Editorials
Editor A new academic year brings excitement in many different forms: new freshers, new friends, new experiences and, most importantly…a brand new RUMS Review with a whole new look! We are constantly evolving and updating to suit you, our readers. Whether you are students, staff or alumni, our aim is to satisfy your every RUMS need. However, to do that, we need to hear from you! Please get in touch with your feedback (positive and negative!) to help us create your UCLMS magazine.
online exclusive Feature considers internet addiction as we ask: An Opiate for the Masses of the 21st Century? Head to our website to read this fascinating piece! Elsewhere, our Research team will guide you through the ins and outs of cognitive behavioural therapy, whilst our Roundup uncovers the work going on behind the laboratory doors of UCL and its associated research centres. Discover more about the fascinating specialty of psychiatry in Careers, and find something for everyone as our one-off Tried and Tested section allows you to receive letters of advice from your future medical student selves.
In all this development, there are some things we couldn’t bear to part with so, in traditional style, Professor Gill kicks us off with her medical school update. Professor Gill’s wish to maintain communication with students and increase transparency between us and the medical school is abundant and we are, as always, so grateful for her contribution. A warm welcome goes to our new RUMS President, Ozzy Eboreime, along with his elected committee for 2017/18, as we get to know them in RUMS Reports, and – of course – we give you all the med school goss in our News section.
An enduring focus for RUMS Review is our desire to strengthen ties with a cohort we are all aiming to join: the RUMS alumni. This issue, we make that desire more tangible as we discover The Curious History of the Cruciform, which not only reveals some of our more famous past students, but also unearths some notable births and deaths occurring back in the functioning hospital days of this most intriguingly-shaped building. Our alumni links are further fortified in our Alumnus Interview with Professor Michael Farthing who, from his UCLMS graduation in 1972, has come full circle to rejoin us as an Honorary Professor. Also in this issue, Out of Hours gets to know Dr. Joanna Porter who, despite not being a UCLMS alumni, joined UCL for her PhD studies over 20 years ago and has never looked back since!
This issue, we delve into a topic which has, arguably, become one of the most prominent for medical students and professionals alike: mental health and wellbeing. Notorious for self-neglect, doctors and medical students have some of the worst statistics when it comes to their own mental wellbeing, particularly concerning the discussion of such a topic. We hope that, by exploring aspects of this area, we can encourage and promote good self-care to a cohort for whom it is most crucial in allowing them to subsequently care for others. As part of this issue’s exploration, RUMS Review chats to Instagram sensation Dr. Hazel Wallace, a.k.a. ‘The Food Medic’, who promotes nutrition and healthy living as a first line treatment and prevention for disease. Alongside this, our first
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To round us off, our Book Reviews outline the must-have reads for fourth year students and, very appropriately, we bring it back to you, the RUMS students, as we discover the weird and wonderful achievements of our beautifully diverse Sports & Societies (did someone say Fresher of the Year? I wonder where they are now…). Finally, we would like to wish this year’s freshers the best of luck for their first year as part of the RUMS family – you really are going to love it.