Matt

I consistently ranked top of the year throughout my Medicine MBBS (Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry) and my BSc in Biomedical Science, winning me 10 prizes related to academic performance, including highest FPAS ranking.

There is more to medicine than academic performance, and throughout university I prided myself in studying in such a way that unlocked more time – this is what I want to teach my students.

My mission:
My mission is to teach you the skills to help you study smarter not harder, so you can unlock the academic performance you want, whilst simultaneously unlocking more time to invest in yourself. How you use that time is up to you. For me, I invested my free time in research (20 papers throughout medical school), leadership positions (where I founded and scaled a national social enterprise for aspiring orthopaedic surgeons - BOMSA) and started a medical education start-up (ARCTERA), all of which you can read more on below. Importantly, I did this whilst making the memories of university life that will stay with me forever - maintaining healthy social relations, getting plenty of sleep and resisting burnout.

Whether you’re wanting more help to score in higher deciles, or wanting mentorship on upping your CV whilst maintain high academic performance, then I have you covered.

My backstory:
I didn't go to private school. I was the first in my family to get into university and I didn't even get into medical school on the first time. I actually missed out on my entrance exams by a single mark in my A levels when I applied straight from school. My passion to pursue medicine despite the setbacks is what made me dig deep into finding the way that I could perform with academic excellence, but with enough time to build my CV. These skills stayed with me when I went on to study medical school as a graduate and has substantially changed my life.

Why academic performance matters:
Academic performance is becoming a larger factor for deciding where in the country we end up practicing as a doctor. The SJT is essentially a random number generator - scoring well academically is that all important buffer to increase your chances of practicing where you want.

My prizes:
1. Frederick Treves Prize (2020) – First place for MBBS medicine
2. Kumar and Clark Prize (2020) – Best overall student based on FPAS ranking
3. QMULs principal prize (2020) – Outstanding academic achievement
4. Jackson Burrow and Moreton prize in orthopaedics (2019) – winner of annual orthopaedics prize examination
5. The Knott prize (2018) - Top of the year medicine MBBS
6. The Sir Andrew Clark and Duckworth Nelson Prize (2018) - Top of the year medicine MBBS
7. The Jefferson and Herbert Patterson Prize (2017) - Top of the year medicine MBBS
8. Royal Society of Biology top student award (2016) - Top of the year biomedical sciences Bsc Year 3
9. Alywin Chadwick prize (2015) - Top of the year biomedical sciences BSc Year 2
10. Normal Richards memorial prize (2014) - Top of the year biomedical sciences BSc Year 1

Tutoring Experience

Teaching experience:
I have had a passion for helping others excel since my first year as an undergraduate where I volunteered as a peer assisted learning leader, running weekly face-to-face revision sessions for a group of 30 students on the biomedical science course.
At medical school, I founded a teaching society to support graduate-entry students with the content-heavy first year – the society has helped support all graduate entry medics on scale for the past 5 years and is still going strong.
As a doctor I regularly engage medical students whenever I see them on the wards and help out with preparing for upcoming exams.

Entrepreneurship:
Being passionate about medical education on scale, I became one of three founding members of ARCTERA – a medical education startup that uses virtual reality and immersive technologies to teach clinical decision-making to doctors and students. Unfortunatley, an unnecessary number of patients die each year due to poor clinical decision-making and the aim of this simulation company is to use sound pedagogical principles to allow our current and future doctors to pracitise thinking and acting like a clinican as if they would in real life.

Research:
Throughout my time at university I wrote 20 research papers. Most of which have already been published in reputable journals, including the Lancet Rheumatology and The Journal of Paediatric Orthopaedics. Removed

Leadership:
I founded and scaled The British Orthopaedic Medical Students Association (BOMSA), a social enterprise for aspiring orthopaedic surgeons. This national endeavour has over 60+ committee members across >95% of all medical schools in the United Kingdom and is fully affiliated by the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) and the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association (BOTA). With a focus on enhancing medical students’ exposure to orthopaedic surgery, the society also nurtures the personal and professional development of our committee members across the country.

Tutoring Approach

All medical students demonstrate an ability to get into university through hard work and stellar academic performance. But why is there such a disparity in academic performance once we get in to medical school? My experience tells me its predominately in the study habits.

Studying (exposing your brain to content) is not the same as learning (encoding your brain with content)

Medicine is unique compared to the vast majority of other degrees in that medical students are constantly hit with new content and examinations. It is simply not possible to be comfortable with all content, or retain all the facts you come by. We're traditionally taught WHAT to study at university, but the secret sauce to stress-free academic performance is HOW to study.

How do you efficiently find, capture and cover content? Chances are you can better leverage time and technology to better prepare yourself for exams. This is what I want to teach you. The word ‘efficiently’ is key here – imagine if you could cut the time you spend revising in half and perform better; how much more time would that give you to invest in the other areas of your life that matter?

I aim to help my students unlock academic potential in three ways:

1. To teach you essential study habits to help you find, capture and cover content more efficiently so you can retain more information for longer.

2. Tailor sessions to academic material that you want more help with

3. Advice on investing your new found time in research, society work, entrepreneurial endeavours and/or other CV building opportunities alongside university.

Students will also be provided with a toolkit of resources that helped me to consistently rank first place throughout medical school.

I know how difficult it can be to balance your time/social life around lectures and placements. I'm all for working smarter not harder so I am only offering teaching sessions over Zoom (or equivalent) so that you don't have to waste precious time or money on commuting.

If you’d like a free 15 minute introductory chat to explore how I can help you, get in touch.