How can I learn more about medicine as a secondary school student?

rk2301

Hi,

I'm going to be starting fifth year of secondary school in September and am fairly serious on putting my head down from the start as I want to study medicine in university.

I've been interested in medicine since I was young but I want to increase my knowledge of it so I can make sure that being a doctor is really what I want to do in life. I don't want to end up working extremely hard for this only to realise that it's not for me in my first year of university.

I'm already a member of the Irish Red Cross and I love it. I've made some great friends and it has taught me a lot about pre emergency hospital care. During 4th year I also tried to get work experience in a hospital setting but was unable to as it's quite competitive.

What I want to know is what kind of resources should I use to learn more about medicine? Obviously I know that watching medical dramas, while they are enjoyable, aren't very realistic. If someone could recommend any books or medical newspapers/magazines that I could read to further my knowledge, I'd really appreciate it!

Thank you!

thomasdylan

rk2301 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm going to be starting fifth year of secondary school in September and am fairly serious on putting my head down from the start as I want to study medicine in university.

I've been interested in medicine since I was young but I want to increase my knowledge of it so I can make sure that being a doctor is really what I want to do in life. I don't want to end up working extremely hard for this only to realise that it's not for me in my first year of university.

I'm already a member of the Irish Red Cross and I love it. I've made some great friends and it has taught me a lot about pre emergency hospital care. During 4th year I also tried to get work experience in a hospital setting but was unable to as it's quite competitive.

What I want to know is what kind of resources should I use to learn more about medicine? Obviously I know that watching medical dramas, while they are enjoyable, aren't very realistic. If someone could recommend any books or medical newspapers/magazines that I could read to further my knowledge, I'd really appreciate it!

Thank you!

The BBC did a good programme on Junior doctors a few years ago. It was a documentary on bbc2 or 3. Very good. The UK has much better hours than here though

rk2301

thomasdylan wrote: »

The BBC did a good programme on Junior doctors a few years ago. It was a documentary on bbc2 or 3. Very good. The UK has much better hours than here though

Sounds good! Is it available online?

An tUasal C

Heading into fifth year myself and am interested in medicine or nursing.

'Confessions of a Junior Doctor', '24 Hours in A&E' and 'Junior Doctors - Your Life in Their Hands' are all medical series that I have watched. You can find them on Youtube and Dailymotion.

laserlad2010

Heavily edited TV programmes are not ideal primary methods of gaining knowledge of medicine, although they make for infuriating yet entertaining watching.

Make contact with a consultant in your local hospital and ask them if you could shadow them.

I'm happy to provide more info via PM or on this thread.

Also, my advice to all Leaving Cert students is to work as hard as you can and get as many points as you can. You can then change your mind if you want a course with higher points, rather than aiming for something lower.

Kwekubo

There was a good documentary on RTÉ about 10 years ago called "Junior Doctors" (NOT the BBC programme). Unfortunately all episodes seem to have fallen off the internet. http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmesales/juniordoctors.html