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A year on YouTube - Channel / life update

2018-07-23 · Vlog or day in the life · Ali · recording, 8:12 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators (also: Books and reading, Medicine and his doctor years) · mode: Reflection and life update · tags: His own numbers, His own products discussed, His medical past, Aimed at students

In a channel update after about a year on YouTube, on the eve of starting as a junior doctor, Ali thanks viewers for almost 50,000 subscribers, announces a 50k Q&A and sets out the channel's "season two": delayed junior-doctor vlogs, niche medical-student videos, study, productivity and tech videos, and his new BMAT online course.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Ali has graduated and starts as a junior doctor tomorrow: season two of the channel

  • ★★★ Ali has just graduated in medicine from Cambridge University and starts work as a junior doctor from 24 July 2018, still in Cambridge, because he loves the place and never wants to leave. — 00:00:00 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ After about a year on YouTube, Ali says his channel enters its "season two" from 24 July 2018, because everything changes now that he is no longer a student. — 00:00:16 · YouTube

00:00:29 — Thanks for almost 50,000 subscribers and a 50k subscribers Q&A

  • ★★★ Ali's YouTube channel is on almost 50,000 subscribers; a few months earlier it had 5,000, which then seemed huge to him. — 00:00:29 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali credits his study-with-me videos and his iPad video with doing really well and bringing in many of his new subscribers. — 00:00:29 · iPad
  • ★★ Ali calls his YouTube channel a side project and semi-career that has been one of the most fun things he did in his final year of medical school. — 00:00:58 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali will do a 50,000-subscriber Q&A and asks viewers to send their questions in the comments or on Instagram. — 00:01:20 · Instagram

00:01:34 — Vlogs about life as a junior doctor, the medical-student vlogs still to come, and the time lag for confidentiality

  • ★★ Ali says that in his very first video, made about a year earlier on his medical elective, he said the main purpose of a year of YouTube was to prepare for vlogging life as a junior doctor. — 00:01:50 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Ali will vlog his life as a junior doctor in the UK as it goes along: his first night shift, the first time he breaks bad news, and the day-to-day work. — 00:02:03
  • ★★ Before the junior-doctor vlogs Ali still has five or six vlogs from his time as a medical student: a free trip to Singapore to present at a conference, Bali, a family trip to Grenada, and his graduation ball and graduation day. — 00:02:15 · Singapore
  • ★★ Ali thinks a long delay between events and his vlogs of them is good: as a doctor he must guard confidentiality and professionalism, so it should stay uncertain when anything about patients happened. — 00:02:33

00:03:02 — Educational content for medical students, study tips, productivity and tech reviews; ignoring the advice to focus on one thing

  • ★★ Ali says medical students are still his channel's core audience, though its subscribers now go far beyond them, and that is where he can add the most value. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ Ali has filmed many videos interviewing himself and his friends on surviving medical school, such as the Academic Foundation Programme application, getting publications and preparing for OSCEs, for a strand aimed at medical students. — 00:03:16 · Academic Foundation Programme, OSCE
  • ★★ Ali will probably put his medical-student videos out on one set day of the week, every Monday, so viewers who are not medical students can skip them. (hedged) — 00:03:31
  • ★★ Ali has more to say on general study tips for university and secondary school students and any learner, and a few videos prepared on productivity, morning routines and sleep, which he hopes to release. (hedged) — 00:03:45
  • ★★ Ali wants to tie education in with tech after his iPad note-taking video did well, maybe with videos on the productivity apps he uses on his iPhone, iPad and MacBook; he calls himself a big Apple fanboy. (hedged) — 00:04:00 · iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple
  • ★★ Ali plans many more tech reviews of things he has used for ages: he does not think he would be good at benchmark reviews, but can offer something fresh from student life, doctor life and productivity. — 00:04:30
  • ★★★ Ali says everyone advises YouTubers to focus on one particular thing, but he will politely ignore that advice and mix niche videos for medical students with general videos on tech. — 00:04:59 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali has filmed a lot about moving into his new house and setting up his desk, and will do a new desk setup video. — 00:05:15
  • ★ Ali asks viewers to suggest videos for him to make; he cannot answer every YouTube comment but still tries to reply to every Instagram message. — 00:05:28 · Instagram, YouTube
  • ★★ Ali keeps a long, ever-expanding list of videos to make in Things, a new app he has discovered and will talk about in another video. — 00:05:42 · Things 3

00:05:57 — A quick monthly favourites: IKEA and The Wise Man's Fear on Audible

  • ★ In a quick Monthly Favourites section, Ali names IKEA first: he has made many trips there to buy things and furniture for his new house. — 00:06:06
  • ★★ Ali's second favourite is the audiobook of The Wise Man's Fear, the second book of Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicles, which made his seven-hour round drive to a wedding in Manchester incredible. — 00:06:15 · Audible

00:06:45 — The 75-plus video BMAT online course from SixMed

  • ★★ Ali has filmed and edited a series of more than 75 videos on how to do well in the BMAT, the BioMedical Admissions Test. — 00:06:45 · BMAT
  • ★★★ Ali has run SixMed for five or six years, teaching the BMAT in classrooms in the UK, Singapore and the Netherlands; with no time to teach in person as a doctor, he has put everything he knows into an online video course. — 00:06:56 · 6med, Singapore, BMAT
  • ★★ Ali's online BMAT video course costs money, but it will be free of charge for anyone in financial difficulty. — 00:07:14 · 6med, BMAT

00:07:21 — Thanks, folding up side projects to focus on YouTube, sign-off

  • ★★★ Ali is folding up his other side projects to focus on making YouTube videos, which he finds really fun and which seem to be going down well. — 00:07:51 · YouTube

In the description and comments

  • ★ Ali has been busy moving into his new flat, building furniture and sorting out bills. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 6med

Also: People: Patrick Rothfuss

Works: BMAT · The Kingkiller Chronicles · The Wise Man's Fear

Organizations: Amazon · Apple · IKEA · Instagram · University of Cambridge · YouTube

Concepts: Academic Foundation Programme · Breaking bad news · OSCE

Places: Bali · Cambridge · Grenada · Manchester · Netherlands · Singapore

Products: Audible · iPad · iPhone · MacBook · Things 3

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