Medicine

Yasmin

I've always been interested in the human body and used to watch lots of documentaries when I was younger. During secondary school, science was always my favourite subject! I also love working with people and so the idea of sitting in a lab all day was not appealing for me. After doing some work experience in my local hospital, I was in awe of the doctors(and all the staff!) and wanted to get involved as soon as possible!

Mia

Medicine always stuck out to me because it was the perfect combination of a structured science course, with a potential to work with and learn about people on a far more human level.

Sarannia

Sometimes, the course seems very intense and there are often times when it feels like information s just being chucked at us to learn. In the moment, it can seem quite daunting, but when we take the time to go over our notes, it really isn't too bad! So, if there's something I would change, it would be to spread out the information we're taught over a longer period of time, so as to allow us to understand the course better as we progress throughout the term, as opposed to doing a fair chunk of it in the holidays.

Joshua

After doing lots of research (reading many books, work experience etc), I made the decision that medicine was the best course for me. This is because it combines the science that I most enjoy (learning about the human body) with a profession that involves helping people.

Mia

The medicine course at Cambridge consists of 2 years of pre-clinical, 1 year of intercalation, and then 3 years of clinical. It requires a lot of personal time management and motivation, as while all the content is provided, understanding and retaining it will require additional study. Though there is very limited clinical contact in the first 2 years the course is academically challenging and most importantly thorough, if you use your time to really focus on this side of things you will feel pretty prepared once you end up in hospitals.

Joshua

The first 2 years are pre-clinical medicine, during which we learn the theory. This means that the content is mainly lecture based - there is a lot of lectures and a lot of content. There are also practicals and seminars. This includes 2hours of cadaveric dissection per week. There is also 2 short visits to a GP surgery.
The third year allows you to intercalate in a degree of your choice.
Then years 4-6 are the clinical years. These are the years where students spend time in hospitals and GP surgeries. You also learn practical skills and communication skills. There are also lectures.

Yasmin

So Medicine doesn't have a faculty building but in preclinical years we use the faculty of biology buildings. These are on Downing site and are old and beautiful. The labs are really well kitted out and there are small lecture theatres in each department block. The clinical school however has a building next to Adenbrookes hospital where there is the medical faculty library, seminar rooms and clinical skills rooms.

Mia

Most of the teaching is done on the Old Addenbrooke's or Downing sites. Though sometimes building work heavy, both of these sites have some beautiful historic buildings and modernised well equipped labs, lecture theatres, and study spaces. It's also host to various museums for student and public access.

Yasmin

It is very busy! We have a lot of contact hours compared to other courses but that means that we have much less supervision work set. Most of my time outside of contact hours is spent pre reading for lectures, reviewing notes and revising. We have lectures, supervisions in college(small group teaching) labs, dissections and seminars(8-10 people in a group).

Mia

Medics in first year tend to have 8-12 lectures a week, with around 4-6hrs of practical. Students should also have 3-4 supervisions a week and short essays to accompany these. There will be the very occasional additional visit to a GP for shadowing.

Yasmin

Sometimes the amount of content is very overwhelming! It would be nice for some of the content to be cut out so that we had more time to learn the rest of the content and consolidate it.

Mia

More interactive study when given prior reading or notes for go through- as you can sometimes just feel like you're being hit with walls of text that somehow need memorising. These seem to be the best way at getting engagement but are dodged by particular departments. Other than that the amount of face to face contact time you get surpasses a lot of the other subjects so don't think its not engaging! From dissection to physiology practical there is always a way to get more stuck in than putting your head in a book.

Joshua

I am quite happy with the course at the moment. I would not change anything.