The second year students of the Swansea Medicine GEP finished lectures today. Their first two years are almost over, and they will soon progress on to the more clinical part of their MB training, mostly away from Swansea and our medical school.
I really didn’t get to see them much in their second year, because my direct teaching involvement of anatomy and embryology is tied into the first year. My contributions to their last year have been mostly of organisation: bringing in specialists to teach specific lectures, developing exam questions for the big summer paper, looking after coursework, etc. They have had no anatomy or embryology in this year, and actually quite little of the Development, Growth and Reproduction module, of which I am co-ordinator. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see them about to jump forwards.
I say “interesting” because there is a mix of emotions here, and because I’m guessing that a few of those students are likely to read this. I also say “interesting” because this is a term we use a lot when rock climbing, not so much to sand-bag someone about to climb a route, as much as to describe it (to someone in the know) as scary, exciting, something you wish you probably hadn’t started when you are part-way up, but something you are hugely pleased that you did when you have reached the top. You rarely feel quite the same way about that “interesting” route as you did when you first climbed it.
I am sure that almost all of them will do very well this summer, and that all of them will realise their goals eventually. As someone involved in delivering and moderating the course I will be hugely relieved if their results all come in as good, and really hope that they all get what they want. I cannot underestimate the difficulties that they face, however, and their fates are in their hands. We do only as much as we can to help.
It will be odd not to see their faces around campus, and I can only hope that we will see them at their eventual graduation, and later in medical practice. I plan to be in Swansea for a very long time, and I expect at least some of them to return.
