medical school application

hi! so i want to go to medical school (currently in year 11) and aside from academics, i want to do things to really make my medical school application stand out but i'm not sure what and how much i'm supposed to do, what to priorities ect.

in year 10 i did quite a few things such as leadership in the local council, medical societies, tutoring, reading medical related books, cadets and work experience, but i'm currently doing nothing so i really need ideas of what i could be doing.

Reply 1

Songbird19

You will be required to reflect heavily on how your experiences link to all the traits doctors need to have. In order to show these you should…
1) get as good grades as you can (this shows ability, dedication to studying and time management)
2) volunteer long term, ideally with vulnerable people (care home, hospital, hospice, disability centre, with children). It doesn’t have to be all day etc even just an hour a week is good. Long term shows commitment to caring and knowledge of vulnerable people.
3) Work experience. Shadowing medical professionals is interesting but difficult to get and doesn’t evidence your skills. What you definitely need are public facing experiences (part time job in a shop, cafe etc would be very suitable). It shows responsibility, time management, team working etc.
4) a leadership role - again, ideally longish term so you develop plenty of reflection opportunities to use at interview/personal statement (school council, sports captain, running a school club etc)

You can wait until after your GCSEs to start all of these as you will need good GCSE grades too.

Reply 2

Songbird19

Forgot to say going to talks/summer schools and reading widely is good too. Think medical based books such as Atul Gwande’s Being Mortal or Ben somethings Bad Science/Bad Pharma, the story of the immortal Henrietta Lacks etc.

Reply 3

EWUoS

Official Rep

Original post by shrodingerscatt

hi! so i want to go to medical school (currently in year 11) and aside from academics, i want to do things to really make my medical school application stand out but i'm not sure what and how much i'm supposed to do, what to priorities ect.
in year 10 i did quite a few things such as leadership in the local council, medical societies, tutoring, reading medical related books, cadets and work experience, but i'm currently doing nothing so i really need ideas of what i could be doing.

Hi, I think you're already doing a lot of the right things and the above suggestions are great! I just wanted to give some tips about how to reflect and how to evidence this. There is always an expectation at medical school and beyond that you can reflect on experiences and use these to improve your practice as a doctor.

Using this framework after doing anything listed on the post above may help you to think about some good interview answers and give you something to add to your personal statement.

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Briefly describe the event including the situation and context (what happened? what did you see? what did you do?)

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How did you feel during this?

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What are the implications for other involved? e.g. patients, family members, sports team

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What did you learn from this?

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How might this influence your practice as a doctor?

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What might others learn from this?

This might help you to think about how you can apply any experience to medicine and why the skills that you are developing will be transferable to medicine.

Good luck!
Ella