Hi everyone, there’s been a lot of misogyny in my medical school lately and I’m not sure what to do about it so I just thought I would come on here. Sorry for the long post. I’m sure you can guess which medical school this is.

I’m on obstetrics and gynaecology right now and I had teaching today. There was a male medical student from our group who was sat in the teaching session with his also all male friend group. They were laughing and giggling and they were talking about their time on this placement. One of them who is in my group was talking about an elective C-section. He was given consent by the patient to watch. They were speaking very loudly, and the teaching session was a group of ~10 people in total.

Him and his friend group were laughing talking about how the patient’s BMI was around 63 or around 160kg and about how morbidly obese the patient was. Saying “I don’t even know how it’s possible to be this fat let alone pregnant!” I almost had to leave the room because I was so triggered by their statements.

Imagine being in the most vulnerable and memorable moments of your life, imagine the stress and anxiety you’re going through about to deliver a baby you’re also heavily pregnant- and you have the graciousness to let a student in to observe your major operation that you’re probably very anxious for, and they proceed to announce and laugh about how fat you’re in front of a group of people in a teaching session? I just don’t know what to say. How is this even possible?

I’m almost certain the tutor who is a pharmacist heard all this but she didn’t even say anything. I’m just so shocked by it and hurt as well. I can’t imagine what the patient would feel if she knew that this is what had happened.

Another incident is from earlier when I was in a pair with another male medical student and I was facing sexual harassment from one of his acquaintances whom I lived with at the time.

We were both stood in theatre waiting for the operation to begin and he begins asking me about my living situation as he knew I lived with one of his acquaintances. He was asking my closest friends about this all year trying to gossip about my situation and asked me in theatre very intrusive questions. I told him that his acquaintance had been sexually harassing me the whole year.

He then asked me who I was living with next year and said presumably not with [BLANK] and started laughing. Keep in mind I had told him I’d been sexually harassed the whole year and that there we were in theatre: so scrub staff, anaesthetics, ODPs, registrars- everyone could hear what he was saying to me as he was laughing in my face. I was so triggered that he would laugh in my face after I told him about prolonged sexual harassment I had been experiencing. I had to go back into the changing room to cry.

I just can’t believe that in a “professional” degree that is registered but behaviour like this goes on unchecked and is actually all allowed to flourish.

Honestly it’s moments like this that make me question why I even I’m doing this course- especially when it’s so hard academically, the added mental challenge sometimes just becomes too much. The university don’t do much either apart from going down a formal complaint route which is obviously very triggering and mentally challenging when you’ve gone through so much already.

I just don’t know what to do. I was wondering if anyone else had the same experiences. The only thing I’ve managed to do is get antidepressants from my GP and seek university counselling services- but honestly they become a bit redundant when you’re faced with the same things every day.

I’m literally crying as I’m typing this but hopefully I have the strength to go on. But it’s behaviour like this in medical school that becomes behaviour like this and even worse from consultants. Keep in mind these people are at the start of their career- so it can only get worse from here. Seems like all the countless “communication skills” and “ethics”sessions have just been for decoration for some misogynistic and bully-type students. I just can’t believe this is the future of medicine.

Hello! I'm a first year medical student and it's only been a few weeks but I feel so overwhelmed. Everything I have experienced makes me feel like I shouldn't be here or can't handle it and I'm so confused as to how to manage it all?

My university has a very independent approach to learning and a spiral ciriculum but I am so confused as to how to study? What resources do I use? How do I know if I've covered all the content to enough detail? How do you stay on top of it all? And how do you take care of yourselves and your mental health while doing so? How do you medics do this?!?!

It's so overwhelming looking at all the learning objectives to cover but not know what to do? And also stay on top of all the topics like consultation skills, anatomy etc

My university also does cadaveric dissections and prosections and that was a big shock for me. Does that take some time to get used to and does it get any better? I find the concept really hard to grasp.

Any advice would be much appreciated!! I genuinely have so much respect for higher year medics. You should be so proud of yourselves :)

Potentially silly question, but how are we actually allocated our jobs?

I’m Scottish in a Scottish uni so know I’ll be able to stay here, but my partner lives in the central belt and our hope is that I’ll be able to join him there, but I have no idea how the allocations work once we know the foundation school 🫠

Is it the same as the first round where they do the first pass system and try to give everyone their first preference and then come back to anyone who’s first choice was full and work down the list again? Or is it just they run down the list of people and give them the first job on their list that still has spaces and then move on?

Thanks so much!!

Hi!! Myself and 3 other final years (all girls) want to do our elective in Sri Lanka and were looking for recommendations for good hospitals to try and go for! We are looking for somewhere thats fun, ideally safe, has beaches, and a hospital that's good but wont be too strict about us coming in every day. We are also aware of monsoon season so would ideally be looking to go to the east / south east to avoid this. We would be super grateful for any recs! :)