Q & A - 5,000 Subscribers!

Key Takeaways

hey guys welcome back to the channel if you new here my name is Ellie I'm a final year medical student at Cambridge University and in this video I'm gonna be answering various questions some of them about medicine applications and some of them about like general life has like a 5000 subscriber milestone because that's like a thing that people do on YouTube so first it yeah 5k subscribers thank you very much if you subscribe to this channel if you haven't there's still time you can click the subscribe button down below and up there and everywhere because I value your time as always there's gonna be timestamps in the description to every single question so anyway yeah let's go into it and we'll start with question number one is medicine really for me if I've always had doubts about it at the same time I don't know what else I would do at uni and what could you do from just a normal science degree this is a good question this honestly is sort of the position I was in I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I applied for medicine so I thought like it's quite a varied degree it's pretty broad I feel that six years at university was gonna be better than three years at university which is why I decided to go for a medicine degree and it was the best decision I've ever made and I wouldn't I would like not look back people sometimes say that you know you should only apply for a Medicine degree if you're really really really sure that you want to do medicine but I think that that's not really I wouldn't give that advice personally I think it's it's unfair to expect someone to know at the age of 16 or 17 that they want to become a doctor for the rest of the 50 years of their life I think it's perfectly reasonable to say you know what I'm gonna apply for medicine because I like the idea of studying a medicine degree even if I'm not a hundred percent 100% sure about being a doctor yet so yeah in that sense yeah apply for medicine if you think that's what you want to do or even if you think that's the only thing you might want to do yeah but medicine is amazing I'm applying to medicine next year do you think that taking up a position of responsibility of head girl slash school council would really help a med school application or if it's a bit overrated interesting question I didn't have any position of responsibility at school other than being a prefect I mentioned the fact I was a prefect on my personal statement it I think had less than zero impact on my application I think if I was head boy it would have had a little bit of impact but overall I think I don't think there's much to be worried about I think if if you do have a chance to go for head where I have go go for it because it puts you in a like a nice position to be in with your school you see like good links gives you good relationships with members of staff we hope and is a good way of like get are genuinely getting this that you might need later on doctor later on in life but like just for the sake of it I probably wouldn't want to do it as an if your only reason for wanting to do it is because it'll help your medicine application equally something like school council run for it if you really want it but don't run for it if you think that I'm doing this because it'll impact my medicine application because likely it's not really gonna have any any effect at all also to be honest well when it comes to interviews and they ask you stuff about you know your experiences of leadership or teamwork it's more about what you've done in these roles then about the role themselves like the fact that you're a head girl or head boy doesn't doesn't matter at all but if you help to organize something like orchestrated and old peoples charity dinner or whatever you do in school that's this kind of stuff you can talk about and it almost doesn't matter what title you have so yeah in conclusion don't go for things just because you think it'll help you medicine application go for them if you if you really want them because really it's not going to matter that much for your application alright question um before would university is like it if you viewed being a doctor as more of a scientist then a caregiver if that makes sense or would that seem too cold honestly I think it depends where you go some Oxbridge colleges are all about the whole research thing but in general people interviewing you for medicine admissions at most almost all universities would prefer you to view being a doctor as something about caring for patients rather than I'm doing a medicine degree so I can go into research if that makes sense so the short answer is yes universities do like it more if if you can view being medicine as like a caring thing rather than purely a sort of a coldly scientific thing if that makes sense ok question number 5 I think we're at what extracurriculars would you suggest for building a strong CV during medical school honestly like your XQ after curriculars during medical school aren't really that important in terms of bringing your strong building a strong CV because by the time you're applying for jobs like the foundation job it matters not at all what extracurriculars you're doing I think if you're applying for an academic foundation program and you like you're an Olympic medallist you got a few extra points for that but honestly no one really cares about your extracurricular activities I think pick the extracurriculars that will that you enjoy and that you enjoy doing that like help you develop skills generally rather than picking them again on the basis of I think this will help me further down the line okay so that was five questions about medicine application medical student he stuff now we're transitioning a little bit more into personal tree if you're into if you're still here and thank you for watching question number six is what do you enjoy most about medicine what's your favorite specialty okay my favorite specialty at the moment is obstetrics and gynecology I like the fact that it's a mixture of medicine and surgery cuz I quite like the idea of operating but also quite like the idea of being in a clinic I also quite like the fact that within obstetrics you're like helping babies come into the world which is generally quite a happy thing and the patients are generally sort of young and healthy whereas a lot of medical specialties deal with music chronic conditions and I just I I think I find it more exciting dealing with young healthy patients with this kind of happy event coming into their life so that's why that's currently my favorite specialty these days maybe that'll change I'll keep you guys updated if it does the thing I enjoy most about medicine I think is the