Alumni Story Keating

When Keating arrived in Cambridge for the Immerse Medicine programme in 2017, he was still weighing up whether a future in medicine was right for him. He’d come along with a friend, drawn in by the promise of practical sessions, interview preparation, and a chance to get a genuine feel for university life. What he found was the clearest picture yet of what studying medicine would actually involve.

At school, his experience of biology had been the usual mix of theory and plant science. At Immerse, the focus shifted immediately to human biology and the clinical world he’d only had glimpses of before. He still remembers the paramedic tutor who led the programme, showing the group how scientific knowledge connects with hands-on practical skills. That blend of bookwork, problem-solving, and physical technique turned out to be exactly what he’d hoped medicine would feel like. “It gave me my first proper taste of what studying medicine would be like,” he says. “I hadn’t realised how much practical skill goes into it.”

The mock interview was another early milestone. Even though the Cambridge-style science question he was given didn’t later match the format of his UCL or St George’s interviews, the real value was learning how to hold his nerve, think clearly, and communicate under pressure. He carried that confidence with him when he applied to study biomedical science at St George’s, and later when he made the decision to apply for graduate-entry medicine.

He’s now in his final year of medicine at University College London, and it’s communication, more than anything else, that has become central to his daily life. Presenting patients to senior doctors, speaking in front of consultants and peers, and sitting practical exams where actors and examiners watch every move have all become routine. He’s now trained in everything from motivational interviewing to breaking bad news, and he sees those skills as fundamental to the profession. “You’re constantly adapting,” he explains. “You have to be empathetic, confident, and able to pause or change direction in the moment. It’s public speaking, but in a medical setting.”

He’s leaning toward a future in general surgery – a highly competitive route where teaching, presenting at conferences, and contributing to academic life all count towards progression. He has already started building that experience, including presenting his first poster at a conference.

Looking back, he can see just how much those early days at Immerse shaped the path he eventually chose. “Immerse helped me understand what the degree actually involved,” he says. “It confirmed for me that I wanted to keep going with medicine.”