Hello everyone! My name is Shreeja Tripathi, Vice President of the recently formed Virtual Medical Society. I am an aspiring Medic with an interest in specialising in the neurology field of Medicine. 

So, you may be wondering why I chose Medicine? My interest in Medicine dates to the time when I was only five years old and I would pretend to be the Doctor of my stuffed toys. This  passion further grew up during my school days, as I wanted to explore the human body, which is an enclosure of complex machines, working cohesively for the proper functioning of our body.  The continuous advancement in medical technology, to keep pace with growing diversity of diseases and complexity of its remedial measures, has always proved Medicine as a challenging career. I recognize that in this highly competitive world, pursuing a career in Medicine is rather complex and highly demanding, but I love challenges and can prove myself worthy of this profession.  

My journey with Medic Mentors has been very exciting and special so far… At the start of my senior year at school, I commenced my Medic Mentor Gold award and currently involved in various leadership, team working, volunteering and wider reading activities. I took the first step towards my dream of pursuing a career in Medicine by visiting the National Healthcare Weekend, which was a valuable experience as well as very informative. Further, to quench my everlasting thirst of benevolence and compassion towards essential care workers, I signed up recently to become a student volunteer campaigner for the Medic Mentor COVID-19 mission, in partnership with the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund. The mission of this campaign is to fundraise and support struggling doctors during the pandemic. We found ourselves living in quite turbulent times – with schools, offices shut as well as strict social distancing rules enforced. I decided to do something for our NHS staff – the very staff that genuinely save lives! The journey of fundraising during the pandemic was a dream-like moment in my life. I created a video outlining our COVID-19 vision which was posted on various social media platforms and was a huge success on the Medic Mentors YouTube channel, grabbing the attention of a wide range of audience. I know that I did something valuable for society during this pandemic and realized how important teamwork and organizational skills are for achieving success. 

To create a sense of positive atmosphere during these unprecedented times, I even mooted the noble idea of forming the Medic Mentor Orchestra, utilising my prior experiences of participation in the National Youth Orchestra as a drummer. The Medic Mentor Volunteers Orchestra, directed by myself, played ‘Ode to Joy’ to represent how the hard work of the NHS frontline workers would eventually help represent the conquest of humanity over the depression caused by the Coronavirus!

 

Two years ago, I founded and started a project called “InspireSTEM” in a desperate attempt to get more girls into the boundless field of STEM and try to cover up the gender gap in this field. For this project, I was chosen as one of Scotland’s 100 Disruptors and won a grant for my vision that would ultimately change the face of Scotland. Since the last two years, I have been busy setting up my project and establishing it within my community. I am currently writing an article for the upcoming Medic Mentor magazine on this. During my relaxing time, I enjoy listening to music and reading books. I have regularly participated in sports namely, swimming and ice-skating, thus demonstrating good teamwork and coordination. 

As the Vice President of the Virtual Medical Society (VMS), I hope to transfer my leadership skills and achieve the main objectives of the VMS which is to help as many students throughout their application journeys, provide them with networking opportunities and work together to give back something to society. 

I would love to hear from you and get your feedback. So, please feel free to get in touch with me directly through the VMS WhatsApp channel or comment on my blog. 

Finally, remember the ‘golden rule’ to success – Dream big and success will follow. We can triumph together.

If you have a questions for Shreeja, please post it in the comments below and she will reply.

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