00:00Just tell me a bit about your own background and how you came to the Graduate Entry Medical Program here at McGee.
00:05Yes, so I actually did a degree in Pharmacy at Queen's first, so I completed that degree and then I did my pre-registration training to become a pharmacist.
00:14And it was during COVID I had just decided that I thought that I wanted maybe to go on and think about doing medicine.
00:21It had always been something that was in the back of my head and I think with everything that went on in the pandemic,
00:25I saw the opportunity to make this course come up and decided to apply and thankfully got an offer and here we are today.
00:33Did that kind of sway you when you saw the need, the pressure that the NHS was under?
00:38Yes, definitely.
00:38We know there's workforce issues and you want to see that on the pharmacy side of things.
00:42We had a lot more people coming into the pharmacy over that time and it was very, very busy.
00:46And I think we can definitely see the pressures on the health service as a whole.
00:50And it just definitely motivated me to go on and be what I wanted to do and to go on to study medicine.
00:57And your reflections on the course, if you were selling it to people over here,
01:00if you think maybe you did something completely different and wanted to try something new,
01:04go out and get out of it better?
01:05It's a brilliant degree and the staff take you through everything from the start.
01:09And they're able to kind of give you more information, a lot of support throughout the course for getting started.
01:15I think honestly it's one of the best things I've ever decided to do.
01:17I've made so many new friends, learned so many new things, had amazing opportunities,
01:22met so many new people and everyone has just been so supportive and so lovely in teaching us
01:27and supporting us in our learning.
01:30Where to now for you?
01:31So I'm actually off to start my first job in Craigavon.
01:35So I'll be heading down that way for August.
01:37Yeah, yeah, so it's straight and in, but it's a little bit of a break, isn't it?
01:40Yeah, a little bit of a break and then straight in.
01:42And where are you from originally?
01:43I'm from Belfast.
01:44Belfast originally, but you came up here to do this course?
01:46I came, I moved to Derry for the course, yeah.
01:48Excellent.
01:48And up did, it was great, really, really enjoyed it.
