15 March 2021
Miss Jamie Gallagher, Head of Chemistry
Before the half term break, 15 Medical Society students in Year 11 and the Sixth Form spent an afternoon getting a deeper insight into the realities of becoming a doctor and working in the NHS.
The two-hour session was run by Dr Nicholas Pegge, a heart surgeon who studied medicine at the University of Cambridge. Dr Pegge has links with the admissions department at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and gave our students excellent advice on successful medical school applications. This included the importance of work experience and Dr Pegge talked about the online virtual work experience courses which have been set up for all students to access due to the pandemic. He also highlighted the importance of research and using the websites of organisations such as the GMC and BMA to learn more about current issues. The session continued into learning about life as a medical student and as a junior doctor, the differences between general practice and hospital medicine, and the range of careers in medicine globally.
The students were able to ask questions about recent case studies they had read about and find out more about the potential emotional and mental toll doctors can face and how they are supported. ‘Amazing’ and ‘really great’ were examples of the feedback from students on this opportunity to speak directly with an expert in the field of medicine.