In August 2004, I was walking in Cornwall with my (now) wife and she asked me what I really wanted to do with my life. Not having considered this for a long time, I gave the question great thought and then replied, law. Mindy was dumbfounded because I had never intimated any interest in this area before. As we walked along, I said that what I really wanted to do was medicine. She shook her head in disbelief and asked if I intended to change my mind again. No, this time I was quite sure. It was, after all, what I had wanted to do seventeen years earlier when I sat my A levels.
We returned home to North Wales and I made some calls to establish how I would go about it. The advice was clear; I would have to complete a science degree first and then apply to medical schools. I was now 35 years old and immediately wondered if perhaps I might be told old.
Despite having completed the first two years of an honours degree in Biomedical Sciences in 1989, I was told that this was too long ago to be considered. As a consequence, I would have to start from scratch and study for three years to achieve my first step towards medical school. This I duly achieved having lost a year on the way due to ill health.
I applied to four medical schools and was refused an interview by three of them. However, one gave me the chance and I was subsequently offered a place. Whereas my first degree had allowed me to commute from home, the medical school which offered me a place was simply too far away to do so again. I thus lived away from home to study medicine. When I went to medical school my son was just one year old and I felt a great wrench being apart from him and my wife.
It is important to point out that as each year progressed, my identity as a medical student became more and more entrenched. This is important because whoever we are and what ever we do, our sense of identity is key to who we are.
Next week I go before the Progress Committee having failed to achieve satisfactory marks in the medical knowledge exams at the end of the third year. I have spent the last week with my identity in limbo. If the committee rejects my explanation for falling short of standards, I will be out and that, as they say, will be that after seven years study, hard work and sacrifice.
It is of course entirely their prerogative who they accept and who they don't but I sincerely hope they give me the opportunity to have another go at the third year or I shall have to seek a new identity..
