School Student
What's surgery like?
Dominic Pimenta
Medical Student
My name is Dominic Pimenta and I am currently a 4th year (1st year clinical) medical student at University College London Medical School and therefore still very much at the bottom of the rung, or start of the journey towards becoming a surgeon.
I think what attracts me to surgery over a lot of other specialities is the hands-on approach. That directness of treatment is something very lacking in other areas of medicine. In addition the practical element of actively 'fixing' someone is hard to resist, especially when that could mean the difference between life and death. I must put a caveat in here and say surgery for me lacks alot of the cerebral diagnostic element that I love about the rest of medicine, which attracts me to surgical specialities which blend the two, such as neurosurgery or, to a lesser extent, gynaecology.
As a medical student on the wrong side of halfway through medical school you become increasingly aware of the competition we are all facing after we qualify, so anything that sets you apart can only help you later on in the future. With that end in mind, I have been getting involved early in extracurricular activities like writing surgical articles for medical school magazines, attending surgeries (if you’re preclinical and not part of formal teaching yet), talking with surgeons and attending undergraduate conferences, and obviously getting involved with your local surgical society are all great boons to a budding surgical CV. These can all help you, a) add to a CV tailored to surgery, but also, b) give you a better idea of the world you’re entering and see if it’s really for you. In addition, tailoring your curriculum, with iBSc’s (ie in Surgical Sciences) and SSCs in surgical related topics will also give you a leg up. This is what I have been doing, but to be pragmatic at this stage there is still alot of room for personal and professional growth, and your aims in your career and otherwise may change, so even if you’re sure surgery is for you, keep your options open, do other projects or things that interest you as much for your own benefit now as for your future self.
