“Get involved with as much as you can. Try new things! But mostly enjoy it”
Emily Pallister
Course: BMBS Medicine (third year)
“The University of Nottingham has an excellent reputation for medicine and so was an early favourite
of mine. The course was attractive as it is fairly traditional, comprising mainly lectures for the first two
years, but still integrates early clinical experience and monthly hospital and GP visits. One of the most
enjoyable things about the course is that anatomy is learnt through hands-on dissection. It can be
daunting at first but I find it really useful to see the parts of the human body in situ, as they would
be in surgical operations, or simply to get a deeper insight into how we fit together.
Work undertaken in the first two-and-a-half years at Nottingham gains you an additional BMedSci
degree that is integrated into the course. That’s one of the greatest benefits of coming here, as other
universities require students to take a year out to complete these studies.
Following the end of the fifth year, medical students are encouraged to work abroad for a few
months. If I can, I intend to use the time to practise abroad in an environment I would not normally
be exposed to – hopefully in New Zealand.
Since joining the Medical School I’ve tried to keep up as many extracurricular activities as I can.
At the moment I attend medics’ netball training and have just enrolled on a French course for medics
to try and improve my language skills. As General Secretary of MedSoc (the Medics’ Society) I’m kept
fairly busy with meetings; I also help to organise events and lend a hand wherever possible. As a
society we like to promote integration between the years through schemes such as Medic Parenting,
where every student is allocated a ‘parent’ (older student) when theyarrive, for mentoring and
someone to turn to for advice if they need it.
At the moment I haven’t really thought much about which speciality I’d like to go into – I hope to
keep an open mind for when I start my clinical teaching years in March of next year, as we get to
spend a few months in a variety of different teaching departments on a rotation.”