A question that i get asked all the time is did i actually enjoy studying biological science and the honest truth is hi guys and welcome back to my channel my name is helena and today's video is going to be different as you probably all know that i study medicine however this video is going to be all about my .
Biomedical science journey and the reason why i'm doing this video is a lot of people just ask what was my journey to biomedical science i thought this would be a great video to film when you're here welcome and if you're one of my old subscribers hey so yeah so just relax and chill and i will go straight into the video so i'm .
Going to skip so i did my a levels went to sixth form for two years and then went to study biomedical science and if you watch my journey to medicine video so i actually wanted to study medicine so biomicrosoft was kind of like my i would say my backup plan at the time .
So i studied biomedical science at oxford brookes university hey this disney one went to the university and i studied biomedical science and it was a three-year course so i didn't do a placement year so it was a three-year course .
That was 2014 just thinking about that that's actually a long time ago now like six seven years then i'm old anyway so yeah i started in 2014 and graduated in 2017. i might put a picture of my graduation maybe like here for you guys to see i'm gonna go through how the .
Course was like so first year of biomedical science was pretty okay for me i actually enjoyed it so throughout my biomedical science course i did several different modules range from molecular biology biochemistry hematology immunology psychopathology pharmacology and then .
During my third year i had a project which is my dissertation and i have a story time for that but you know what we'll do another video on that maybe i'll do another video after this about my whole dissertation story but anyway so it was a three-year degree and at .
The university you have the option of taking a placement lead or they call it a sandwich year so this will be a four-year degree in total and during the placement year you get to actually work within a laboratory setting and most people use that chance to do their portfolio which you need as a biophysical scientist .
But one thing i really wanted to talk about is studying the biomedical science degree there's accredited if i'm honest with you i knew about the course very vaguely i didn't really know about it in depth and i felt like this video will be useful especially if you are looking at studying biomedical science in the .
Future so what i mean by accredited courses is there's several different courses in the uk which are accredited by the institute of biomedical science and the reason why i'm telling you guys this information or whoever this video might be useful for is i found .
Out the first lecture i think the first intro lecture that my degree was accredited so they're like congratulations you know for getting to university accredited university by the institute of biomedical science and i'm just like what i was lost i was like okay i had no clue because no one really told .
Me about it and maybe i could have done my in-depth research but i remember at the time when i was trying to research and watch videos on youtube i couldn't find many videos that's actually explained to me what that meant so i knew afterwards so luckily i actually had a degree that was .
Accredited really and let me explain what it means so the institute of biomedical science have several universities which are classified as an accredited degree so not all biomedical science degree are accredited having an accredited degree is very useful if you want to pursue a career along the biomedical science .
Route so if you want to become a biomedical scientist you want to end up working in the lab this is very useful for you as it will help you in terms of the process for your portfolio and lead you to the path towards being a biomedical scientist just for touching as well so the institute of biomedical science is basically a professional body .
For biomedical scientists yeah and they hate cpc it covers more than just biomedical science it's actually required for about 15 other yeah 15 other like courses in the united kingdom in the uk and the whole point of this hcpc is to ensure that .
People are competent enough to work with patients to work with people and they've got enough training and qualification in order to do this in the public so yeah so you find out that hcpc is required in nursing midwifery like other courses as well it's not just biomedical science i thought i'd just clarify .
What they are just in case you were confused about what the two are so institute of biological science is a professional um body for biomedical scientists and the hcpc is a qualification the certificate you're required to be competent to work as a biomedical scientist yeah so the .
Institute of biological science have a pdf file or document online where they actually explain what it means so i feel like it's all about doing your own research to find out exactly what type of course you want to go for however if your course is not accredited it doesn't mean you can't become a biomedical scientist it just means that .
There's more steps required before you get to that stage where you can actually apply for your portfolio or complete your portfolio etc etc also i'm going to put some screenshots here from the institute for science all about you know the degrees is accredited and .
Also their statement about what it means to have an accredited degree and also what you have to do if your course is not accredited however you still want to go you know along the route of becoming a biological scientist or i can actually read some of it now i'm going to put it on the screen i'm going to read it out so this is a statement from the .
Institute of biomedical science and over here it says it says the following undergrad program or accredited by the institute of biomedical science for individuals who wish to qualify in biological science they also meet the academic requirement for registration as a biomedical .
Scientist with the health and care professions council so the hcpc so this is very important so the accredited degree will help you in terms of meeting requirements to become environmental scientists so some programs have integrated clinical training whereby graduates are eligible for the award of a certificate of .
Competence on completion of their degree and can apply to the hcpc for admittance onto the registration other biomedical science degree are to be used in conjunction with laboratory training during the degree or post graduation completion of the institute's certificate of competent registration portfolio .
All applicants seeking a route to hcpc registration who hold a non-accredited science degree will be required to have their degree assessed by the institute it may be necessary for individuals to undertake additional learning to acquire the requisite level of knowledge the exact requirement would depend on the content .
Of the applicant's honors degree it's basically explained about what you have to do if it's not accredited and if it's accredited so i hope this be like very useful for everyone and also i will link it in the description box below so check that out as well a question i get asked all the time is did i actually enjoy studying biomedical science and the .
Honest truth is at first because i know i wanted to do medicine i was kind of like i still had medicine at the back of my head but after doing the three years i actually enjoyed the degree however i can't lie the degree at some point i was over it overall i did enjoy a degree it did .
Drive me nuts sometimes it did drive me crazy at some point and the way the course is set up is it's a lot of lectures so i was in uni pretty much every day so monday to friday and we had a lot of coursework and the courseworks are very time consuming so .
