General Advice Sessions

Are you looking to take the step towards studying medicine and don’t know where to start? Maybe you need some pointers or mentoring.

Whatever your needs, we at The Future Medic are here to help, with general advice sessions and much more. you should definitely consider being mentored in medical school interview situations by our professional tutors.

The competition for places in Medicine degrees is getting tougher and tougher.

In 2022, there were 30,000 more students applying to medical school- in popular universities, this means a success rate of only 1 in 10. For international students, this number is even lower at 1 in 16.

So, getting into medical school is extremely competitive- because there can only be a small handful of the very best applicants who earn a place to train there.

In fact, there are other factors which make Medicine a fiercely competitive field to get into.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused widespread grade inflation, which caused universities to reach full capacity quickly, leaving countless students scrambling to compete over the remaining university places elsewhere.

Additionally, Covid-19 has caused many students to defer their studies for a year. This has further caused the competition for university places to heat up, meaning that medical schools are making fewer and fewer offers.

As we continue, we will share some of the services we offer.

Interview tutoring

We have over 14 years of experience in mentoring, public speaking, and the medical school admissions process. We have helped thousands of aspiring medical students successfully enter the medical schools of their choice. Book a session with our medicine interview tutors.

We offer interview coaching services with the option to choose the duration of your coaching, and the option of being coached by a medical education specialist doctor/ interview panellist, or our lead tutor, Dr Valeed Ghafoor.

The benefit of our coaching services are as followed:

  • An increase in self-confidence
  • A 97% average success rate with our previous users
  • Guidance from a fully qualified UK doctor
  • Help from a specialist in medical education
  • 100,000 hours of UCAT tutoring experience

Here are some examples of what our medical school interview mentors can help you with:

Communication Skills:

  • Body language
  • Rate & Tone
  • Mirroring Posture
  • Clarity of Articulation
  • Minimising Jargon/Waffle
  • How to use words you don’t understand
  • Breaking bad news
  • Communicating your thought process
  • Active Listening

Lateral thinking / Problem solving:

This section deals with questions that seem unrelated and may cause you to fluster and lose your focus or train of thought. These are common reasons why students fail their interviews.

  • Applied knowledge
  • Curveball questions
  • Difficult interview techniques

UCAT Tutoring

The University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) is one of the many forms of admissions tests that is used by a selection of Universities within the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

The test is required to be completed in addition to passing A-Levels for those who wish to study medicine.  Over twenty- seven thousand people took this test as of 2018.

The A-levels needed for medicine studies are just one part of a very complex application process to secure a spot for studying. With less than 16% of applications to study medicine in 2022 resulting in an offered place, the application process is very highly competitive.

The UCAT is designed to support a strong academic record by testing various situational and skill-based areas that a student would need to possess to make it in the world of medicine naturally. The scoring is split across five categories which all make up individual parts of the test. These are:

  • Verbal Reasoning
  • Decision Making
  • Quantitative Reasoning
  • Abstract Reasoning
  • Situational Judgement

You can access UCAT question banks on the UCAT website, which we have highlighted below:

Click here to access the UCAT practice tests on the UCAT website.

Choose from anywhere between 1 hour of UCAT tutoring to 20 hours, to help you unlock your full potential.

It doesn’t matter how far along you are in your Medicine journey– whether you are applying during your A-Levels, or if you have previously been rejected for Medicine and you need a higher UCAT score– our UCAT online course is sure to help!

NHS & Hot Topics:

It is crucial for a medical applicant to have an understanding of the NHS and its structure. You may not know what you want to specialise in, but you should be aware of how GPs link to specialities, and understand the links between the public and private sectors.

  • Infrastructure of NHS
  • Pressures on NHS
  • Privatisation / Funding
  • Social Care & Equality
  • COVID
  • BREXIT
  • Euthanasia

Medical Ethics:

In this section, we tackle the hardest part of the interview – Medical Ethics. We help you integrate terminology such as the medical pillars and GMC Guidelines into your answers as well as showing you how to approach common ethical scenarios such as confidentiality, organ donation and abortion.

  • The 4 Ethical Principles
  • The 3 C’s: Confidentiality, consent and competency
  • When to break each principle
  • Religious beliefs and medicine
  • Abortions
  • Organ Donation
  • Do not resuscitate
  • Safeguarding

To see our full list of interview subjects we cover, click here.

Mentorship

Our mentoring programme has been specifically designed from the ground up by our Lead Tutor, Dr Valeed Ghafoor (MBChB, MRCGP, DRCOG, PGCert CPME). It is a 2-year programme, from the start of year 12 to the end of the interview cycle in year 13.

You will have unlimited access to our expert tutors, through your own dedicated WhatsApp group. This allows for a channel of open communication and dialogue. Your tutor is constantly available to you, via this group, which means that their support is not just limited to the live sessions.

This channel is for you to ask, discuss and clarify any and all aspects of the UCAS application process, Work Experience, UCAT, Personal Statement, and Interviews. This does not need to be limited to only the UCAS process, as discussions also include life at medical school, working as a doctor in the NHS and much more!

On top of this, the experience our tutors hold helps them in best guiding your application depending on factors such as your A-level subjects, UCAT performance and predicted grades – there is certainly an art to this, and we help you maximise your chances.

Consistent feedback each year highlights this feature as one of the most popular of this service – students enjoy and find comfort in being able to ask questions whenever they think of them.

This mentoring programme consists of monthly live sessions where study timetables and action plans are made according to what is most relevant at the time. For example, at the start of Year 13, the sessions are heavily focused on applying the finishing touches to your personal statement.

However, in Year 12’s summer, we help you get your balance right by starting your personal statement, coaching you for the UCAT, as well as helping you reflect on your work experience.

The very first session is based on exploring your aspirations for medicine, your personality, any apprehensions you may have and your strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, this is so that we can create a profile based on all of these factors so that we can generate a two-year plan specific to your needs which accounts for all aspects of the UCAS process.

We always stress the importance of live sessions, as the interaction helps to develop a richness of feedback and allows you to obtain a higher degree of critique from non-verbal communication.

Each live session is audio-recorded which helps in numerous ways. You can use the recordings to review your performance and the feedback given and use this as a tool for continued improvement outside of the sessions. The recordings also help us to measure your progress. It is a confidence booster to see how far you have progressed!

As this is our most popular, most in-depth and most detailed service, we ensure each student receives the quality guaranteed. As such, spaces are extremely limited and are appointed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Book your slot today

Our team at The Future Medic understand the responsibility to provide our country with the next generation of bright minds who will innovate, revolutionise and excel in the study of medicine.

That is why we have made it our mission to supply you with all the knowledge, skills and resources you could possibly need to enter this competitive yet rewarding field of expertise.

So what are you waiting for? To access the very best in medical school interview tutoring, head to our website now. Alternatively, you can contact us directly, got a few more questions? Our blog page may be able to help.