One term down, another 14 to go. My creative financial plans are going to have to become more artistic as the year proceeds. I do not remember having to use such tactics 10 years ago when I was a university student first time round. Money wasn't really an issue. That's not because my parents are loaded or because I worked day and night in some student labour camp. Everything just seemed that much simpler. Local authority cheques would obediently wait for me at the start of every term, and with a couple of signatures across a cheque book, fees and accommodation were taken care of. Banks practically begged me to take an overdraft and student loans fell from the sky.

Six years of work followed with a rather comfort. able salary. Among other things, this went towards paying for various grown up toys, such as cars, flats, and houses as well as clearing student debts. When I at last hit zero, I some. how found myself in a bizarre state of déjà vu. Exactly a decade later, I was again being welcomed into university life as a fresh faced, eager, but slightly jaded first year student. I had given up an army career, with exciting offers of employment and equally exciting salaries. It was a game of mind over matter. Money, or the lack of it, would not be a factor for choosing my next move. Medicine was my calling, and financially I'd work it out. I'd do without. I'd manage. All those noble ideas of will and determination surfaced and gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I never knew that I had it in me.

When the time came, and the salary stopped, that fuzzy feeling became more akin to a bottomless pit of dread. It got worse when that friendly cash point greeting at the end of every month ceased. No more flashing sums of money before my eyes, when I tapped in my magic numbers. Never mind, I'd adjust, whispered that annoying positive voice that lives some. where behind my right ear. It's your fault I'm here in this predicament, I whispered back. Three months later, I'm still adjusting. The weird thing is that the money side of life is no longer the hassle-free exercise I remembered it to be. My only problem in the early years was overspending, and learn. ing about how to budget. This time around, it's more basic. I just have to try to get hold of the stuff.

The constant cry that I have received from all corners in the student financial world is that I have to prove myself. I thought that after the past 10 years, my cur. riculum vitae would have showed that I had done all the proving I would ever be required to do. Those of us who come into medicine later on in life have naturally lived a bit, done a bit, and seen a bit. Having passed the various hurdles to get into medical school, have we not proved our worth?

Not quite, it seems. Before I get any financial assistance in the form of loans, I've got to show that I am worthy, by making it into the second year. Only then will I be offered the possibilities of a cheeky little bank loan especially designed with the modern day medical student in mind.

The BMA holds the same policy. Even my old employer, the army, requires two years of poverty before it bestows riches beyond a student's dreams. It's a bizarre scheme. In my experience so far as a medical student, I have come to the fol. lowing conclusion. Next year is not a good time to be offering help to today's first year mature students. The virgin year is the one that comes with all the tricky bits. A few years down the line, we'll be in view of the pay cheque. Paid employment will not be a lifetime away. So surely it would be wise to help students in the most needy of years, when financial security seems a million light years away.

The powers that be do not see it that way. On top of having to adjust to a completely new way of life and restart that not so familiar process of studying, we have got to work out how to pay the rent. There are other more testing scenarios than mine. We have all got our dilemmas to deal with while we wait for doors to fly open with wide welcoming "come and take our money at a price" gestures and superficial smiles. Do they not realise that unless some of us have help now, we may not get to that stage? It's a worrying fact. The first year is important; it leads to the second one. It is also the one that some may find the hardest, and that is not because the subject matter is particularly complex. Sacrifices cost, and if we accept this and the prospect of future years strapped to debt repayment then surely we should be able to access loans for when they would be most required.

In the meantime, while I retrain myself in the art of academia, I'll also be offering myself up for whatever pays . . . within reason. Muscle biopsies pay well I hear. Ouch.