It involves a lot of lectures a lot of essay writing and for my new person we had a lot like presentation tutorials seminars and there was points where i had a lot of essays and exams like all clashing together but you start to get used to the pattern but .
It is a lot of work yeah that's very important really and for my project i said i also lost my dissertation i said i was going to do a story time and let's just say okay i'll just give you guys a hint so .
My dissertation was it was really nice i loved what i did so i was looking at african sleeping sickness i was looking at a parasite called tripanistoma briside i might have just butchered the name but i put the name of the parasite here so that was my research it was very .
Interesting i loved it and it wasn't even my first choice but i ended up really liking him and ended up getting the first classes on my dissertation but there's a story that i need to tell you guys but it wasn't easy because i went through a lot but .
After this video i'm going to film the story time after that but yeah so overall i enjoyed the biomedical science degree however i still wanted to do medicine regardless so i went on to working after my biomedical science degree and i was working within a lab so it was a histology lab .
However i was in the process of thinking about doing my portfolio and applying to medicine but then i ended up getting to medicine so i didn't do my portfolio anymore but just to let people know a lot of people do their portfolio at a different time so i have some friends that took a year out .
From their biomedical science degree so they did the placement year and they completed part or completely majority of their portfolio during that time so that means they'll go back so they take their placement year in second year so you do your first second year placement year then you go and do your third year then .
Graduate and for them it was easier in terms of getting a job because they could start off applying for a band five biological science role because they've already completed the necessary certificate qualifications they've completed their portfolio they've got the hcpc etc etc .
Another group of friends they've done their three-year degree in biological science graduated and they just get a job within the laboratory setting so there's a role known as an mla so medical laboratory assistant i think as well you can be associate practitioner in a laboratory setting result is a band .
For job so lna can range from bank to bank three and then associate practitioner is pretty much a bad phone job and then being a biological scientist is band five and onwards my friends they've done the option of studying biomedical science and doing their portfolio whilst .
Working in a laboratory job and then once they finish their portfolio and got their hcpc registration then they can actually apply for bank five job to become a biomedical scientist so that's my bio medical science journey it wasn't anything glamorous but i just thought i'd share information about being accredited .
And making sure you pick your university wisely especially if you want to go down the route to be a biomedical scientist this might matter to you however if you're already in the course that's not accredited it's actually not a big deal there's still a way .
Towards completing your portfolio and it's just knowing the right information and knowing what to do really and i feel like when i first started university i just didn't know this information and to be fair all it takes is research or someone actually informing you about information so that's why i .
Did this video i don't think i really touched on the assessment so for the assessment we had a mixture of coursework and exams and we had tutorials lab sessions seminars presentations posters to do we had so many assessments that we had to do and i think that was .
Useful because i think some of them kind of prepared me for medicine a little bit and yeah i do feel like the thing about biomedical science and medicine like the two things i've noticed so far is in biomedical science i had to do a lot of .
I had to do things in a lot of details which is so different to medicine although medicine is still detailed amount of work but the amount of research i'd have to go in a certain topic in biological science it's quite different from medicine and i think a lot of people have said the same thing as well like for example .
In my exams i was expected so for example if you want to get like the top top grades in some exams i was expected to reference a paper that i've read that's related to an answer so imagine the amount of reading you have to do to be able to have a paper .
Like a research paper to be able to reference in exam it was so crazy but yeah so overall that was my biomedical science journey it wasn't anything outrageous but i thought i'll put it out there especially because i'm not seeing any videos in regards to maybe .
Biomedical science journey or more specifically about oxford brookes university so i thought this video might be useful for anyone who's looking to apply there even people who might want to do medicine and kind of like you know apprehensive if what they should do what .
They should not do in terms of like because i get questions where people ask me should i you know apply to medicine should i apply to biomedical science then medicine often go through the graduate entry route it's a very tough one to answer because things change a lot and .
Requirement changes there's a lot of things changes really i feel like just try and wake up your options at the time i didn't really think about different options so i kind of just thought like oh i want to go to university i didn't really consider a gap here and thinking about .
Maybe i could have considered a gap here i kind of just thought i'd go straight into biomedical science and then just apply for medicine afterwards and sometimes it's not as simple as it sounds but it's possible that makes sense so i just feel like just weigh up your .
Options and see which one makes sense and yeah and then go for it and also as well i always use in my like biomedical science related video that biomedical science is not the only course you can study if you want to do medicine for example you know weigh up .
Your options there's like so many different courses out there that you can apply and still study medicine in the future so just do your research and make sure it's a course you like because biomedical science is an interesting degree you learn a lot about diseases diagnosis .
Treatments and basically all the laboratory parts and the great thing about biomedical science is how broad it is and there's a lot of things under biomedical science like i mentioned like hematology immunology pharmacology microbiology .
Cancer there's so many different things so pathology and you find yourself that when you study other courses in an overlap like you study these topics and other science related courses too and it's very good in terms of learning about the diagnostic process because .
Part of even medicine involves a lot about you know diagnosis treatment prognosis and all of that and in the course you learn a lot about it so yeah um i think that's the end of my video really thank you guys for watching .
Don't forget to like share comment and subscribe i hope this video was useful i really hope it was and if you do have more questions or if you feel like i've not covered a certain area please leave a comment down below or you can also email me so i'll put my email and also my instagram where you can contact me in the description box .
And on the screen hello live underscore yeah and yeah so i'll see you guys in my next video take care stay safe stay beautiful and also happy new year because obviously this is a new year and i hope this year will be a great one fingers crossed i'll see you guys in my .
Next video bye guys you