teamwork aspect of it I really like the fact that you and your team of doctors and seniors and juniors and nurses and physios and everyone else you're all like working together for the benefit of the patient and this looks like there's like good banter on the team it's a good punch on the wards and you like it's it's it's that team dynamic that makes it really fun and it's the it's it's that team dynamic that's the thing I've enjoyed most about being being in clinical school as well as when we're on placements and sort of where there's like three four of us on a surgery placement going to the middle of nowhere it's because we're all working together that's really fun obviously there are other things about medicine the intellectual challenge the you know the caring for people and all of that but for me personally I think it's the teamwork aspect that I enjoy the most question number six or seven I think I've lost count at this point how did you get into medical education slash public engagement interesting question I got into medical education because I saw an opportunity to make a bit of money I ran a BMAC cause for some students at my school when I was like in first year of University and they seem to really like it and then I you decided to one day use my web design skills to kind of build a website around this to beam out crash course and to market it nationally because I thought why not and that ended up getting bigger than I could have imagined so the reason I got into medical education was because I started off this little course to help some kids at my school and then it turned into like a money-making opportunity so that was kind of these last five years what I've been doing with with six med my company but now it sounds kinda bad to say but I don't really care about making money from education anymore I think I like I've grown to really enjoy just medical education and education generally for its own sake so that's why I started this YouTube channel that's why I sort of enjoy doing teaching sessions I'm not getting any money for it but that doesn't matter it's just fun to do the education thing I think in a way it's it's kind of that thing of the more you do something the more you enjoy and because I spent five years teaching Bheema and interview courses I therefore grew to like through the the process of Education and sort of teaching people which is why I'm into that so yeah that was how I got into it okay the question number 8 I think we're on is I've started a wordpress blog about medicine prospective students but I'm struggling to get the word out how did you start / do you have any tips Oh interesting I will link this guy's blog Jayden gee I think of Hope announced it I'll link to his blog over here and in the description below so you can check it out hopefully that'll give him maybe one or two extra extra readers honestly if you're starting something then don't really expect to get any readers or any viewers anytime soon most advice that I've come across from podcasts and books regarding anything any kind of creative endeavor is that for the first few months two years you're gonna be just shouting into the void you're going to be writing stuff consistently or you should be writing stuff consistently and not giving a toss at all about whether anyone is reading it the idea is that at some point when you're writing improves and when you know the right combination of circumstances happens people will stumble upon your work and at that point they'll it'll be really useful for them to see this backlog that oh this person's we've been publishing a medical article every single week that's incredible and then they'll become your loyal fans but there is absolutely no point in trying to get the word out there when you've got one or two person your site make it a consistent thing make sure you're writing a high quality stuff on a regular basis and the readers will follow over time don't worry about it in the short term okay so our next question which is question number 8 I think is was there ever a point where you wanted to drop out of university the odds the answer to that is for me honestly there has never been a point where I've wanted to drop out of university I know not everyone has this experience I know a lot of people find university or struggle and people do drop out for various reasons for me personally that that's that's never been a thing there's a good Chris Pratt quote he's he said this in in an interview one time he said that every year since the age of three has been the best year of my life and I would I would probably agree with that every year just seems to keep getting better and better by you know luck or the grace of God or war whatever you want to call it so you have for me personally I've I've never felt ever the need to drop out of university but I appreciate that that's not everyone's experience yeah okay next question question ten question nine how do you manage your time I want to be more productive and get everything done without procrastinating there will be a very detailed video about this in the next couple of weeks at some point in general a few tips firstly a motivation is is pretty much a myth and we should be using discipline instead to get stuff done there's a good quote that goes something along the lines of you don't wait to get into Olympic form before training you train in order to get into into Olympic form so it's just about breaking this link that we have between I need to feel like doing something before I do something it's the other is just you know you just do something and you'll develop the motivation and the enjoyment later on that's something I find useful secondly most of my procrastinate reactivities personally are quite productive in themselves in that it would either be playing on the piano a bit or like browsing some like web design inspiration or stuff like that that helps me be more productive in other spheres of my life while I watching some tutorial on YouTube about how to how to vlog or watching a vlog and taking tips mentally about you know how they're doing how they're doing the edits stuff like that so I think it's useful to have all the semi productive procrastinator II methods but yeah those are two things which oh just off the top of my head but I have planned out like a legit video about this that'll be on the channel in the next few weeks right question number 11 how do you deal with rejection / failure again there will be a video in this in the channel in in the next couple of weeks maybe two three weeks probably this month at some point in general I really like stoicism as a sort of philosophy on dealing with with rejection and it's it's it's that classic serenity prayer that God give me the