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Ashmole
sixth form

Parisah - University of Leicester, Medicine

Parisah

 


Date attended Ashmole:   2008 - 2015

A Levels:  Economics, Maths, Biology, Chemistry

University:  University of Leicester

Course:  Medicine (MB ChB)

Graduating:  2021


 

 

What are you doing now?

I am a third-year undergraduate medical student at Leicester Medical School.  I left Ashmole Academy in the summer of 2015 and started at Leicester Medical School in September. Medicine lasts for 5 years or 6 years, depending if you want to study an intercalated degree. At Leicester Medical School, the degree is divided into two phases: Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 is pre-clinical medicine, which lasts for two years.  Phase 2 is clinical medicine, which lasts for three years where we are on clinical placements in hospitals and GP surgeries in the following cities: Leicester, Peterborough, Northampton, Kettering, Loughborough, Corby and Burton upon Trent.  At the moment, I have clinical placements at Kettering General Hospital for my General Medicine block. Each clinical block lasts for ten weeks. I love clinical medicine!

What have you got involved with at university?

I have been a committee member and have got involved with the following societies since I started Medical School: Leicester’s Obs/Gyn Society, MMF Revision Society, Medic’s Welfare, Medreach E-mentoring, UoL Paksoc, Leicester’s Teddy Bear Hospital, Leicester Medical School Revision Society (LMSRS), Leicester Insight, University of Leicester GP Society and Doctorpreneurs.

For LMSRS, I mentor and teach first and second year medical students on material from their course.  The experience is fantastic because the students understand and appreciate the way I teach them content they had previously covered in lectures.  Before each session, I always feel very nervous, mostly worrying that I do not know enough to teach the students and that I would be unable to answer questions they would ask. However, at the end of each session, my faith in myself and self-confidence in being able to teach other people has significantly improved.

For Medreach Brightside E-mentoring, I mentor a Year 12 student who is interested in applying for medicine at university. I give them tips that I had learnt from my own application and informed them about what the course is like and my own perception of it.  My role as a mentor is to selflessly assist the Year 12 student to reach their professional goal and help them achieve a place on the Medical School course.  I am pleased that I am part of this programme because I really appreciated medical students helping me with my application process to study medicine at university when I was in Year 12.  I am still mentoring this student for the rest of the academic year.

For MMF Revision Society, I am the President of the 3rd Year Committee and I organise revision lectures for second year medical students and recruit students from my year group who are willing to teach them.  I also obtain a lot of feedback from the second-year medical students and answer their questions if they had any queries or difficulties understanding content that they have learnt from the revision lectures. This is very insightful because not only do I help second year medical students by answering their questions, I also learn from other third year medical students by observing them giving revision lectures and appreciating the different styles of teaching that exist in medical education.

For Leicester’s Teddy Bear Hospital, I teach children between the ages of 5-9 years about healthy eating and explain its importance.  I work with four third-year medical students and teach primary school children about “what doctors do”, and help them to decrease the anxiety that they can have about hospitals. I really enjoy working with primary school children because I do not regularly have the chance to teach individuals who are very young.

I am the treasurer for University of Leicester GP Society and during each event organised by the Society, I have to feel comfortable working with members; checking the budget and sorting out membership.  I enjoy having the responsibility of handling figures and cash as I have an orderly mind and a methodical way of thinking.

What did you find most valuable about your experiences at Ashmole Academy? What skills did it help you develop?

I further developed my organisational skills and my time management skills when I was at Ashmole for seven years.  Not only did I attend all of my lessons and had 100% attendance, I also gave myself the time to participate in extra-curricular activities at Ashmole such as: Debating Society, Maths Club, Duke of Edinburgh Award and Chess Club.

What did you find most valuable about the MedSoc programme at Ashmole?

I am very grateful for ex-students coming back to Ashmole Academy and telling us their experiences when they applied to study Medicine at university. It was helpful gaining information and advice from medical students that have already been through the process.

What advice would you give to someone planning to apply for a Medical degree?

Make sure Medicine is for you! Choose the right A levels!  The entry requirements for Medicine are fairly strict so make sure you maximise your chances of admittance via subject selection.  The more work experiences you have, the better!  Finally, do not let anyone else bring you down! Keep aiming high!

Anything else you would like to tell us about yourself.

In May 2017, I completed and received The Leicester Award.  The Leicester Award is a career development programme that enables students to increase their levels of self-awareness, gain experience aligned to their motivations, values, strengths and interests, and articulate their experience in an impactful way to prospective employers.  I have gained a minimum of 10 hours experience and submitted two pieces of assessed work as well as reflecting on my self-awareness and experience.

I am planning to take a year out of Medicine between my 3rd and 4th year of the degree to study an intercalated BSc in Healthcare Management at Imperial College London from September 2018 to July 2019.