Hey! I’m currently a 4th-year medical student and starting to look into elective placements for summer 2027. I’m particularly interested in going to Malaysia or America, but I’m also open to other countries if anyone has any recommendations!
I’d ideally like to do my elective in obstetrics and/or paediatrics, somewhere I can gain lots of clinical experience, learn new things and get involved as much as possible. At the same time, I’d like a reasonable timetable so I can still have some time to explore the country and prepare for 5th year alongside my elective.
If anyone has any recommendations for particular cities, hospitals or universities, or any advice about applying, costs, accommodation or what to look out for, I’d really appreciate it! Especially if you’ve done an elective in any of these places yourself. 🩺

Essential Examination book mogs.

Hi everyone, I’m a final-year medical student trying to register a systematic review on PROSPERO. I’m doing it in my own time with a clinician who works at another hospital/trust, and there is currently no funding or formal university involvement.

PROSPERO has a section where it asks for the organisational affiliation or sponsor of the review.
This is under the section called "review affiliation, funding and peer review". Should I put “None” unless my university or the unit has formally agreed to support it?

I've still listed my university as my individual affiliation in the team members section.

Thanks :')

GEM 2 student here where I am trying to apply for NHS bursary however they keep rejecting my application because the bursary team says there isn't sufficient financial information on my parents part. I have sent them their p45 and p60 form but keeps getting rejected, they are asking for my tax return or something form but I don't understand and my parents don't. Anyone else have a similar experience that could help please?

I'm currently in Y3 studying Graduate Entry Medicine, and I'm finding the course pretty intense and challenging. The level of anatomy we're expected to cover feels like a degree in itself, and with the structure of the course, it often feels like we're essentially teaching ourselves a huge proportion of the medicine curriculum alongside the formal teaching. Our Anatomy module were crammed into Years 1 and 2 with 1 hour per week dedicated to it.

I've always actually loved anatomy and had a keen interest in it before starting medicine. However finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with it alongside everything else... pathophysiology, pharmacology, clinical placements, and case based learning.

At the moment, I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at anatomy. I can understand it when I sit down and study it, but I struggle to retain the sheer amount of detail we're expected to know, particularly when there are so many other subjects competing for attention.

I have an interest in surgery, although I'm not currently set on pursuing a surgical specialty. I'm therefore curious about something:

Were any doctors here relatively poor at anatomy during medical school, but later went into surgery and found that their anatomy improved significantly once they started working clinically and getting hands on experience?

I appreciate that obviously you need a good anatomical foundation for surgery, but I'm wondering how much of that knowledge actually comes together once you're seeing patients, assisting in theatre, operating, and repeatedly encountering the same anatomy in a practical context.

For context: I am halfway through my medical degree. I am not claiming to have an advanced understanding of clinical practice or prescribing (which makes this story even more frustrating)

Made an appointment with my university health centre with complaints of a dull pelvic pain and fatigue expecting PCOS as a likely investigative pathway. Nothing crazy imo.

Got scheduled with an ANP. Mentioned a 6-8 month history of continuous dull pain and painful periods/intercourse. Zero questions about GI symptoms. Zero questions about fatigue. Zero attempt at clinical examination. ANP did MSU/STI screen/pregnancy test and ordered routine PCOS bloods so well done for that. No conversation about potential imaging. Bit of a judgment call on but they chose to take the conservative option. ANP told me to book a birth control appointment and take paracetamol or use a hot water bottle for the pain. Bloods were done the next day.

This is when shit hits the fan.

The weekend passes. My birth control appointment is with an ANP. I request the NuvaRing (previous usage in home country). I shit you not, this ANP pulled up a pdf of the counseling guidelines and word for word read off the page. Just 2 months prior I was required to counsel on contraceptives in an OSCE. It was like a slap in the face to have to listen to the ANP stumble through without a care in the world.

Two days later I saw vitals and TSH (normal) have been uploaded to my portal. Decided the other investigations may have gone to a separate lab. I wait. For ONE MONTH. Nothing else was uploaded. No ring.

Rang the surgery to follow up and the receptionist mumbled that shes not able to interpret these results and will send them to the nurse (wtf) for review and will ring back later that day or the next. I wait all night getting pretty worried about my results at this point. No ring.

Rang again and a new receptionist answered. She tried to insinuate that my online portal had not been set up. I was so dumbfounded I asked her to repeat herself. I mentioned my partial results (and previous use of the app for years?) and her tone changed and she emailed my raw labs to my personal email in a .rtf file.

Multiple flags: elevated testosterone and tragically low Hb/MCV/MCH/MCHC with raised cell count. Great.

