I left the ward without telling anyone and headed back to my room. I slumped down on my bed, put on some music and stared at the ceiling. It was the fifth week of my first ever clinical placement ...

I turned off my computer, flicked the light switch and climbed into bed. I was bored and exhausted. I’d used up all my motivational reserves over the last three hours, trudging through excel data ...

See Part 1 here. The supervisor As a student, you will need a supervisor on board for the project. They will be able to provide you feedback throughout the project, know-how about the publication...

“…  And that’s why my friend quit medicine and became a banker.” It wasn’t the conclusion I expected from a talk entitled ‘How doctors can do more good’, but I was intrigued. I’d never really qu...

See Part 1 here. Self-Education: the 21st Century Super-Power Self-education enables us to develop the understanding required for insight into our enjoyment of a particular area. Recent technolog...

“What do you think is wrong?”, the consultant asked. I had no idea. I looked back at the patient that I had just examined, lying on the bed in front of me, hoping for a clue. “Err… a problem wit...

See Part 1 here. Deconstructing clinical skills Any complex skill or activity can be broken down into parts. With more practice and experience, you become less conscious of the smaller parts and ...

“I’ll be there in five minutes”, I said. I hung-up the phone and my heart skipped a beat. Around me, it was just another day. A group of people were waiting at a near-by bus stop. Others were movi...

For Part 1, click here. Create conditions for deep work Some argue that the ability to maintain deep focus is one of the most valuable skills in the modern day. Yet in an age of distractions, int...

Let me tell you about Balraj. He was a student in my year at university who absolutely loved medicine. He went to all the lectures and spent many late nights in the library studying. In his free t...