Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
  • yesterday
Class of ‘25: First Derry doctors to pass through Magee Medical School give course a glowing prognosis

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00My name is Sorka Hill. My first degree was French and Irish from Queen's University.
00:06I worked for some time in Dublin before I decided to come back and try to begin this new course.
00:12So amazing, you really jumped from humanities, that sort of thing, a total different change of direction.
00:19I had hoped to do medicine school, but things never worked out that way for me.
00:23And I'm glad now, looking back, I had a great experience with my first degree, but it wouldn't have let me be where I am today.
00:28Yeah, so I'm Seamus McMinn, originally from Dublin, and my previous background was working in the Irish language.
00:37And part of that time was spent actually working in the Irish department at the University of Ulster.
00:43Fair way. Now, how are you going to be doing, Augustine, how are you going to be doing?
00:47I'm going to be doing it. I'm going to be doing it.
00:50So it was a natural sort of choice when I heard that graduate medicine was going to be done at Ulster,
00:57open up here in Magee and Derry, that definitely piqued my interest.
01:02And in that summer of 2020, I decided to start studying for the entrance exams and make a real effort to get there.
01:12It's a really interesting path to take.
01:14I was speaking to another graduate, and she came from Irish language and language background too.
01:20Yeah, yeah. The one thing it always gives you is interesting stuff to talk to patients about, you know,
01:27that when they realise that you've been through, you know, different paths in life as well.
01:35So, but I think in line with the theme of, you know, the speeches there today, you know, that whole thing,
01:44life's only understood when you look back at it, you know.
01:48Yeah.
01:48And hopefully for everybody here today, this all makes sense for them and represents, you know,
01:55achieving something they really, really wanted to do.
01:58Now, just tell me a bit about your own background and how you came to the Graduate Entry Medical Program here at Magee.
02:03Yes, so I actually did a degree in Pharmacy at Queen's first, and so I completed that degree,
02:08and then I did my pre-registration training to become a pharmacist.
02:11And it was during COVID, I had just decided that I thought that I wanted maybe to go on and think about doing medicine.
02:19It's always been something that was in the back of my head, and I think with everything that went on in the pandemic,
02:24I saw the opportunity in this course come up and decided to apply, and thankfully got an offer, and here we are today.
02:30So, did that kind of sway you when you saw the pressure that the NHS was under?
02:36Yeah, definitely.
02:36We knew there was workforce issues, and you would have seen that on the pharmacy side of things?
02:40We had a lot more people coming into the pharmacy over that time, and it was very, very busy.
02:44Yeah, yeah.
02:44And I think you can definitely see the pressures on the health service as a whole,
02:48and I just happily motivated me to go on and compete what I wanted to do at the study medicine.
02:55I was a dentist by trade.
02:57I graduated 23 years ago in dentistry, and I'm married to Emma, and we have, we're very content,
03:03and we have a very happy life with good family support.
03:06But in 2020, I decided I wanted to switch to medicine, and I've had great support from everybody to do that,
03:12and I applied to the course here at McGee, and I was very thankful to get a place,
03:16and I've worked hard for four years along with my classmates, and it's been very successful.
03:21Yeah, and what was your overall impression of the course?
03:25Like, not like this in Derry before, but it started from scratch, but everybody has a very good word on it.
03:31Yes, we've always told it was a spiral curriculum, and we would cover material, then come back to it,
03:38come back to it, which you don't appreciate until you've actually been in it for four years,
03:42and you realize that there's been a lot of material that's been really well covered,
03:46and covered again and again and again until you start to remember it and understand it.
03:52So it's been very well designed.
03:54There's been ups and downs.
03:55It's been tough over some days harder than others, and some dark mornings during the winter.
04:00Yeah, yeah.
04:01But today makes everything worth it.
04:03What was your experience of the graduate entry medical program that we've got in McGee?
04:08It was more than I imagined it could have been.