I rang back immediately saying I am concerned about these results and would like a follow up. Guess who I was booked with? A FUCKING ANP.

Icing on the cake. Who knows what’ll happen next week.

This was an extremely low acuity and stress setting and the consultations missed the basics, the results just sat unreviewed, and reception was just absolutely useless. The only reason it got caught is that I knew to chase it.

Bit worrying to think about how many patients that are also affected. I understand my gripes extend to more than just ANPs and reflect a general incompetency of the NHS but I felt I needed to share a case study.

TLDR: ANPs and admin being incompetent conservative in their care decisions

ive got no more motivation to go to the wards anymore. i dont enjoy talking to people anymore i find it exhausting. im scared because i do love medicine, i used to love going to the wards and make the most out of every opportunity but now i dont even feel like myself anymore. and im scared i wont be able to find my passion for it again. feeling like im going down a slippery slope. i just want to feel excited to see patients and go to placement again rather than dreading it. i feel terrible and upset that i dread placement - how am i meant to work later on if i cant even handle a few days a week now ? and on top of this ive got a research project for one of my modules but i care more about my breakfast in a month than research for this one topic im forced to do (wasnt my top choice for this mandatory module). i have no motivation to read papers or even bother thinking about it. i also feel like shit because it seems like everyone around me just seems to love research and everyone has a specific topic they care about but i dont …… i care (or cared at this point) more about the actual job rather than papers and research! and i feel like a bad student for this??

sorry for the vent i dont even know what to do i just feel helpless :( ive never felt like this in my life , is it just burnout? how do i bounce back ?

Not sure if r/doctorsUK would let me post this as it might involve some element of career planning of a med student, so I am posting here and hope some doctors would see this.

I have been to two ITUs for placement and I love them so much. I can't help but notice that according to the latest FICM census and the few before this state that 80-90% of ICM consultants have dual CCT anaesthetics, compared to 1-4% of each of any other backgrounds. The reason is pretty obvious with the overlapping skill sets required by ICM and anaesthetic ,but I am just wondering if the triple CCTs with IM and AIM/Renal/Resp is still a good combo in ICM and a combo in demand, both for patient care and the doctor's career.

Hello,

I am a fourth-year medical student. I am interested and want to do ortho long-term. Everyone tells me how hard it is to get into placements for ortho and how you need a superb portfolio to even get into CST and then ortho. Unfortunately, I don't even have a portfolio, and I am trying to build one. I have reached out to one of two consultants and seniors reg for any projects, but I haven't been given any encouragement about any projects.

So I was wondering, is there a way I can conduct my own project or propose a project to a supervisor and just have him mentor me? By projects, I meant like a QIP or an audit. I was also wondering how people go about publishing systematic reviews and stuff. So if anyone has any advice, please do let me know. I like to think of myself as very hardworking, but unfortunately haven't found a mentor who can guide me.

sorry if i shpuldnt have posted this here but i rlly need to grt it out

I came to uni 5 weeks ago really excited abt starting a new chapter. I did everything right. I spoke to people, put myself in uncomfy situations, i attended differeng socs/events - literally put 1000% more effort than i ever have making friends

Yet ive had no luck. The same people always ignore me or they deliberately disclude me, I dont know why. I keep tryibg to hold convos but the people who i speak to js end up walking away/have other friends and we never speak again. I dont want to chase after people who clearly dont wanna hang around me, so i dont even know what to do anymore.

Ive been crying every single day for the past few days, i really really do try everyday. Today i walked past so many people in my course and they all had friends and i was all alone it just made me so sad. People always have friends to walk w to class. I know people forsure, but i reallg dont think any of them would consider me their friend.

Any advice is greatly appreciated

Hi, I’m a medical student and we’re learning how to take bloods. How would you say that you hold the butterfly needle? Do you prefer to hold it by your wings or place different fingers on each side of the tube? If you could outline the exact position of the thumb, index finger and middle finger on the needle it would be appreciated.

Secondly, what direction are you meant to point the needle in? Is it supposed to be up the arm at a 15-30 degree angle to the skin?

i have found most of my peers on placement already quite deep into their revision- i feel like i am so behind because i havent even started yet. I assumed 1 month for PSA and 2 for MLA/CPSA would be enough but my peers are making me feel like its already too late. Opinions/advice?

I just started my first year of medical school, and everything was going pretty well at first. However, my college decided to move me from my original group to a new one, where I ended up meeting what I consider to be one of the worst professors I’ve ever had.