serenity to accept that which I cannot change the courage to change what I can and and the wisdom to know to know the difference and when it comes to rejection that then falls into the sphere of things that we have no control over the only two things we have any control over are our own thoughts and our own actions and so if someone has rejected us from you know romantically or academically or like professionally that was something that we didn't really have any control over we hopefully did the best we could but it was then in their hands and therefore you know there's absolutely no point in even thinking about that or even sort of dwelling on it we we use it you will use it as a learning experience reframing failure as yeah this is an experience I've learned from this this is what I'm gonna take away from it and we move on with our lives because we gain absolutely nothing from from drilling and other stuff I really like stoicism as as like a way of way of living to kind of reduce negative emotions and all that but yeah that was slightly rumbly I'll talk about it more in the actual video on how to deal with rejection but really good question okay so question number 11 I think we're on is what inspires you this is a very general question I think so professionally when I meet doctors who are really nice to their patients but also who really know their stuff we're really good at teaching the students and who also take it take it all with good humor like they don't take it too seriously they don't consider themselves like the kings of the world for being doctors they don't have this attitude that a lot of medics and doctors have that oh my god oh my god I work so hard and medicine is such a hard thing people who have that attitude and I've met quite a few of them in my time those are really inspirational figures and and and I kind of hope to emulate them one day with this whole YouTube thing you're watching this video on youtube if you at this point there are a few youtubers Gary Vaynerchuk is is one Casey Neistat at Peter McKinnon knew the people who built audiences from from the ground up who have really good work they deliver a lot of value consistently for free and they've built there's this sort of personal brand they've built this sort of business around the fact that they're just providing value to people and either from they either in the context of entertainment or like photography tutorials or like life entrepreneurship advice there's sort of people like that that I like watching on YouTube and that I sort of feel like feel inspired to attempt to emulate okay and these next two questions are I think from various various friends of mine so four of my Asian friends asked me various varying degrees of have you got any tips on how to get married when do I plan to get married and we'll leave that for another video but I will refer you to Dina Tokyo and her husband's YouTube channel which is good if you want to know more about marriage and that'll be linked in the description below and finally I think is another bunch of question from one of my friends is how do you stay so humble what are the secrets to your everyday look and what is life like post 5k subscribers let's go on how do I stay so humble let's let's let's in letting all that one what is what are the secrets to your everyday look it's all about wearing a grey t-shirt and wearing black jeans and I wear like the same black jeans every every day and watch them very occasionally yeah it's all about like the minimalist look you just decided oh can you just wear it every day because you realized that no one really cares and provided you have like a well-fitting t-shirt and you occasionally go to the gym then it'll all work out and finding a question is what is what is life like post 5k which is uh clearly that's a bunch of question but I think it does raise a wider point that about this whole thing about having milestones when people say that when I hit a hundred thousand subscribers then something or when I get that 3-bedroom house then I'll be happy when I get that raise then I'll be happy when I make a million dollars then I'll be and you know invariably that's obviously never the case it's it's more as you know in the immortal words of Miley Cyrus it's it's about the climb you know it's it's not about reaching reaching the destination there is an absolutely incredible article written by a programmer I follow called DHH he runs a company called Basecamp which is a software company yeah it's it's an article on medium linked here and below and it's entitled the day I became a millionaire and he's talking about the story of how he felt when Jeff Bezos the CEO of Amazon decided to buy a tiny stake in his company for a few million so he and his business partners suddenly became a few million dollars richer pretty much overnight and he talks about the feelings he had when he saw this my name is bank account and stuff he bought and ultimately he says that actually he realized that you know the things he wanted to do was were you know continue programming continue working on his company continue spending time with his friends and family you don't need too many boats for that so yeah clearly you know what is life like post 5k well I post 5k is absolutely no different to life post 1k or even you know post 200 subscribers because I'm enjoying the process of making these videos and connecting with you guys it's nice it's nice in a way having a bigger audience because then you know I get more for more comments and if I you know ask something of polar Instagram follow me on instagram please or if I asked people to send questions in for a 5k subscribers quite a Q&A then they're all obviously more questions coming in than there were when I was at 200 subscribers but I mean honestly apart from that it's it's no different it's about the climb as Miley Cyrus says I'll link the Spotify to the song down below oh that brings us to the end of this 5k Q&A thank you very much for watching if you've if you've seen this far again five thousand subscribers absolute incredible thank you so much if your subscriber if you're not you can click the subscribe button because I make videos most weeks about like life as a medical student and occasionally that educational stuff about how to get into medicine and I'm branching out hoping hopefully into singing songs with my medic friends and more videos like aim dat medical students themselves so like tips for skis and how to write essays and all this kind of stuff so yeah thank you so much for watching you're amazing if you like the video please give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed to the channel please consider doing so have a lovely day and I'll see you in the next video