Everyone you’ll meet in a Medicine lecture

Everyone knows the Medics live in that big red castle-like thing on the other side of the road from the rest of the uni, but who can actually be found within the walls of LT1?

The grads

Grads seem to ooze confidence. They’re older than you, they’re smarter than you, and they’re just generally a bit better than you. They’re also smug because they’ll finish their degree in five years rather than six. Despite having already covered the majority of the course material in years one and two, they still diligently turn up to every single lecture and sit together in their little reserved space in the lecture theatre where they probably discuss things like wine and the application of quantum field theory to renal physiology. To be fair, sometimes they can look a little too relaxed, but that’s usually when one of the PhD-holders has written the thesis that the lecturer’s citing.

People writing unnecessarily detailed lecture notes

Okay mate

You’re 10 minutes into a vague waffle-fest of a Sociology lecture which you were reluctantly persuaded to turn up to, and so far your notes consist of 12 words, seven of which are the title. You’ve gleaned something about the rich generally having better standards of health than the poor, and that society doesn’t really like fat people.

Your eyes wander around the audience and finally open to a relatively normal degree as they settle on someone nearer the front and you try to take in the immeasurable speed at which the lines of text are appearing on their laptop screen. There is a thin plume of smoke rising from the keyboard as their hands relentlessly tap away in a ferocious blur. Their 20 coloured highlighters have been put to good use all over the open copy of Contemporary Theorists for Medical Sociology (from just £22.71 on Amazon) sitting to their left. You feel a twinge of guilt but you ignore it. They’re just overly keen. Right? Haha. Ha.

People about to leave for a RUMS game

He’s perched tentatively on the end of the row near the back with his massive holdall quite deliberately placed on his desk as if to say “I play rugby”. The lecture’s nearly over, the minutes slowly ticking by towards one o’clock. His gaze anxiously flits between his watch and the lecturer, beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead, as he edges a little closer towards the aisle.

You can almost feel the testosterone surging through his veins as he grits his teeth in an effort to stop himself ripping his seat off its hinges and chucking it across the room. Click. Conclusion slide. He checks his watch one final time, springs up, darts towards the exit and breaks the land speed record. A door slams emphatically behind him.

 Sleepy people

Wasn’t even staged

Having 9ams for the past four days has taken its toll, but they know this lecture is particularly important, and they’re motivated. Morning arrives. Three snooze buttons, a brief period of staring emptily at the ceiling wondering if it’s all worth it, and a Herculean effort to drag themselves from underneath the covers later, and they’ve managed to get up.

With a GCS score of about 11, they’ve stumbled into and out of the shower, got dressed to a socially acceptable standard, eaten a piece of toast in two bites and emerged, blinking, into the cold and grey London air. After a heroic journey, they’ve successfully traversed Euston Road without being decimated by a taxi and have reached the sanctuary of LT1. Eyes eagerly fixed to the front, and feeling rather proud of themselves so far, they know they’re going to smash out these notes. Five minutes later they’re slumped over, asleep. It’s quite cute, but also a bit sad.

Gym lads

I wish there was more arm in this picture

It’s interesting how Medics probably have the least time available to dedicate to making massive fucking gains in the gym, yet there is a greater prevalence of massive fucking gains among medics than in any other degree programme. It’s hard to not feel slightly scared when the guy next to you gets through three meals and two protein shakes in the course of one lecture. Please don’t hurt me.

 People who just don’t know what’s going on

Sits next to you and talks to the person on the other side of them for the first half an hour until they realise they’re absolutely fucked because we’ve gone through 46 slides on cardiac excitation-contraction coupling and they haven’t taken in a single word.

“Sorry mate, what was the thing he just said about calcium or potassium or something?”

You mumble something unintelligible and wrong and point at your notes to make him go away.

“Ah right sick, cheers.”