My Story

I thought I'd just take you through the story of me deciding that I wanted to study Medicine, because trust me I wasn't born wanting to be a doctor, but it just kind of crept up on me over the years!

I first really thought about working in a hospital when I decided I wanted to be a midwife in year 9 or 10. I got all of the information about it from a school careers fair and was really set on it for a while.

But I first began wanting to study Medicine when I was in year 10 (15 years old). I was watching a TV show about paediatric brain surgeons - I can't remember the specific name of it, but it was really good! And I absolutely loved how they worked. I loved the explanation of the diseases, seeing the effect that the surgeons had on their patients and their families, seeing how they worked with the skull and the brain during the procedures, and learning about the innovative treatments that these doctors and scientists had come up with to treat the neurological diseases that these children suffered from. It made me think - maybe I could do that! So from then and for the next few months I decided that I wanted to be a brain surgeon just like the doctors on that show. I went on a trip to King's and did a medical day there, and it was really fun!

However, this whole dream came to an end when I went on a trip to Cambridge with my school. One step in there and I was like "I only want to go here! I don't want to go anywhere else!", and since I wanted to go to Cambridge so much I decided that maybe I should just apply for a course where I'd have a good chance of getting in. And I didn't really think that I would be able to be successful if I applied to Cambridge for Medicine, so I decided I wanted to study Natural Sciences. Or maybe Biochemistry at Oxford? Or what about just Chemistry? Or Biology? Or Archaeology? Literally I was set on Oxbridge.

So I did my GCSEs, and worked really hard because I wanted to get those grades so that I could apply for Oxford or Cambridge. And I got good grades! I was really pleased with them overall and so I continued with my Cambridge dream. I knew I wanted to study something sciencey but I decided to keep my options open for if I did decide to study Medicine, so I chose to study Biology and Chemistry at A level.

So, I started year 12 studying Biology, Chemistry, Maths, French and Drama, but dropped Drama because 5 AS levels really was just too much. I went to the talks they held about Oxbridge and got really excited about the thought of studying at Cambridge! But as year 12 went on I kept putting myself off of the idea of Cambridge and I became less sure that it was for me. As I studied AS Biology, I noticed how much I loved learning about protein synthesis and the structure of proteins, and I decided that Biochemistry was for me.

And then in January 2013, I randomly came across Junior Doctors: Your Life in Their Hands on BBC3. And once again I fell in love with the idea of being a doctor. The whole evening after I watched it I just couldn't stop thinking about wanting to be like those Junior Doctors on TV! I know it sounds stupid, I mean you can't exactly decide your career from watching a TV show? But it just made me start thinking - maybe I could be a doctor after all! I'd got over the idea of going to Cambridge now, and so that wasn't putting me off the idea of wanting to be a doctor at all! I looked into it more and started really wanting to study Medicine. I spoke to my friend who was planning to do Medicine and she encouraged me to do it. I realised that I wasn't actually that passionate about Biochemistry, and now when I think about if I had to do that instead of Medicine it makes me really sad.

And so that's when it started. I started panicking about AS results, and whether I had enough work experience and extra-curricular activities! And since I only had about 9 months to get all of my work experience sorted it really was a panic. I'll tell you more about applying for work experience in my next post.

Thank you for reading! I hope you found my Medicine story at least a bit interesting:)