写英国医学个人陈述前要读的五本书

在你们的个人陈述中，很少有学生会考虑广泛阅读医学方面的内容，但它可以对你的申请产生真正的影响。这是茵内特医学老师建议申请医学院时阅读的5本书，以加强你们的医学知识，以下是学生

1. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks

This book was mentioned in numerous application talks I attended when applying. It is written by the neurologist Oliver Sacks and describes some of the weirdest and wonderful conditions that exist in the medical profession.

Admittedly, the extensive use of medical terminology makes this book difficult to read in the initial stages, but I found it an inexhaustible source of discussion when asked about it at interview.

I stated the name of the book in my Personal Statement and discussed how exciting it was that every individual was unique in their presentation and type of illness. I would like to mention at this point that if you do explicitly mention a book in your Personal Statement, you WILL be asked about it. This doesn’t mean that you need to have memorised every page of the book, but be prepared to provide an example of one or two extracts of the book, and how they helped you decide on a career in Medicine.

2. Life at the Extremes – Frances Ashcroft

This was my favourite to discuss in this article, as it focuses on what happens to your body when it is pushed to the very limits of what it is capable of.

This book was useful when writing my Personal Statement as it helped me appreciate the extent to which the body has developed mechanisms to cope in the world around us, and again I explicitly mentioned this in my Personal Statement as an example of my desire and enthusiasm to undertake a career in Medicine.

3. Do No Harm – Henry Marsh

This is another book focused on neurology, but this time through the eyes of a decorated neurosurgeon, Mr Henry Marsh. This book is unusual in that the author is honest about the realities and challenges of Medicine; something I think that most doctors shy away from.

He admits to some of his worst mistakes and showed to me how even the best doctors can’t get everything right 100% of the time. With regards to my Personal Statement, I didn’t mention this book in my final draft, but I found that I was able to gain a greater understanding of empathy and the importance of communication from the stories published in here, which I found to be very useful at interview stage.

4. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

Recently adapted into a film, this title may be familiar to some of you. This story follows the life of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who’s cells were unsuspectingly taken and used to create a successful human cell line. Ultimately, Lacks’ cells positively contributed to major breakthroughs in areas such as cancer research and gene mapping.

This book will provide insight into some serious questions that still need to be raised in regards to medical ethics, something you may want to demonstrate awareness of in your Personal Statement. Medical ethics also plays a key part in the interview stage, so this book may help you in this aspect of the admissions process too.

5. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer – Siddhartha Mukherjee

This is a detailed and very comprehensive book written by cancer physician and researcher, Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Mukherjee discusses the early history of cancer care, transitioning into modern oncology later on in the book. It is a read that will help demystify cancer and will leave aspiring medics inspired by Mukherjee’s accounts of his patient interactions. This is another recommendation that will help with understanding the need for empathy as a medical professional, a key attribute that aspiring medics should possess and discuss in their Personal Statements.

茵内特医学老师提醒不管你选择读哪本书，记住这只是你需要包含的一系列成就和经历中的一部分，以使你的个人陈述更加完美。