“It was a huge privilege to support this event. The NHS needs more initiatives like this; empowering, creative, thoughtful and well organised. A credit to you and I very much enjoyed my day. I met 100s of inspirational people, you have inspired me to do more”
Dr Kate Burnett
Head of School, Health Education England
Leader of healthcare improvement Fellow, AQuA
Director – On Becoming Programme, Health Education England
Honorary Deputy Director MSc (Medical Education), University of Manchester
Performance Coach
“The event was incredibly well-attended. It was great to see such enthusiasm from students and pupils keen to enter medicine. Their passion shone through and I really enjoyed speaking with such bright, engaged young people on topics ranging from ethical dilemmas to work experience”
Tista Chakravarty – Gannon
Principal Regional Liaison Adviser
General Medical Council
As the manager of Cambridge Assessment’s BMAT support materials, I have collaborated with the Becoming a Doctor team to encourage widening participation in Medical Education through online and face-to-face events. Last year I was invited to attend and present at the National Health Careers Conference in Manchester. I was particularly impressed with the scale of the conference and exhibition, the range of exhibitors and that the event was free for students. I was able to work with the very enthusiastic team to provide information and guidance to students on how to prepare for BMAT. Raj is an enthusiastic supporter of widening participation and has impressed me with his commitment to supporting students and engaging a wide range of medical education stakeholders in the excellent work that the Becoming A Doctor team do to help students explore a career in medicine and healthcare.
Dr Harrison, Senior Digital Learning Manager, Cambridge Assessment (2018).
Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, a department of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge Assessment is a not-for-profit organisation.
Some testimonials from delegates and exhibitors who attended our National Conference and Exhibition:
“Very impressed, we will be back!”
Professor, Cardiff Medical School
“Everything I attended was brilliantly executed and well planned”
“Very useful event that has given me a lot of information I couldn’t have found otherwise”
“Spectacular! Keep it up”
“A great opportunity to meet people who also want to study medicine/are studying medicine and talking to admission tutors”
“It was helpful in terms of motivation and gets you in the spirit of becoming a doctor”
“Huge thanks to the organisers for bringing together all the support an aspiring medical student needs”
Student and Parent testimonials
“I really enjoyed the classes which gave a greater insight into the interview process. It was good interacting with other prospective medical applicants and it was helpful gaining information from medics that have already been through the process.”
Year 13 Student, Altrincham Grammar School for Boys (2016)
“Very informative and well structured” “Very helpful” “Speaker was very nice and approachable”
Year 12 Students, Manchester High School For Girls (2017)
“Just wanted to say what I think you guys are doing is great!”
Intercalating 5th Year Medical Student, University of Lancaster (2017)
I liked the informal nature of the session and the fact that I was able to say specifically what I wanted to cover for our students – this gave us lots of scope to tailor the session to our small group of students. The fact that it was a small group, also meant that students could relax and begin to voice their ideas, concerns, confusion ,which were addressed during the session.
I’m conscious that I put you on the spot on a couple of occasions – apologies for this – but thank you for handling this well. The mini discussion around ‘reflection was really useful’, I felt, and added credibility to the messages I have been giving to students for much of this term – and also given me some ideas to think about for using in the future.
I think it was really useful to go through some of the UKCAT questions (for me too – realising how difficult they were) and very insightful to go through the questions and answers together to get a better understanding of how differently we all felt, techniques to approach the tests and strategies to use.
Careers Advisor, Salford City College (2017)
Raj provided an excellent session for the students, focusing largely on the BMAT as requested by me (Head of Sixth Form), but also alluding to other areas: UKCAT, preparing an application, thinking more widely about the role of a doctor (or dentist).
He posed questions for them to consider in the essay part of the BMAT and allowed the students to discuss the questions amongst themselves and then feed back to the whole group. This gave them confidence to explore the difficult ethical and sometimes even political questions that medics have to face every day.
Raj provided excellent materials and gave great tips such as upcoming events and ways to ensure your profile is strong on the application.
Raj had a really positive and warms manner, and because he is relatively young and still a student himself, his words were more authentic and meaningful than someone who is not actually in the profession and very close to the subject matter.
