Intro to Med School (5 Things You Need to Know At The Start) - Part 1

So you've made it to foundation year. Let me put it this way: you will be utterly lost at first. And not just directionally, the hey-I-thought-this-was-M27-not-the-cafeteria kind. I mean mentally lost. Unless you have a close upperclassman as a friend, relative or sibling, or a faculty parent who will guide you step by step, then you my friend will be slower than a ticking clock in a boring lecture to figuring things out.

I decided I didn't want loners (like yours truly) or any other student suffering the way I had. Hence, the blog and these specific posts. 


(Yes I realize I could have joined the student advisory committee and helped through the easier way instead of creating an entire blog and showering my oh-so scarce time on it. But with writing, everything is documented so students can revisit things time and time again when they feel lost and future generations also have the benefit; as opposed to a conversation or oral presentation that is said once and dissipates into thin air sooner. Also, I have full-on Sheldon-Cooper-style control over my blog.)

Before I proceed, if you have the following symptoms at any point while reading complicated words that seem foreign to you then you may be panicking pointlessly: racing heart - sweating - anxiety - restlessness.

It may seem daunting, but everything you will go through will be tremendously more exciting than it sounds. I promise. Save for tests. Tests are never fun.

Here're the basics that you need to know and might take you time to figure out on your own:

1. It's not 7 years!

When you first register in medicine, they tell you that it is 7 years. But it's not. Let me break it down to you as it really is:

• Foundation Year: The first year is called "Foundation Year". Since the University of Sharjah's Medical College follows an Australian system, you could say that Foundation year is equivalent to Grade 13 in Australia. It is nearly a continuation of high school therefore making it a semi-medicine year. The subjects are not yet basic medical sciences. 

• Here you will have a course called Introduction to Medical Education which introduces you to how you will study medicine in the following years to come. It introduces you to the PBL system, concept-maps, PBL-based presentations and report-writing in APA style.      
• Pre-clerkship phase: The second year is called "Year 1". Third year is called "Year 2". Fourth year is called "Year 3" (this is the year when most of your classmates from high school are posting Facebook pictures of their graduation projects and gowns and you're still stuck...well in year 3). These years are your basic medical sciences years.
• Clerkship phase: Fifth year is called Year 4. And last but not least sixth year is called Year 5. Year 5 is the year you graduate. In these final 2 years, you will spend your entire week (save for one day) in the hospital. That one day will be spent at the university for lectures.

Now most of you are thinking "But we were told medicine is 7 years and this only adds up to 6". While the rest of you are not heeding any attention to what they are reading. 

•      Internship: The 7th year, my lone-wolfs, is the internship year. In actuality, this year happens after you graduate. Hence, you can do it anywhere in any country your heart desires (given the place you apply to reciprocates this desire). In a lot of places, internship is counted as part of the residency program.

(But I'll leave the internship post for another time; the time when yours truly will go through it, mess up a few things, hit a few road bumps, find the signs to the road bumps after hitting the bump hard and hence transferring the newfound discoveries and knowledge to you chicklings.)

C'est moi apres the hurdles of internship

2. GPA, CGPA.....What's the difference?!

- GPA = the GPA of one semester only
- CGPA = cumulative GPA = the average of all semesters' GPA's put together, so the GPA of each semester you take will be factored in to the CGPA

3. Discounts are weird...

The discounts in the first year are easy: you got high marks in high school, so you'll get a discounted fee for foundation year.
The first year after foundation year: the CGPA you get in foundation year will get you a discount on your Year 1 fee.

BUT, but...but, in Year 1, medical students no longer deal with GPAs and CGPAs like other colleges. For the rest of your Sharjah University medical journey, you will deal with percentages. You must attain an average above 85% by the end of an academic year to qualify for a discount. Discounts vary. Above 85% gets you a 25% discount off your subsequent year fee. Achieve above 90% and you will receive a 35% discount.


4. A trip around medical campus in 80 seconds (guesstimation...)

Smurfs. That's what a lot of older students call foundation-ers. And do you know what happens to "Smurfs"? What your mom warned you of. Never talk to strangers she said. But you grew up and thought her advice didn't matter anymore. Wrong. Pranks. That's what happens to naive smurfs. Not the full-fledge must-post-this-on-youtube pranks, but direction pranks. You ask for M25 and they point you to the cafeteria. I thought students just didn't know the directions themselves when they sent me to wrong places in foundation year. Oh how naive younghood was.

Keeping in mind my map drawing skills are on the lower percentiles of the scale of map-drawing, here is your guide to campus (our medical campus, not the entire university campus. I do not feel like wasting my summer drawing a map to an entire city.). 

I suggest you print this and take it with you on your first few days. 

5. Bus stops

Bus stop labelled "Bus stop (1) benches" is the bus stop for public University City buses. These only transport to certain areas in Sharjah. So if you live in Dubai you may need to use the private buses for money.

Bus stops labelled "Medical bus stop bench" and "Pharmacy bus stop bench" are bus stops that transport you between our campus and the Women's and Men's Colleges and Fine Arts College. They are also the bus stops for buses headed to/from the medical dorms. To know which bus is which ask the driver or read the sign on the bus.