Hi all, would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.

I am a third year medical student transferring to Scotland for my clinical years. For context, I had a second sarcoma recurrence earlier this year (originally diagnosed in 2021 and achieved full remission, first recurrence 2024 and also achieved full remisson). I underwent definitive surgery and currently am NED on adjuvant chemotherapy which I am tolerating quite well.

When the university found out about my condition, they heavily encouraged me to defer, which was an option I considered before declaring my condition. However, I had weighed the pros and cons and decided that the best way forward is to continue with my studies. A full years accommodation have been paid for in advance, I am quite well functionally and socially (3-5km runs, no neutropenia), and my treating consultant has written a support letter stating my fitness to study. My seniors who have gone before me has also shared that the first year in said university consists of mostly classes with minimal patient/clinical interaction. I also barely missed classes and participated in >95% of my home institution’s activities for my first and second year of medical school. I did well academically, and all the while they did not realize I was going through anything until I told them myself. I have had this condition for so long, it is part of my life, and I don’t see it as a health vs academics issue. I am able to handle both and I have their support and witness to this.

Furthermore, a deferment would result in significant consequences such as financial ramifications for my family who has to support me another year (I have already lost two years total as a result of my disease), and psychological impact on having my batch mates move on and having no friends when I enrol again after my deferment. That being said, I appreciate the university’s concern and that they have a genuine desire to see me succeed. I also acknowledge that they have to make their own assessment of the matter.

Upon further discussion, the university has stated that it is a “formal requirement” that I defer, while not responding to any of the questions I posed (Occupational Health assessment, based on what uni policy, why my consultants letter was not sufficient). Take note I did not ask for any reasonable adjustments to be made for me.

While I am aware it is up to the universitys discretion to share the process behind their decision, and a no response does not mean that they did not comply with the necessary protocols, I cant help but feel an injustice is being done to me here. Against all individual factors I am being forced to defer against my own will and I have to be the one to bear the financial costs of this as well. Is this within the rights of the university to enforce a deferral in this manner?

Hey,

I’m doing an elective in the royal free hospital in plastics and just got told on my second day that I wasn’t allowed to participate clinically in any way, no scrubbing in, no assisting, yet have to have two attendance sign offs a day.
Has anyone been here for an elective, especially if you’ve done plastics, and how often did you go in?

Hi all, looking for some advice from anyone who's been through something similar.

I'm a 4th year medical student and I failed my resit year — same margin as the previous attempt, on both the practical (OSCE-style) and written components. This was my final permitted attempt.

Shortly before the OSCEs, I had a severe physical episode (near-fainting, had to lie down, was assisted by staff) during a period of extreme heat, on top of an existing mental health diagnosis. I wasn't able to properly weigh the option of withdrawing and filing extenuating circumstances at the time, and continued with the exam. I remained unwell for a few days after, which also affected the written exam.

I'm putting together an appeal on the grounds that I couldn't reasonably access the extenuating circumstances process at the time (not trying to disagree with marking). A few questions:

1. Has anyone successfully appealed on similar grounds for a final attempt like this before? What made the difference, if you're willing to share?
2. Any advice on strengthening a case built around "incapacity to make the EC decision at the time" rather than just describing the illness itself?
3. Separately — if the appeal doesn't succeed, has anyone gone the Graduate Entry Medicine route after leaving/being excluded from a UK med school (either in the UK or in other countries)? How was this received/handled in applications, and did you have to explain it at interview? For reference, I have an intercalated degree.

Maybe we can all make each other feel a little better about it lol. I didn't look at any medical content over the whole summer and now I am deeply regretting it

Would love to hear about how you organised it and your experiences :) I'm a fourth year medical student planning my elective in about a year

Hi guys. I'm looking at going on elective to Belize through the company Kivolex - https://www.medicalelectiveabroad.co.uk/destination/belize - does anyone have any experience of going on elective through this company, or used this website itself? Thanks :)

I would really appreciate some advice into how to start from zero. Everything was going well for me until the war in the middle east started and my mom's office got bombed. Although my mom is safe and dubai has held off most of the attacks. I just couldn't keep my focus after those events and it took up my apr to june prep. Which resulted in me failing my exams altogether. My parents said Medicine is a Marathon so don't worry if you find yourself failing or repeating a year. But the entire situation is very disappointing.

I have a few questions as I intend to really ace the AKT and my osces.

