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Bilal Razaq

MBChB Medicine with Foundation Year

Medicine student Bilal

I’m set on paediatrics at the moment but, in four years’ time, I might decide I want to be a diabetes specialist or something else. I want to keep my options open and take all the opportunities I can.

I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. I cared for my grandma when she was ill and that really inspired me to go into Medicine. It’s the only job I could see myself doing, but kids from my school in Oldham don’t usually become doctors.

Edge Hill’s Medicine Foundation Year is great because it’s especially for people from deprived areas in the North West. It gives people who wouldn’t normally consider applying for Medicine the chance to do it. Many of the people who use the NHS are working class so I feel there should be more working-class doctors.

I’ve taken on the role of Co-President of the Widening Access to Medicine Society. We’ve been to primary schools to run workshops during Science Week, and held a lecture in a Sixth Form College to encourage those from disadvantaged backgrounds to consider Medicine.

During the Foundation Year you study core modules on the human body, but also how doctors communicate with nurses and other staff, to work together within the NHS. We also look at how the NHS goes wrong sometimes to try and learn from that. Next year, once we start the degree itself, we’ll be working alongside the Nursing students, so we’ll get to practice how we will be working in the future.

The course focuses on practical experience and you get to go out on placement within four months of starting. Everyone gets the opportunity to work in a range of settings including hospitals, dementia clinics and a mental health settings, so you get an idea of where you might like to specialise.

I’m set on paediatrics at the moment. But, in four years’ time, I might decide I want to be a diabetes specialist or something else. I want to keep my options open and take all the opportunities I can. All the doctors I’ve met have said there was one placement that changed their lives and made them take the path they did. I’m just waiting for that one placement.