Medicine is the study of the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. Below, you will find a list of things that you could use to learn more about Medicine, or to improve a future application to university. The Super Academy also offer a free short course, which is available to download below.
Books; You should look out for new books in this field but popular titles include Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
War Doctor by David Nott, an NHS doctor who volunteered in war zones
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
The Other Side by Dr Kate Granger (who started the campaign #mynameis... and who died of cancer after writing about her experiences as a patient)
Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed
The Courage to Care: A Call for Compassion reaffirms the importance of a good bedside manner and the importance of nurses as part of the team looking after a patient and is written by nurse Christie Watson
The Gene and The Emperor of All Maladies (about cancer) both by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Magazines and Journals; The British Medical Journal is one of the best known journals in the world; as is The Lancet; The Oxford Scientist is the Student led magazine of Oxford University Science students and includes articles on Medicine; Harvard Medicine Magazine is a medical magazine from the Harvard community; The General Medical Council (GMC) set the professional standards for Doctors and you may benefit from reading them.
You should also keep up with developments in the national press as political decisions on the NHS and a wide range of other factors will all impact the field of Medicine.
Podcasts; The Royal Society of Medicine have a podcast; The British Medical Journal have a podcast; Medical Education is aimed at university students and is very academic; Award winning podcast This Podcast Will Kill You is about disease; Second Opinion is the podcast of celebrity doctor Dr Christian Jessen; International Medical Charity Médicines Sans Frontieres (Doctor's Without Borders) have a podcast called Everyday Emergency; The New England Medical Journal have a podcast covering the prestigious journal; Health Now from Web MD is a more accessible podcast aimed at the general public.
YouTube Channels; The British Medical Journal; Strong Medicine (Dr Strong teaches at Stanford); Osmosis; One Minute Medical School; perhaps the most popular medical channel on YouTube is Armando Hasudungan's channel.
Video; Gresham College Lectures (Medical Science); Ted Talks (Medicine Category); you should also look out for documentaries on TV or on Netflix, there are a range of good up-to-date things that you can watch some about Covid-19, others about different fields in Medicine, life on the front line of the NHS or technology for example (and this is far from complete) Surgeons: At the Edge of Life; Ambulance; Inside Medicine (a series of different documentaries from the BBC); 24 Hours in A&E; 999: Critical Condition
Competitions; The Oxford Medical School Gazette (the world's oldest student run medical publication) run a school Medical essay competition; Oxford Universities Student Science Magazine (The Oxford Scientist) runs an annual Science essay competition; Minds Underground offer a Medicine essay competition for pupils in S5/Y12.
Events or Activities; For Medicine, it is important to have work experience when this is possible. Mostly this consists of people working in a care setting, such as a local care home, but if this is not possible because of Covid-19, or for other reasons, then can you be more creative in how you show your love of Medicine and desire to help others? Read our blog for ideas on getting work experience when you can't get physical work experience.