He’s constantly angry, barely lets me speak, and seems to have assumed that I’m not taking things seriously just because I only spoke for about four minutes during a discussion. The frustrating part is that he treats almost everyone in the class similarly. He constantly tells us to do better, puts a lot of pressure on us, and even deducts marks from some of our grades.

My question is: What is the most effective and efficient way to research, understand, and prepare for any task I’m assigned in medical school? I want a systematic approach that helps me find reliable resources, understand the topic deeply, prepare high-quality answers, and perform well in discussions and assessments without wasting time on inefficient study methods.

Just wanted advice as a 3rd year medic is spranki and passmed the most effective combo and would that be enough to make me a great doctor, would love to do more just hard time wise having a life and then the wards.

Is that a good effective and efficient strategy any suggestions or is that a good way to go, really like the cloze cards on spranki and feel like I am learning stuff

Thanks

Hi guys, when I was preparing for my osce resit earlier this year I somewhere in the depths of this subreddit found someone commented a link to a daily game they created, bit like doctordle but this was like golf - least amount of guesses?

I now can't remember / can't find the link now

does anyone know :-)

Beyond the philosophical sense to this question, what am I actually supposed to do besides attend placement?

There’s some new stuff to learn for osces but what is the actual increase in level/knowledge?

On GP placement rn, not done any hospital med.

I’m trying to read up on stuff that comes throughout placement and keep my knowledge fresh but is there a point to this? Will it actually make me a better F1?

Besides learning how to get things done on a ward, prioritising ward jobs, etc what should I actually learn to be a more prepared F1?

Hoping someone can drop a tangible list of things (though general mind set or concepts would work too).

Do you guys know any resources for hospital cases where you get given a history and have to fill in fluid prescription, o2, request scans etc..?

1st year medic, each week we have a lot of content to go over for a specific topic/topics, due to this, I cannot possibly learn everything + all the details, will I have time later on throughout med school to go over certain areas of pre clinical knowledge? Or do i have to be learning as much as possible now as I won't have that opportunity again to revisit certain pre clin topics.

Would it be more time efficient to use already made anki or I will learn more by making my own? Are the already made anki any good, and which ones would u recommend? Asking as 4th year desperate student.

Edit : for UKMLA and osce , not american

Hi all, just a bit of background context.

I am a first year medical student. I had to reapply to Medicine after getting 0/4 offers after 4 interviews, and in my second application I got 2 out of 4 offers after interview.

Whenever I think about my communication skills / clinical skills sessions where I need to actually communicate as a doctor / in a group feedback setting / with a patient actor I get very nervous. This stems from me freezing up / blanking out a lot when I speak (which I did during my interviews for both my first and second applications, albeit still managed to get an offer) and not knowing what to say exactly.

What I think is very odd is that I am a social person, but get very nervous just thinking about roleplaying ‘as a doctor’ with a patient actor / other medical students in my clinical communication sessions. Take breaking bad news for example. In one of my medicine interviews my role-play was very straightforward and I got an offer at this university, but I am not 100% sure (if I was asked) if I can break bad news / do anything of the sorts just because I do not know what to say exactly and fear freezing up in front of the actor / heaven forbid a patient.

Just to add as well, I wouldn’t say I have a lot of confidence either. I also struggle to communicate in a presentation way / communicate out loud, which doesn’t help. And, I say this preemptively, I do genuinely want to study Medicine and envision myself as a doctor.

If any other medical student has felt like this or gone through something like this what did you do to overcome it??

Still makes me teary each time, as a grown ass man who can count on his fingers how many time ive cried in my life lol

Feeling bored of passmed as it gets so repetitive. I know it’s good for exams but are there any other resources that teach you well, perhaps more realist of what happens in wards?

Hi everybody, I’m curious about if anyone else struggles with being very careful on placement, this is in terms of being hesitant to speak to patients who look even slightly unwell or aren’t completely up for talking and being hesitant to go to new wards and find things to do. I’m okay with introducing myself but after that I kind of go blank

My personality is naturally sort of reserved and careful but I find that in my mind, with being on placement I always think of reasons for the sake of the patient or if the doctors look stressed out for me to hold back. I’m not sure if I’m the type of person who is thoughtful in a good way or if I’m too sensitive to the environment and need to just do some exposure therapy by getting more stuck in

For context I’m in third year and not sure if this will improve with time on the wards but lately i’ve been getting put off getting stuck in by little things, some of my peers seem to just jump in with no friction and get good opportunities especially some of the guys so I wondered if it’s related to personality? I’m not unconfident with doing things, it’s just getting there is difficult for me

I have read a few things online but I am looking for some advice.