Fever Pitch

My medical application 2014 has reached critical point. I have now been officially rejected from Barts, Southampton and Birmingham. To be honest I’m not surprised; there was hope while they were doling out the interview invites, and even desperate dreams of a wait list offer as the interviews were in progress, but when people were discussing whether of not to firm offers from these institutions I realised that hope was futile and each of these universities were cruel. However, even with these realisations, common sense was not functioning when I received the UCAS updates. My heart stopped and my stomach flipped (especially Southampton, which came after my Warwick interview) when I logged into track to view my failure.

There remains only one hope that come 2018 I will become a junior doctor… That hope lies in the hands of the course selectors of Warwick Medical School. I keep asking myself what my contingency plan would be and honesty I have no clue. I can’t do another masters (though I am tempted), I refuse to do a PhD and spend 3/4 years not doing medicine, I have tried working and while aspects of it were enjoyable I refuse to be pressurised and made to care about inconsequential things (i.e. baguettes and the temperature of a bloody latte!). This leaves two options: Sleep for a year or get into medical school. Needless to say I prefer the latter… though I am known to indulge in a lie-in or two…

My mind keeps drifting back to the selection day, did my interviewer look bored as I babbled on about communication skills and helping people, should I have shouted more in the group task, did I spell my name correctly in the written task! Paranoia and anxiety are slowly edging into more of my waking hours. I have soo my revision to do for my exams I shouldn’t even have time to think about breathing let alone what I was doing two weeks ago, who react how and whether my shoes looked professional enough (should’ve gone with the low heels, for sure). Maybe all this worrying is a new cunning form of procrastination, to stop me from fully engaging in my current studies. If so, touché procrastination. Touché.

Selection Day

Today was the selection day for Warwick Medical School. I arrived in Coventry yesterday and spent the night in a Premier Inn, which was quite lovely especially the mini jams at breakfast (I love anything small… and sugar). I arrived at the Medical Teaching Centre early and registered, sorted out my documents and chatted with some of the other candidates. Everyone was really friendly and it was a very relaxed vibe. After a briefing the day began, we were assessed on three tasks: the group exercise, written exercise and interview. 

Group exercise

So this was the section I was most worried about due to the feedback I received back in 2012. I didn’t want to overcompensate for my previous performance and become an overbearing foghorn, but I was not going to be a shrinking violet either. To my surprise this section was the one of the most enjoyable; I made good input early on, which put me at ease and the whole group worked well together. At the end I even managed to forget I was being assessed.

Written exercise

This was always going to be a bit of a blind spot for me, just because there is no way of knowing what they are looking for. I tried my best to put down intelligent responses and apply common sense, but it is very difficult to gage my performance. The only good thing is that I finished the whole thing within time, whether that impacted on the quality of what I wrote is another matter altogether.

Interview

This was the best session, which is saying something considering how well the group session went. The lady interviewing me was very friendly but kept asking me ‘anything else?’ which unsettled me a bit until I suddenly began to talk about myself and realise I did have something else. I must admit I could have done with a bit more structure to my answers and they may have been a repeated sentiment or five, but on the whole I got out most of what I wanted to say

At the end we had a debrief where the head of admissions told us that out of the 545 people interviewed 230 people will be receive offers. Judging from the people I met in the selection centre the competition is going to be rife. Everyone seemed so credible and deserving of an offer that I don’t know how admissions are going to make their decisions. There’s nothing I can do about it now, the whole thing is in God’s hands.

Overall I am optimistic. I know optimism at this point is dangerous there is still so much uncertainty, I am not a good judge of my performance, I have no idea about my competition etc. But I have nothing else to go on at the moment and I have to choose to be hopeful. We have about three weeks wait till we hear their final decisions. The only hope for my sanity ironically is the impending deadline of our last essay next week and exams next month. O the joy…