I am frequently asked how to prepare for medical school interviews. As many schools are moving to the multiple mini interview (MMI) format, a lot of interviewing well involves thinking on your feet and efficiently articulating your perspective. One of the best ways to prepare for medical school interviews, (and in fact a career in medicine), is to read. The more you have read and thought about major issues in medicine (healthcare reform, end-of-life, medical mistakes, cultural sensitivity, gender identity, etc.) the better you will be able to intelligently discuss them in interviews. To help current and future applicants prepare, I thought I would share some of my favorite books about medicine with ProspectiveDoctor readers. Here is a list of my 15 books for medical school applicants:
- Better by Atul Gawande
- Complications by Atul Gawande
- Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
- Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
- The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
- How We Do Harm by Otis Brawley
- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
- Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- Mortality by Christopher Hitchens
- Hippocrates’ Shadow by David Newman
If you have other books about medicine that you would like to recommend to ProspectiveDoctor, please e-mail me at emilysinger@prospectivedoctor.com
Happy reading, everyone!
|| Read more about The Multiple Mini Interview: What to Know | MMI Pitfalls | Weekly Weigh-In: Med School Interview Tips ||
