With many universities now offering graduate entry programmes, there has become an immediate need for a comprehensive and up-to-date guide on both gaining a place at GEM, as well as the other relevant aspects of a medical career, enter ‘How to Get into Graduate Entry Medicine’.
Topics of the book include reasons why to consider medicine, help with deciding which medical school to choose, the application process, obtaining work experience, entrance exams, interviews, financial implications and career paths in the NHS.
If you’re like me, you’ve read a dozen books by now on how to get into medical school, so how does this one differ? Well, it doesn’t really. If you’re thinking of buying this book because it’s going to offer some alternative insight into GEM compared to all the other books on the market, I wouldn’t — it doesn’t!
A particular chapter of interest for me, however, was obtaining work experience. For those of you who don’t know or recognise the importance here, the majority of medical schools and colleges all require work experience in a health-care related setting, this enables you to examine what it means to be a health-care professional and make sure medicine is the right choice for you. The chapter goes into great detail regarding what constitutes quality work experience and what experiences you should be seeking. There is also useful tips on how to make the experience tangible whilst getting the most out of it. If like myself you didn’t/don’t know where to start or which setting to look for work experience, there is also details included along with information on how to apply.
Overall the book was well written and worth buying if you can afford it, but please don’t expect too much GEM specific related content, because it just didn’t hold-up to the title. I give it 6/10.
Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/6hq9j2
Out of all the ‘getting into medicine’ books I have read so far, this has easily been the most comprehensive.
I think what stands it apart from its cohorts, is that it starts at the very beginning, the history of medicine. The book goes into detail about the progression of medicine from Ancient Greeks where illness was considered to be punishment from the Gods, to Hippocrates and his theories on humours, continuing with Ayurvedic medicine, The Egyptians, The Romans, The Middle East, The Renaissance and concluding with Modern Day medicine — This history of medicine was a wonderful and thought provoking chapter, one to which I will continue to come back and thumb through in the future.
The book continues with the expected entry requirements to medicine with a strong focus on sixth formers and their schools perspective, the role of the secondary school and where to get further information. There is also a detailed guide to medical school interview preparation and how to choose a medical school.
The graduate entry medicine chapter will be of keen interest to my maturer student visitors and for anyone with a degree who is considering entry to medicine through the graduate entry programme. The chapter goes into detail about whether GEP is right for you, by exploration of individual university courses and their content. One example is the degree of patient contact at early stages and the obvious disadvantages including a more intense work load offering less time to catch-up if you fall behind, along with generally shorter holidays and less time for part-work. There is also discussion of the differences between problem and course-based approaches to learning. All in all this chapter is very well written and covers everything a mature student would expect, including interview tips, financing options and a look into BMAT, MSAT and UKAT admission tests.
The final chapters include information on your medical years and how to survive them as well information on the foundation years and what to expect.
Overall this book is an excellent and easy read and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering a career in medicine. I give it 9/10.
Amazon Link: http://tinyurl.com/559b89
