Blackpool graduate becomes one of youngest doctors
A 21-year-old woman has become one of Britain's youngest doctors after graduating from the University of Manchester.
Rachael Faye Hill, who was born in Blackpool, received her medical degree in a ceremony on Wednesday.
She said: "My family would have been proud anyway but I think it has made them extra proud that I am one of the youngest doctors in the country."
She started studying medicine when she was aged just 17.
Ms Hill moved to the Canary Islands with her mother and younger brother when she was eight and attended the English-speaking Colegio Hispano Britanico in Lanzarote.
Teachers allowed her to skip school years and she sat her GCSEs at 13 and completed her A-levels at 15, achieving A grades in chemistry and biology and Bs in maths and physics.
However, students cannot study medicine until they are 17 in England so Ms Hill started her five-year course a few weeks after her 17th birthday.
She graduated, along with friends aged 23 and 24, aged 21 and 352 days.
"Looking back, if I could do things differently maybe I would have had more of a childhood and studied at the same age as everyone else, but I'm just glad to have graduated," she said on Wednesday.
"After five years of really hard work it is just so nice to get to the end.
"Loads of my friends have graduated with me today and they worked just as hard as me so they should be just as proud."
She is due to begin a two-year rotation at Royal Preston Hospital and hopes to specialise in paediatrics.