A group of self-selecting students, from keen First Form pupils to members of the Upper Sixth hoping to be accepted into medical school by this time next year, gathered in the Library for the first MedSoc Lunch event.
Elyse Ratcliffe and Emily Slipper (both Fourth Form) were in attendance and have written a report on the presentation below:

“On Wednesday, we were very lucky to have had the opportunity to attend a talk by Dr Malcolm Tunnicliff, who has vast experience in many branches of medicine including the Kent Air Ambulance and the trauma centre at Kings College Hospital in London. Malcolm is a consultant and honorary senior lecturer in emergency medicine and major trauma. He is also a specialist in toxicology and included references to this in his talk.  

The interactive lecture included images of ECG scans, X-rays and CT scans in addition to real-life stories and cases that Malcolm and his colleagues have come face-to-face with. We attempted to diagnose what was wrong with the patients given the clues provided. This was particularly interesting as it showed the reality of day-to-day life in medicine and meant that we were able to put our experiences and knowledge to the test within a tight time frame, giving us a real taste for these careers. Most enlightening was our diagnoses of a particular collection of scans that showed the effect of COVID-19 on the lungs and heart of one patient.

One of Malcolm’s adages which will stay with us was ‘take ten seconds for ten minutes’. He stressed the importance of approaching stressful and life-defining moments by slowing down, taking time to think and ‘widening our bandwidth’. 

Malcolm’s insights were fascinating and he spoke with real emotion about some of the high profile cases he has worked on. We would like to thank Malcolm for taking the time to talk to us, we hope to hear from him in the future as well as attending many more eye-opening talks at the MedSoc Lunches.”

The MedSoc lunch events are open to all students in the School who are interested in medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, veterinary science or animal physiotherapy. These lunch events exist to support the existing MedSoc meetings at break time, which take students through the practicalities of applying to medical or veterinary school.

Mr Jones would be most grateful for volunteers from amongst the parent body who would be willing to contribute to the MedSoc lunch events and can be contacted on jonesm@svs.org.uk.