which books are best to read up for medicine?

thank you everyone!! ill look into these books i also wanted to ask that (especially for a medicine degree), it's hard to talk about a book and then relate it to science. so how to i interweave the themes of the book into my personal statement without sounding like a motivational speaker or someone thats looking for an english degree instead

You want to talk about what you learned from it or what interested you about it. Perhaps reading the Oliver Sacks book sparked an interest in the nervous system, and maybe you could link this to something you’ve read in the news about an exciting development in neurosurgery. This is just an example, but essentially rather than listing off books you want to explain why they interested you and something you learned from them. Also note you don’t actually have to mention books at all if you don’t want to, but it is a good way of demonstrating wider interest beyond your studies.

i see, so instead of approaching it in a very 'this is a book i read, it explored this theme, i liked so and so', it's more of 'in this book this aspect of medicine was mentioned quite a lot, and through further research i discovered so and so, which interested me'. that made so sense now that i typed it out, but what you said definitely helped!

the idea of writing a personal statement seems so daunting to me, im still trying to figure out what im supposed to include in it that isnt all useless ramble, so sorry for all these nervous questions!

TBH work experience and volunteering are far more important in a medicine PS and it is rare that you get space to talk about extra reading.

yh ive been reading up on personal statements and realised not many people talk about books. it's a bit inconvenient considering i had three work experiences and volunteering placements sorted but i had to stop them before i barely started so i dont have much to talk about : (

You won't be the only person in that position... There may be discussion in the medicine forum on how people are managing being in that situation/communications from the unis

ah, do you have the link to that thread? id like to see what id be able to do in this situation because my personal statement draft is looking very dry

yh ive been reading up on personal statements and realised not many people talk about books. it's a bit inconvenient considering i had three work experiences and volunteering placements sorted but i had to stop them before i barely started so i dont have much to talk about : (

Have you seen this?

https://bsmsoutreach.thinkific.com/courses/VWE