From hero to zero: questioning our appliance of science

Fresh start:I turned 17 this week, but apparently I'm a zero. That's what one hospital consultant said when I told her I was in first year of the six-year medical degree course. We are known as "the zeros" or sometimes "the nothings". Stuck in a year of revising Leaving Cert science subjects all over again, we are of no use to anyone, writes Miroslawa Gorecka

But that doesn't stop them from unleashing us on the hospitals. Although we know nothing about medicine, illness or treatment, we are sent to the hospital every week to take pulse readings and to ask patients about their symptoms.

After we have done all these doctorly jobs, the patients, understandably, look to us for some feedback. Of course we have nothing to say. So far, every patient I have dealt with has lived up to the name. I'm waiting for the day that someone loses their temper when they learn that they've just revealed their most personal medical details to a 17-year-old zero.

As if being called a zero weren't humiliating enough, we now have to sit on the floors of the corridors for our lectures.

Too many students want to do medicine, it seems. Not that they're all going to make great doctors or anything. I've met quite a few students with a real passion for medicine, but many more who have just taken the course because they got the points.

Think about it. The reason we have to do a preparatory year of Leaving Certificate science is because many of these students did not take biology for the Leaving. What kind of aspiring doctor doesn't take biology for the Leaving? When I think of all the students I knew in school who would have given their right arm to study medicine but didn't get the points, it makes me wonder.

It's strange the way science is taught in this country. It's like they start in the middle instead of the beginning.

In Poland, you start learning biology in primary school, beginning with the basics and working your way from there.

In Ireland they drop you in the middle of the subject in secondary school and you have to try to figure out where you are from there. No wonder so few people want to study it. No wonder either that students who claim to want to be doctors have to be taught science all over again when they start college. I just wish I didn't have to do it too.

Still, I'm feeling more positive about college life than I was the last time I wrote. I'm a little less reclusive than I was at the start. I've been out clubbing and drinking in the bars of Galway with my new Irish friends and they really know how to enjoy themselves.

It's strange, in the past whenever I've been in a competitive environment with high achievers they tend not to drink or go wild. These people love to drink. I did enjoy my night in the GPO, but at midnight I slipped away like Cinderella, happy to go back to the quiet and safety of my little bedsit.

Academic life is exasperating at times. Apparently science people and medical people don't communicate. This can leave the students in a spot. When the science crowd schedule lab work at the same time that the medical lecturers want to lecture, apparently it's our problem. Hmmm. I suppose this all falls into the area of "people skills".

Some of the staff are really lovely though. Just the other day one senior academic took time out of the lecture to invite us to talk to her if we have any problems with alcohol, family or other personal issues. She even mentioned single parenthood.

I couldn't believe it! In Poland they wouldn't invite you to talk about that - they'd just kick you out.

I expected to study hard this year, but because I am in this purgatory of preparation for medicine I'm actually quite unoccupied. I'd better not drift into bad habits, spending my nights lying my way into Galway bars with fake ID and falling out of clubs at two in the morning, too drunk to find my way home.

I can't see it happening - I have too many responsibilities already. I have to pay for my own little bedsit, I need my independence. I studied hard to get medicine and I'm not going to waste this chance. If first year is a bit of a bore, then so be it.

I worked day and night during the Leaving Cert and left myself little time for friendships, hobbies or anything else. Perhaps being a zero and doing nothing might add up to something good.