So, here we go. I only have four and half weeks left of medical school. In some ways it feels like it has been a long time coming, but in other ways, it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in first year going to watch Contagion in the cinema with a large group of fellow medics and the then lecturer in Public Health, Dr Rachel Isba. How times change, she has now only recently just become the Head of the Medical School and I’m a few months away from working on the wards of Dewsbury and District General Hospital.

I count myself pretty lucky to have got the jobs I wanted in a place I wanted to be. I spend my first (FY1) year in Dewsbury and my second (FY2) in the heart of Leeds, placed mainly at the Leeds General Infirmary. There I’ll be the house officer in Emergency Medicine, Cardiology and Neurosurgery. It feels unreal, but after 6 years, my time as a student is drawing to a close.

On Monday this week, the staff at the medical school put on a light afternoon tea as celebration for being given approval by the General Medical Council to award Lancaster degrees (as opposed to Liverpool whose programme we had been following and degree we had been awarded thus far). It was a joyous occasion for all and not least for us fifth years who will now officially become and graduate as Lancaster’s first cohort with a medical degree of its very own.

The only thing stopping me from graduating now is completion of my portfolio, and that just requires time to invest!