Eye-opening experience for med students

WHEN second-year medical student Zee Yong took his first trip to the United Kingdom, he immediately felt at home.

Despite being 10,000km from Malaysia, his new surroundings felt very familiar.

The buildings looked the same and the people were just as friendly. It could almost be said that Zee Yong had found his home away from home.

Zee Yong had been selected from a number of students at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed) to spend the summer at Newcastle University, the parent university in the UK, and he was quick to discover that the only thing separating the two campuses is geographical distance.

Ever since the British university opened a branch campus for medicine in Johor in 2009, NUMed students have been offered the opportunity to study for short periods in the UK – and almost all take advantage of it.

Similarities from the design of the campus to the style of teaching help the students adapt quickly to life in the UK, which maximises the time they have to benefit from the experience. This was the case for Zee Yong.

The main purpose of his 10-week trip was to carry out a special research project to study how the brain responds to the melody of speech.

It was a project which required him to collaborate with Newcastle University students of all nationalities.