Hi, I’m Hannah and I’m Aaliyah and we are the welfare officers on the VMS committee. Each week we will be discussing matters related to wellbeing and how we can support each other during this difficult process. It doesn’t have to be a stressful time, and our aim is to help each other. We’d love to have your involvement in these discussions, so please feel free to share experiences (this can be done anonymously if you would like to do so). Join us in discussing each week’s topics by sharing your thoughts and questions. The goal of this blog is not to judge others based on their experiences, but to make sure everyone feels valued so please be respectful of people’s opinions even if they are different from your own. We’ll be discussing a new topic each week and answering the most common questions during the weekly Virtual Medical Society Meetings, as well as in the comments section below. We’d love the main body of this blog to be a discussion, therefore, we have included a short intro to this week’s topic to be used as guidance. However, we want the conversation to be led by you because it’s your Virtual Medical Society after all!

If you have any suggestions of topics, you’d like covered in the future then please let us know in the comments too!  

This week we will be discussing-Resilience

This week well be exploring what resilience is and how we can show it. We’ve heard about it and most of us have shown it at some point in our school careers, but do we really know what it means? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties” but what does that really mean?

We were inspired to write this blog after we were lucky enough to hear about Zalva, a Year 13 student’s experience last week at the VMS, someone in our medic mentor family’s who  has shown incredible resilience throughout the application process. Zalva got two university offers for medicine despite not getting the grades and has shown us that we can overcome any challenge that may be in our way if we are passionate, determined and willing to put in the work to achieve our goals. One thing which really struck us in the interview, was the amount of support she received from everyone at Medic Mentor. Medic Mentor are like our medic family, so if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to comment on the blog or contact anyone on the VMS committee.

Resilience is so important, not only would it be essential during our med school applications and exam, but also in our healthcare careers. As doctors, dentists and vets we will be faced with challenges everyday which I’m sure is apparent to you through work experience and wider reading. Especially during these unforeseen circumstances, medics are working tirelessly to ensure our safety and have shown amazing resilience through overcoming any challenge to keep us all safe.

We all have resilience in us, and have demonstrated it at least once in our lives. But how can we build resilience further? Bellow are some of our top tips on doing so:

• Try to have a positive mindset about every situation- failure is just a learning experience! We’re sorry, I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase thousands of times from teachers but its true! In order to succeed, we need to improve on things we’re not great at, and that may start with little things in your day to day life like learning how to do the laundry.
• Use your support network! Know you’re not alone – we all experience failure.  The Medic Mentor family is here to support you throughout your journey to becoming a medic. We’re here for you whatever it is, there are so many different routes into university, so there will be definitely be one for you, and that means  not getting the grades isn’t the end of the world. Please remember to ask for help if you are concerned.
• Celebrate every success no matter how small. It’s important to recognise your achievements. We all too often focus on the things which didn’t go too well, and we forget about the things we’re really good at, and how far we’ve each come. This week we would like to challenge every VMS member to focus on one thing that they’ve done really well in the past week. This might be a piece of homework you did well on, a skill you’ve mastered or just something you enjoyed!

Remember that we are all here for you, so do not hesitate to contact Medic Mentor if you have any questions or concerns about t VMS. Please comment about how you have shown resilience and if you have any tips for others who may find themselves in a similar position as you were.

  Thanks for reading, we hope you found it useful ????

Disclaimer- we are not experts but we try our best ????