ON the first Wednesday of August every year, it’s “changeover day” for doctors across the country. It’s when newly qualified medical graduates take up their first hospital shifts as junior doctors.

I remember that time so well. The range of emotions I felt on that day still causes me to have goosebumps. It was a dream to become a doctor, and there I was finally ready to take care of my patients.

This week, 14 years ago, I entered Stobhill Hospital feeling proud but also very nervous and scared. My mum was so embarrassing as she actually drove to the hospital and sat in the cafe so she could see me being a doctor!

Every year, the first Wednesday of August makes me reminisce, not just about that time, but all the time before that day that led me to fulfilling the dream to study medicine.

Whilst I’ve nothing against those who come from privilege, life wasn’t easy for my sister and I growing up. I had no connections and went to a state school where the average academic performance was deemed to be low. I also wasn’t very gifted in terms of being “naturally clever”! I was awful at science and preferred the more creative subjects. In fact, I failed all my standard grade prelims. They are now named National 5’s but back then fourth year exams were called standard grades and I got the lowest grades in all seven subjects! Quite an achievement in itself!

Glasgow Times: I took my first steps in medicine in Stobhill Hospital 14 years ago I took my first steps in medicine in Stobhill Hospital 14 years ago

That year, my mum who had lost all faith in me ever becoming an academic, threatened to send me to India. She felt I was going off the rails and sending me to my grandparents would sort me out. You can imagine how much this freaked me out. I pleaded for her to give me a second chance at turning it around. My teachers had little faith in me too.

Over those next five months I studied like I’d never studied before. Up early and to bed late, I put my heart and soul into proving to everyone I could do it. I got seven 1’s (As).

The following year, I sat my highers. Again in my prelims I had B’s and C’s, not enough to get me into medicine but thankfully I managed to pull these up to A’s to meet the admission criteria.

The hard work, the pressure, the sheer determination and stress it took, only I know. When the postman was delivering the results, I opened that envelope with my mums heart beating in my ear and my own heart somewhere in my mouth. The relief, the joy, the tears and the hope for a future different to the one I grew up in, still feels like the biggest accomplishment of my life.

So this week when the results came out and I learnt and read countless stories of young students who unfairly lost out on the grades they deserved, made worse by the fact that many of them attended schools who historically didn’t perform well, made my blood boil. Many stories of budding doctors left disappointed through no fault of their own just didn’t seem fair.

If we had been in a pandemic back when I was at secondary school, my dreams would’ve been shattered or at least delayed. I would’ve not had the opportunity to prove myself. During moderation, based on the historic performance of my school, I would’ve been downgraded. Even if I’d wanted to have a chance, as a young student, I would’ve felt that the system screwed me over instead of investing in me.

There are outstanding pupils in every year in every school. Everyone needs to be given the same treatment yet, those from deprived areas are treated differently and negatively time and time again and it properly breaks my heart. I’m so pleased the pupils are speaking up and I really hope a deeper review takes place during the appeals process.