On Wednesday the 21st of March, Lister Community students took part in a medicine taster experience at King’s College London, the biggest healthcare training facility in Europe and one of the most well-known universities in the country for Medicine. The students engaged in numerous activities, had a chance to talk to current students studying the subject and receive a tour around Guy’s campus.

The Outreach for Medicine programme works with students from over 500 non-selective state schools, running a series of free aspiration-raising events for students of different ages aimed at encouraging and influencing them to aspire to careers in medicine and healthcare.

“It was a greatly inspiring trip. We got to meet up with medical students and ask them about university life at King’s College, which was extremely useful. We also got to take part in fun medical activities such as taking a blood test and suturing. This trip helped strengthen my ambition of taking on a medical degree”, stated Nazeerah Patel, a triple scientist and great contributor towards Lister Community school.

The day began with an introduction session to the university and the subject of Medicine. Pupils rotated around groups in which they participated in exercises such as labelling parts of the human anatomy and describing their functions, simulating being drunk using drunk goggles, measuring breathing rate and observing and understanding how much of each food group there are in certain foods. Soon after, students were taken on a tour of the campus in which they experienced lecture theatres and viewed student social rooms, bars etc. As Nazeerah mentioned, Lister pupils then attempted taking blood pressure and then took part in many more activities, these included: taking a blood sample from a fake arm, what to do in a case whereby a person is choking, learning to stitch a wound and finally, taking part in a simulation of keyhole surgery. The day ended on a question and answer session where students were informed of the grade requirements for medicine, work experience and general questions they had about the university/college.

All in all, the Outreach for Medicine experience was a massive success as students felt inspired and enjoyed the activities and things they had learnt from students studying there.

Halimah Khatun Ali, Lister Community School