Book Recommendations for your Medical School application
When applying to medical school, it’s important to ensure that you have enough content for your personal statement. Generally, this takes the form of work experience, life experiences, extracurriculars, part-time work, volunteering, and books/papers you’ve read (amongst other things).
Reading medicine-oriented books is a great way to form a strong narrative in your personal statement and express a real interest in the course, so here are some of my recommendations for what to read.
The Other Side by Kate Granger
At just over 100 pages, this is a very quick read that gives you a lot to talk about…
A somewhat cliché phrase used at medical school is “treat the patient and not the disease”. Medicine in the NHS has moved away from the paternalistic discipline it once was, and the admissions tutors want you to understand that and understand why this is important.
This book is an autobiographical account of a GP who is diagnosed with cancer, and how she experiences the patient-perspective for the first time after a career in Medicine. It’s an interesting read and the perfect book to mention on your personal statement if you’re making the point that medicine is about what’s right for the patient, not what solves the objective problem on paper… which is a theme you should try to get across on your statement. The tutors want to know that applicants understand this.
2. War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott
I actually read this book after coming to medical school, but during my application years I was very interested in humanitarian medicine and having the opportunity to work with organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It would have been the perfect thing for me to read before applying, but it unfortunately wasn’t to be released until a few years after I applied…
David Nott, a consultant Surgeon based in London, writes of his experiences working in some of the most extreme environments in modern history, including war-torn Sarajevo in the early 90s to Assad’s Syria. If you are interested in humanitarian medicine, surgery, military medicine/surgery, medicine/surgery in austere environments or health policy, this is an excellent book to read to increase your exposure to these fields and back up those claims on your personal statement.
This book is a great instance of one that is interest specific; for example, if you’re not interested in any of the above but love Neurosurgery, then you can read Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery (Henry Marsh, 2014) to expand your knowledge of what life as a neurosurgeon is like and prove your interest at interview. If you are interested in Oncology, why not read The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2011) to learn more about Cancer and prove your interest?
Proving what you say in your personal statement is vital to show the admissions tutors that you’re serious about medical school. Reading medical books allows you to do this, whilst also exploring any burgeoning interests that you have and learning more about fields you’re excited to delve into at Medical school.
3. Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
This book is mentioned in many candidates’ personal statements, so isn’t the most original, but it’s so ubiquitous for a reason.
This is an excellent book that touches on many difficult topics and philosophical discussions, but the theme most relevant for your medical school application (for me, at least) is what makes life meaningful, and how medicine should not just be about prolonging life at any cost. It links in nicely to The Other Side by Kate Granger, in that it sheds light on what really matters to patients when facing a daunting prognosis. Showing that you understand the nuances of this discussion will certainly impress those interview tutors…
4. Any book you’re interested in!
Of course, it’s difficult to discuss your favourite book in your personal statement if it’s not medicine-oriented or even tangentially related to medicine. However, you should do some browsing for medicine books you think you’ll genuinely enjoy rather than solely relying on pre-written lists like this one. Lists like this are great for inspiration, but the best thing to do is find a book on a topic that you love and have alluded to in your personal statement, then the genuine passion you have will shine through in your writing and at interview.
For example, if I were to write a personal statement now, I wouldn’t write about The Emperor of All Maladies as I’m not particularly interested in Oncology. I also wouldn’t write about Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore even though it’s my favourite book (as it’s entirely unrelated to medicine and is purely fiction). However, with my interest in humanitarian and military medicine, War Doctor sits in that goldilocks zone of being genuinely interesting to me and related to medicine.
I hope this quick read was helpful for starting to think about your personal statement for medical school. If you think you could benefit from 1-to-1 support or want any further advice, get in touch and we’d be happy to help!
Rhodes Willoughby is Co-Founder and Director of STEMaccess, at the time of writing in his fifth year of his MBBS/BSc degree at Imperial College School of Medicine.
