i meant to work later on if i cant even handle a few days a week now ? and on top of this ive got a research project for one of my modules but i care more about my breakfast in a month than research for this one topic im forced to do (wasnt my top choice for this mandatory module). i have no motivation to read papers or even bother thinking about it. i also feel like shit because it seems like everyone around me just seems to love research and everyone has a specific topic they care about but i dont …… i care (or cared at this point) more about the actual job rather than papers and research! and i feel like a bad student for this??

sorry for the vent i dont even know what to do i just feel helpless :( ive never felt like this in my life , is it just burnout? how do i bounce back ?

Not sure if r/doctorsUK would let me post this as it might involve some element of career planning of a med student, so I am posting here and hope some doctors would see this.

I have been to two ITUs for placement and I love them so much. I can't help but notice that according to the latest FICM census and the few before this state that 80-90% of ICM consultants have dual CCT anaesthetics, compared to 1-4% of each of any other backgrounds. The reason is pretty obvious with the overlapping skill sets required by ICM and anaesthetic ,but I am just wondering if the triple CCTs with IM and AIM/Renal/Resp is still a good combo in ICM and a combo in demand, both for patient care and the doctor's career.

sorry if i shpuldnt have posted this here but i rlly need to grt it out

I came to uni 5 weeks ago really excited abt starting a new chapter. I did everything right. I spoke to people, put myself in uncomfy situations, i attended differeng socs/events - literally put 1000% more effort than i ever have making friends

Yet ive had no luck. The same people always ignore me or they deliberately disclude me, I dont know why. I keep tryibg to hold convos but the people who i speak to js end up walking away/have other friends and we never speak again. I dont want to chase after people who clearly dont wanna hang around me, so i dont even know what to do anymore.

Ive been crying every single day for the past few days, i really really do try everyday. Today i walked past so many people in my course and they all had friends and i was all alone it just made me so sad. People always have friends to walk w to class. I know people forsure, but i reallg dont think any of them would consider me their friend.

Any advice is greatly appreciated