It’s nearly been two weeks since I officially traded my dusky black Cambridge college gown for the shiny, new white coat of the London hospitals.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, really.

My undergraduate gown is still with me, and I didn’t get any white coat (in fact, British doctors have long discarded the white coat tradition).

I’ve now started my clinical course at Barts and The London Medical School, and although I’ve finished three years in Cambridge, I’m technically a 3rd year at Barts, since the Cambridge Part II year doesn’t count towards my medical degree proper. Things have been going *relatively* smoothly since I shifted into the student halls on September 3rd.

The area which I’m living in, Barbican, is a picture of geniality of its Victorian past, most notably that of the West Smithfield meat market, coupled with visible signs of modernism, as exemplified by the giant gray behemoth that is the Barbican Centre. Not too far from my hall is St Bartholomew’s Hospital (affectionately known as St Barts), which dates back to 1123 – making it supposedly the oldest hospital in existence in England. This is one of the two major teaching hospitals that make up Barts & The London Medical School, the other one being The Royal London Hopsital (most of the time, simply referred to as The London) in Whitechapel. Whitechapel is, for the want of a better word, referred to as the ‘culturally-vibrant’ heart of East London - quite simply, an euphimism to describe the plethora of (mostly) South Asian community that populate that quarter of the city. Not surprisingly, we get a good mix of patients.

David stays opposite my room. Both our neighbours are ex-Oxonians. And our neighbour’s neighbours were from St Andrew’s. Interestingly enough, there’s also another ex-Cantabridgian living along our corridor who shares the same first name as David. (and oddly enough, we seem not to have a problem with differentiating the both of them). Call it a coincident if you want to, but I strongly suspect that this is a ploy by the higher-ups to lump all the direct clinical entry students (or ‘transfer students’, as they call us) in the same place. Possibly to avoid us integrating with the other Barts students? My suspicions were further confirmed when I found out that ALL the transfer students who had applied for student accomodation were indeed placed in the SAME student hall.

Academic-wise (you saw that coming didn’t you?), it’s a steep learning curve. That’s as much as I can say at this juncture, since it’s too early to judge.