The Aspiring Medics
3 min
Updated: Jan 12, 2023
Queen’s University Belfast is an incredibly student-centred university.
It uses an integrated approach to learning but leaning more towards the traditional side of the scale.
They ensure the best quality education and strongly believe in hands-on teaching like full body dissection, early patient contact and intense clinical exposure from the very first year.
They cover all the scientific foundation of the course over the first two years followed by the three clinical years.
It could be really useful to have some extended knowledge about Medicine or the NHS which you would be able to bring into relevant stations.
Specially look out for role play scenarios.
UCAT SJTs are a good place to start for ethical questions.
Read the question, think about all the different opinions and create a discussion in your head.
Go through the GMC's Good Medical Practice and review the main aims of the NHS constitution.
The examiners might pick up on personality traits, skills or work experience in your personal statement, so make sure you know what you included in it.
As with any interview, it is all about managing the interviewer’s perception of you and painting yourself in the best light possible. You will be given one minute outside the interview room to read the instructions and consider how you will approach the scenario.
Ask yourself what competencies the scenario might be trying to test. If it is a problem you are faced with, ask yourself what steps you would take to solve the problem, your available options. Discuss these with the assessor so that they can appreciate your decision-making processes.
At QUB, the teaching style has recently been updated to Case Based Learning. The anatomy lectures are followed by one or two sessions of full body dissections in small groups through the week. QUB also promises you early clinical exposure from the first year itself. They have a family attachment scheme where a group of students give several house visits to a patient over each semester. QUB also offers an international elective in year 5 where students are offered a chance to carry out a clinical module abroad. Students also get various opportunities for research and intercalations.
Belfast is the basically the downtown of Northern Ireland. It’s the perfect combination of a buzzing city life and a more subtle country life. Whether you are looking for intimate galleries, high energy music gigs, traditional bars or a buzzing nightlife, there is always something to do. The city centre is just a mile away from the main campus. Belfast is known for having the most affordable accommodation in the UK and so most students live in the university accommodation (two located in the city centre and one near the university). You could probably walk to most places in the city centre or around the campus, however, there is always public transport conveniently available almost everywhere.
At Queen’s, they organise different food events which could bring together all international or Erasmus students. The accommodation also holds weekly socialising events where medics could socialize with non-medics. The medical school and various medical and non-medical societies also hold various events to help you socialize with those in your year group and those outside your year group. The medical school also puts the medical students in small groups for various activities (dissection, practicals, clinicals, family attachment) so that you get opportunity to socialize with your peers. There are more than 100 societies that you could choose to enrol yourself into including kickboxing, LGBTQIA+, Eurovision society, BMSA etc.
At QUB, there are numerous medical societies for everyone. The BMSA (British Medical Student Association) and the SWOT (Students Working Overseas Trust) are responsible for major socializing events like the Med Formal, Toga party, bar crawls etc. The QubScrubs hold various suturing events and educational conferences like “Women in Surgery”. The AMSA (Asian Medical Student Association) hold many conferences and educational workshops as well.