AMSEP UK 01/2016: A Trip to London

London is a city rich in culture and is filled with interesting museums and theatre venues. 12 medical students from Singapore embarked on an exciting exchange to London on the AMSEP program in January. The week in UK was well packed with visits to prestigious medical colleges such as King's College, Imperial College and University College London and numerous museum visits. We gained new insights and made new friends from UK and Singapore. It was also a good chance for students from NUS and NTU, who will be future colleagues, to mingle together and learn from one another.

It was our pleasure to sit in lectures at the different medical colleges and experience the life of a medical student studying in UK. As we interacted with the UK students, we learnt more about UK's national healthcare system and different teaching methods of the various colleges. For instance, the research scene in UK is extensive and the research culture is promoted early in medical school.

A memorable first time experience for most of us would be the dissection at King's College. Professor Hunter from King's College gladly taught us a simple technique and gave us the chance to perform dissections on a cadaver. As Singapore is facing a shortage of cadaveric donors, medical students rely on prosected or plastinated specimens to learn anatomy. I am sure that the dissection at King's College was an eye-opening experience for most of us.

Visiting museums in London is a must-have in the itinerary for tourists visiting UK. Away from the hustle and bustle, one of the many museums we visited was Victoria and Albert museum. It showcased countless paintings, sculptures and jewellery, just to name a few. An interesting exhibition which caught our eyes while we were there was "Shoes: Pleasure and Pain" featuring over 200 pairs of shoes around the world. It was definitely an afternoon well spent, appreciating the unique artworks.

Victoria and Albert Museum

There is so much to see in every museum we visited and more to be discovered in London, especially its rich culture and history.

We are grateful to the UK students who hosted us for the week. Amid their busy schedules, they put in great efforts to bring us around London. Special thanks to Boon and Adrian from King's College who planned and made arrangements for our accommodation, transport, meals, lectures, anatomy class and sight-seeing. We truly enjoyed our trip to London and we look forward to hosting our UK friends when they come to Singapore in August!

Judith Goh
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Class of 2019

AMSEP UK 23-30/01/2016

The exchange to London was really a great eye-opener and one-of-a-kind experience for the twelve of us that embarked on this trip. Before we start reminiscing over the wonderful days, we would like to first thank Boon and Adrian from King’s College for being the main organizers and even skipping school to accompany us for the entire exchange! 

Day 1 : As we arrived in Heathrow Airport, we were instantly received by the students from London. It started out to be a little awkward (as all first greetings are) fortunately the conversations slowly became comfortable as we got to know each other further.

After placing our luggage down at YHA King’s Cross, we headed straight to Camden Market. We were greeted by more students from King’s and Imperial and boy, the warm atmosphere did make the cold slightly bearable! 

Day 2 : As our alarms rang, poor jetlagged us struggled to wake up in order to watch the changing of guards in time. Fortunately, our efforts didn’t go to waste  

The changing of guards at the Buckingham Palace was really a marvelous experience! The entire ceremony was beyond grand as we stood in awe when the horses approached us.

The rest of the day went along as we visited famous tourist attractions such as The National Gallery, Big Ben and London Eye

Last but not least, we ended the day with London’s must-eat Burger and Lobster.  

Day 3 : Today is University of London day! We started our day visiting the different faculties of UCL. After the short introduction to UCL, we sat in for their lectures and realised that “ wow, students here actually attend lectures” (shame on us hahha)!  

As some of us took notes/fell asleep/played games, we realized that UCL adopts quite a similar lecture style as us. The lecture on “Hydrophilic Hormones and Enzyme Cascade” gave us a refresher course (for M2s) and taught us new things (for M1s).

Day 4 : Time for Imperial College! As we visited the different colleges, we couldn’t help but to compare their architecture. In summary, ICL has a more modernized composition and quieter atmosphere compared to UCL. We sat in for lectures on gonads and once again had the same feelings as those in UCL. On the other hand, our students from NTU had a totally different experience. They were excited, restless and simply eager! The reason behind this was because the lecturer they had always viewed in front of their computer was finally right in front of their eyes!

Day 5: We first started the day by having an extremely heavy breakfast at “Duck and Waffles”. We then toured the Tower Bridge and even took a short visit up to understand more about its mechanisms and history.

The second half of the day was spent at King’s College. The highlight of the entire exchange was indisputably the dissection hall. Professor Hunter was kind enough to provide us with the experience of dissection as he sympathetized with us the scarcity of cadavers in singapore and also emphasized the importance of dissection in learning anatomy. We were taught the basics of blunt dissection and after, were given the freedom to do whatever we wanted. Once again, thank you Professor Hunter for this precious opportunity!

Day 6 : Oxford day trip! We took a short break from London city life by escaping to Oxford. Somehow, all of us seemed to have friends studying there (why are singaporeans so smart) as one by one we broke off from the team to find our friends before regrouping at night. Boy, isn’t Oxford just beautiful? 

Day 7 : Farewell, nooooo! In the morning, we sat in for lectures in King’s College and to our surprise, unlike the other two colleges, attendance was subpar (so YLL isn’t that bad afterall). However, the “Visual Processing” lecture was extremely interesting as it wasn’t something we had learnt beforehand.  

Before we know it, the night came and it was time for our farewell. The friendships and memories that we created together will perpetually be in our hearts! Thank you AMSA UK for hosting us and giving us this memorable experience! Till we meet again in Singapore! We love you!!!!