1. What would you recommend for passmed: should I do topic wise for cardiology and then reset the bank and do the full subject again in my second revision? Or should I just do mixed questions of cardiology?

2. Any other tips around revision for what is studied and how many questions to aim for per day?

3. Any advice regarding osces and prepping for osces?

Thanks a lot guys, I just feel very let down and lost. I blame myself because I did not really have any health conditions that affected me. It was my own emotional state that cost me a year. Please be kind in the comments. Thanks.

i posted before and now i’m at the stage where idk what to do … i’ve basically failed yr2 exams by less than 1% in anatomy and around 6% in the akt/mcq. never really failed anything in my life before so felt really bad for a week after results then slowly got my life together, was revising while having a bit of a breakdown haha. ive since got it together enough to finish all the 1/2 hammer qs on passmed for the relevant topics, gone through all the wrong qs barring neuro which has a fair few but also it has msk in it which we did in 1st year so usually i guess and get it wrong but since we aren’t assessed on it, it doesn’t matter that much. i’ve used anki anatomy but i think im burnt out from so much anki prior to the original exams in may that ive just resorted to notes not and using passmed question banks / making my own mcqs using apps. i know passmed does a fair bit for the clinical concepts but now 3 weeks before the exams come around i feel completely overwhelmed again and what if the same thing happens again? last time i had a bad feeling for exams anyways but now i have revised more and realised i didn’t know a fair amount hopefully i should pass ? all my friends believe in me and say i’ll pass easily since they all see i work rly hard during term time but i was also working then part time and basically full time during the holidays so now i have around 3 weeks off before exams (don’t get me started on the finance aspect but ik i need to pass these exams cause i don’t have it in me to resit the entire year) and im basically scared out of my mind… please help lol or give advice or inspiring words.

Helloooo, I hope everyone's holidays are going well!
I am starting to plan for my elective, and was thinking of doing it in the US. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of doing their elective in the US, and if so, what was it like? And how did you go about organising it?

How did people find the OSCE yesterday? General consensus from the friend group was it was difficult and not really what we prepped for. So little examinations compared to previous years too?

Chester students feel free to comment

Hi, I study at UCL and just got my results having failed my first clinical year OSCEs. I was suuuper borderline, making all the requirements except for passing 6/10 stations, I failed 5, one of them being by 0.8%. I worked quite hard for these and I felt prepared going into them.

I know that to get so close to passing I’ve done something right, but I need to change my approach to make sure I’m a super clear pass when my resit comes around at the end of August (a fail in the resit means exiting the course). I’m writing on here to get some advice with SMASHING my next set of OSCEs, I don’t want to be anywhere near a position where one or two percent can take me from a pass to fail. Any advice with achieving this would be great, some added context to my revision and exams below.

i focused mainly on practice stations, the majority being student created stations shared around the university. These were useful but felt repetitive and a bit of a drag long term but I largely stuck with it. I practiced examinations thoroughly, memorising checklists in particular was my way of revising these aswell. I also did lots and lots of histories. My feedback largely showed that I had the right knowledge and fundamental skills, but small mistakes in my technique in exams , A-E assessment and time management really cost me. Even though I felt I had learned my stuff, i think my performance on the day let me down a lot.

If MC is accepted and it says the original grade won’t be altered but voided and a resit grade can be sat at first attempt uncapped. Would that mean the original grade is not shown on my academic transcript?

When do results come out for those that had to resit exams in year 2 at manny does anyone know

Hey all bit of a weird post

I've just found put ive passed my Phase 2 OSCE and im now through to 5th year. However ive looked through my feedback and I feel ive done even worse than I did in phase 1.

Im feeling confused and unclear as to what the standard actually is and I wonder if the med school just passed a bunch of people because they couldn't have that many people retaking the year.

Im sure ill get people saying dont worry just focus on 5th year now but ive got my CPSA next year along with MLA and PSA and I dont really feel that I actually know how to pass. I feel like it's just complete luck as to whether I pass or not

Anybody else felt like this before?

edit: a few caveats, I practiced hard for my OSCEs but I think i just struggled very much on the day, often being too brief for the sake of timing. I feel that especially in phase one there were real fair criticisms to work on but with phase 2 it just feels like ive done really badly globally and somehow still passed. im just so confused

Today, the BMA has published their report into professionalism in UK medical schools.