04:11It was so special to be the first intake, the first cohort,
04:14and the welcome that we got from day one of the course from both the people of Derry and the wider area
04:20and in the hospitals was just immense.
04:22Yeah, and you were kind of forged in fire because you came in there and you were doing your experience.
04:28That's when I was at the worst possible time then.
04:31Absolutely.
04:32But we haven't felt too much of that heat and we have only just felt like we have been warmly welcomed
04:37and people are grateful to see the medical school finally up and running in the area.
04:41And where to now?
04:42So I was fortunate enough to get my top choice.
04:45I'll be in Belfast for my F1 in the Royal and coming straight back to Derry to help McGelvin for my F2
04:51and hopefully stay beyond that too.
04:53That's exactly what we want to hear.
04:55It's a really positive story.
04:57It's not just for all your personal journeys, but just workforce issues within the health service.
05:02We need you guys.
05:03Yeah, and even like the history of university here in this city, you know, that it's now a flagship institution
05:14that's in Derry, that's staying in Derry.
05:16And the hope would be that along with that institution of the school actually being there,
05:22that everything else that Derry deserves will flow.
05:27Infrastructure, you know, proper payment for people who do home care, nurses,
05:36that all of that will flow from having the School of Medicine here in Derry.
05:40And where to now for yourself in terms of your own medical...
05:44Luckily, I was able to get out McGelvin.
05:46Excellent.
05:46So I was starting there at the end of July.
05:53I'm delighted to bring 10 or 12 others from our year group who'll be starting in out McGelvin as well.
06:00So I'm delighted to be able to serve, you know, some of the community that we spent the last four years
06:09studying in and practising to become doctors.
06:12It'll be really nice to be able to serve them and look after them.
06:18As Colin was saying there, just to serve the community, like, you know?
06:21Yes.
06:22Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:23I suppose when you came into it and you were doing your placements and things like that,
06:27it was probably the worst time that the medical profession locally had ever experienced.
06:31It was like, you were really...
06:33Well, it was strange because we were the first cohort.
06:35We got the impression that we were a massive boost to people and everybody was very excited to see us.
06:40Yes.
06:41And lots of our staff are working in hospitals and they'd be telling everybody we were coming.
06:45Yes.
06:45So we were very much a bit of an novelty and very much well-received and everybody was very welcoming to us.
06:51Yeah, yeah. Excellent.
06:52And where to now for you?
06:53So I'm going to work in Antrim area hospital with my F1 job and then Nevada in North Belfast and my F2 job.
06:59Right.
06:59So I'm very much looking forward to that.
07:00And your reflections on the course, if you were selling it to people who I think maybe did something completely different
07:06and wanted to try something new.
07:08Can I do better?
07:09It's a brilliant degree.
07:10And the staff take you through everything from the start.
07:13They're able to kind of give you more information, a lot of support around the course for getting started.
07:18I think honestly it's one of the best things I've ever decided to do.
07:21I've made so many new friends, learned so many new things, had amazing opportunities, met so many new people.
07:28And everyone has been so supportive and so lovely in teaching us and supporting us in our learning.
07:33And where to now for you?
07:35So I'm actually off to start my first job in Craigavon.
07:38So I'll be heading down that way for August.
07:41Yeah, yeah.
07:41So it's straight in there.
07:42Straight in.
07:43A little bit of a break, isn't it?
07:44Yeah, a little bit of a break and then straight in.
07:46And where are you from originally?
07:47I'm from Belfast.
07:48Belfast originally, but you came up here to do this course here?
07:50I came, I moved to Derry for the course, yeah.
07:52Excellent.
07:52And up there, it was great.
07:53I really, really enjoyed it.
07:55And needless to say, everybody who's come through the School of Medicine and now become doctors today,
08:04gives their full support to the School of Medicine and anything that is needed in the future
08:09to either help bolster it up or advance and progress it on.
08:14Absolutely, there's that great sense of, you know, we all did it together.
08:19And it was only because the School of Medicine was there and that we were all there for each other
08:23that it made the last four years possible.

Recommended