I\u2019m not going to lie, I\u2019m brand new to blogging and very inexperienced in anything vaguely technological, but when the opportunity arose for one of us oldies to share our experiences of 5th year with you it sounded like an ideal way to record our last year and hopefully, if at all I can, help some of you along the way.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had our last ever first day today. Four summers ago, when I sat there as a fresher, to be where we are today seemed like a lifetime away. Saying \u2018fifth year medical student\u2019 seems almost surreal; I\u2019m not overly sure how that\u2019s happened. It\u2019s a terrible clich\u00e9 but the time has literally flown by. And sitting there and realising that this was our last first day, this was our last start of a year in Lancaster, this was our last induction as medical students was terrifying. One minute you\u2019re starting out in medical school, the next you\u2019re doing finals and then all of a sudden its SJT\u2019s, deaneries, FY1 applications and the prospect of your future life as a doctor. It\u2019s exciting too though. The dream is almost a reality. Even if that dream has lost some of the rose tinting you had at the start and is a more realistic version of that same dream, it\u2019s a dream nonetheless. You work so hard to get into medical school, and then harder still when you get here and it finally feels like the end is in sight. Although, of course, our enthusiasm for \u2018life-long learning\u2019 will never cease \u2013 I would love a show of hands of people who put that in their personal statements!<\/p>\n
We are very well supported here at Lancaster, it\u2019s one of the many perks of a small medical school and that is making the whole prospect of applications less daunting. The staff get to know you, you know where you can go for help and you know that you will be able to get that help if you ask for it. We get to know the clinical and educational staff throughout the years and being able to pick a referee who actually knows you, and well, is something we shouldn\u2019t take for granted. Many of the larger medical schools really struggle when it comes to that bit of the form, or so we hear.
\nWe were also introduced to the portfolio today; the fifth year equivalent of the log book. It is huge! All the things we need to be deemed competent as a junior doctor are there ready for us to get signed throughout the year, along with clinical cases, case based discussions and continual reflection to see how we\u2019re improving. So not too much changes between the years. And it\u2019s good practice for the rest of our careers. Starting out with all the enthusiasm of a new year, I\u2019m very much hoping to keep on top of everything and be meticulously organised. But for someone who organisation doesn\u2019t come all too naturally, I might have to keep you posted on that one!<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to get too emotional thinking about it being our last this and our last that. I love Lancaster and have had, am having, the best time at medical school here. Now all I have to do is fill in those blank pages of the portfolio and (fingers crossed) manage to get a job somewhere. If only it was that simple! Wish us all luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our Last Ever First Day I\u2019m not going to lie, I\u2019m brand new to blogging and very inexperienced in anything vaguely technological, but when the opportunity arose for one of us oldies to share our experiences of 5th year with you it sounded like an ideal way to record our last year and hopefully, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[8,9,10,14,11,12,13],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fifth-year","tag-abbey-barraclough","tag-fifth-year-medicine","tag-final-year","tag-finals","tag-first-day","tag-junior-doctor","tag-lancaster-university"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DRQc-1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/fhm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}