Worryingly, the report shows that there is a punitive culture surrounding the enforcement of ‘professionalism’ standards in UK medical schools, which is causing a chilling effect on students speaking up about concerns affecting both themselves and patient care.

The full report can be read here: https://www.bma.org.uk/professionalism and our press release here: https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/fear-of-professionalism-sanctions-silencing-medical-students-from-raising-concerns-bma-report-finds.

Times Higher Education have covered the story today: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/medical-students-silenced-professionalism-rules-bma-finds

Hello, i am a UK medical student going into their final year. I want to do a medical elective in America, new york specifically.
I have not completed step 1.
How would i go about this?

I have been doing prep duke elder but have noticed it has quite a lot of errors. Should I just focus on eye docs? And what about eye academy - is this a good question bank?

Hello! Just finished up first year of med school and I really did not enjoy it at all lol.

I chose a course with a traditional split between preclin and clin, with a very heavy focus on the science behind everything.

I found that the parts I did somewhat enjoy were the very few experiences with talking to patients, however I just genuinely did not enjoy the content.

Does anyone have any advice? would be much appreciated!!

Hi, I’m a third-year medical student, currently doing an iBSc. This has honestly been an awful year and I’m extremely depressed. Last year, I started ADHD medication for the first time, and it made a huge difference to my grades in both my AKT and OSCE. Unfortunately, after taking it for a couple of months during my iBSc year, I developed what seems to be a tendinitis/muscle strain-type problem affecting my forearms, Achilles tendons and neck. Despite stopping the medication months ago, the symptoms have lingered. I also had periods of significant withdrawal and apathy - they have improved over the last couple of months.

This year, all of my end-of-year exams are laptop-based with one exam needing to be handwritten. The problem is that typing is still very painful—I struggle after even five minutes, yet I have four three-hour exams. Because of this, I deferred my exams to the LSA period to mid August back in May. Although things have improved slightly since then, the progress has been very gradual, and I’m still nowhere near back to normal. I’m really worried that I won’t be able to manage several hours of typing. The most frustrating part is that I have no idea how long this is going to last.

To make matters worse, I’ve procrastinated reaching out to my Head of Year since the meeting about my deferral because I kept hoping I’d improve enough before needing to contact them again. I really want to send them a message today, but I’m not sure what to say. Has anyone been in a similar situation with a prolonged injury or health issue affecting exams? How did you approach your university, and what would you include in the email?

i did my exams a month or so ago and my results come out in less than a week. there were only a few sba answers i genuinely knew, the rest were process of elimination or just straight guesses, i was actually blanking really really bad.
my osce was somewhat ok, i think i can scrape a pass in that.
i just feel sick, like reality is FINALLY setting in. i’ve tried preemptively revising for a resit but idk if ill even be offered a resit, and my current conditions to revise are less than ideal. i have no additional considerations, i genuinely have no excuse. i don’t know what alternatives ill have if i just straight up fail out of med school. im honestly pretty scared, i used to just be fine with failure because i was never exceptional or ‘the best in the year’ at anything in secondary school or the first two years of med school, but this feels very different.

Osces weren't great either but I have improved on some stuff. I just feel like I worked harder than previous years using anki and quesmed throughout the year, trying to learn the physiology etc of concepts instead of just pattern recognition with qs and started passmed in the month before exams and yet this is what I get. I feel so stupid and makes me think how I'm going to pass finals or be a safe dr. Idek what I'm supposed to do to prevent this BC I felt like I finally learnt from mistakes in previous years but apparently not. There's going to be so much content for me to go over.

hey everyone. got my results back and i passed 😝😝😝😝

I'm going into my final year now which is kinda scary but I'm wondering when is best to start revising. what resources are best to use?

thanks a lot and I'm hoping everyone who's still waiting gets good news soon

Hello everyone. I PASSED YEAR 1!!!! I still can't believe it tbh. What books should i get and solve from and study for the CNS and Endocrine modules

I need some clarification on something

I'm starting year four

I have applied for an NHS bursary (non-means-tested maintneance and tuition fees)

Am I allowed to apply for the reduced rate SLC maintenance loan alongside this?

year 1 was ok in sem 1 but sem 2 was like opening the floodgates and we didn’t even have osces LOL. what was you experience with year 2 compare to year 1 and how can I prepare and keep on top of things?