{"id":535,"date":"2020-05-17T18:35:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-17T18:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/?p=535"},"modified":"2020-07-27T14:42:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T14:42:36","slug":"just-another-year-at-medical-school-or-a-life-changing-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/just-another-year-at-medical-school-or-a-life-changing-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Another Year at Medical School or a Life Changing Experience?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Being on the RER Programme eases you into working in the\nclinical environment from having years of lectures and tutorials. It also\nallows you to appreciate primary care and GPs, and medicine in the rural\nsetting. I chose to have a year away in the wonderful seaside town of Aberystwyth\nand I couldn\u2019t have thought of a better way to spend my first year of clinical\nplacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially I thought RER was the same as staying in Cardiff,\nyou have three blocks of clinical placements and one block for your SSC \u2013 I thought\nwhy would I want to constantly be changing where I\u2019m having placement with the\nextra stress of being out of the comfort of Cardiff and away from everyone!? I decided\nto attend the lecture about it anyway since my housemate was going (only\nbecause I didn\u2019t want to walk home alone) but I can\u2019t stress enough how glad I am\nI did go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no hassle of moving to a new hospital just after you\u2019ve\nsettled in the one you\u2019re at, you\u2019re not one in a group of 10 following a\nconsultant round, in fact you\u2019re probably the opposite; each one of us has our \u201cown\u201d\nGP that we work at 2 and a half days a week throughout the year, and you\u2019re\nvalued as if you\u2019re staff (in effect you are). I chose Borth Surgery and, as\nanyone would, I would say it\u2019s the best one to go for \u2013 Borth has 2 GPs and cares\nfor about 2700 patients, so you are definitely of value and become part of the\nteam quick! This also allowed me to really get to know a lot of the patients\nwho I followed over the year due to various diagnoses and conditions. This allowed\nme to learn and understand about them from the patient perspective and how they\nreally are managed, rather than your textbook answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the view as you enter Borth and I never get bored of it \u2013 the waves (or white horses as the locals call them) on a clear day are just beautiful<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Within about a month or so you will have your own patient\nclinics where you will be consulting patients, performing your own\ninvestigations, and even writing referral letters to secondary care (under the\nsupervision of your GP tutor, don\u2019t worry you\u2019re not expected to be a fully fledged\nGP). It sounds absolutely terrifying, and I was absolutely terrified(!), but it\nhas allowed me to build my confidence up so much with taking histories,\nperforming examinations and investigations, and presenting histories and examination\nfindings \u2013 very useful for the Year 4 ISCEs. Patient\u2019s love it as well! There aren\u2019t\nmany medical students in Aberystwyth, certainly in GPs, so they\u2019re more than\nhappy to see you and help you develop your learning. You do take on a lot of responsibility,\nbut you have a fantastic support system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about experience in A&E, surgery, or generally\non hospital? Obviously primary care is very different, but you have 2 weeks\ndedicated to experience in A&E and 2 weeks in surgery in November and\nMarch. Plus because there\u2019s so few medical students in Aberystwyth, if you want\nmore experience in the hospital you can just ask and turn up!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the week is spent on lectures (on Thursdays) and SSC (on Fridays) which I personally find much more appealing than 8 weeks of 5 days a week spent in hospital then 2 weeks of lectures then repeat. Having a structure over the whole year allowed me to get into a proper routine and really plan out my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m sure you\u2019re here to read about more than the placement and learning side though, so let me say Aberystwyth is an incredible place to live! I know everyone says that about everywhere but let me really try to convince you. It\u2019s so refreshing being in a town with so many independent stores, regular farmers markets, and a passion for arts and creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m not really a photographer (you can probably tell) but this place doesn\u2019t need filters or any fancy stuff, Aberystwyth is a huge holiday destination and you get to live there for 11 months \u2013 crazy right!?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The arts centre in Aberystwyth has a Dance School and I love to do ballet, so I was so glad I could continue it and easily fit the lessons into the working week (the consistency meant I didn\u2019t have to worry about clashes with placement changes). There is also a gym, swimming pool, park run, and you can join any Aberystwyth University society, so I took up Taekwondo as well! I have to say, for a small place I was never bored. If you have a car you can drive to all sorts of amazing places, we found a gin distillery, visited a Welsh Nature Reserve, walked in the Devil\u2019s Bridge Falls \u2013 if you\u2019re not a walker, you\u2019re bound to become one. Aberystwyth knows how to party as well, there\u2019s loads of crazy bars and pubs, and a club on the pier itself! You don\u2019t lose your social life or miss out, if anything I\u2019d say I\u2019ve busier than ever going out and seeing people! I joined a society who have chill weekly socials so I could have a break from studying and meet other students, and as a result I\u2019ve made friends with some people I hope stay friends for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some amazing people I have been fortunate enough to meet because of RER <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When I first heard about\nspending a year so far away from my friends in Cardiff and even further away\nfrom my family, I thought there is no chance I\u2019d choose something so insane, and\nnow approaching the end of the year I can say I have had one of the best years\nof my life and I want to come back here for my FY1 as a junior doctor. Choose the\nunknown, choose the risk! You will come out of it with some invaluable\nexperience that will shape you as a future doctor, and a year of your life you\ncan look back on knowing you didn\u2019t miss out on such a brilliant opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being on the RER Programme eases you into working in the clinical environment from having years of lectures and tutorials. It also allows you to appreciate primary care and GPs, […]","protected":false},"author":1765,"featured_media":547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[14,6,13],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-aberystwyth","tag-aberystwyth-university","tag-carer","tag-rural-wales"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/carer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}