Establishing A Medicine Society At Your School

Many Medicine applicants wish to create Medicine societies at their schools, to gather together people that are interested in this field, share information and practice together for exams and interviews: this can be a wonderful idea! Here is the essential guide to establishing a MedSoc at your school.

Why Organise A Medicine Society?

There are so many advantages to establishing a Medicine society! First of all, you’re creating a community, a support network for the very long journey that is applying to medical school. It can also be an incredibly useful tool to practice and inspire: you can set mock exams for each other, organize talks and arrange work experience. Last but not least, establishing and leading a society shows great commitment to a career in Medicine, leadership and team-working skills; these are all crucial in a successful portfolio and you will be able to learn a great deal from these experiences.

When To Set Up A MedSoc?

Setting up a medical society can be beneficial at any stage during your school years. The earlier you start the process, the more you will be able to take advantage from it and develop it. Be mindful of the fact that it might take time to get the relevant approvals from the school and convincing people to join as a committee. In terms of organizing events, you might wish to use your holidays to draft a rough timeline of talks, mock exams, practice interviews depending on the different stages of medical school applications. You might want to try and cater for students in different years, as well: at the very early stages, your peers might be interested in what a career in medicine entails while later on a more targeted approach might benefit nervous students that are about to attend competitive interviews.

Medicine Application Packages

Online UCAT Preparation

Personal Statement Support

How To Set Up A MedSoc?

This will unfortunately be very specific to the school you’re attending but usually there will be a process to go through in order to establish a society, which will often involve some paperwork. It might be a good idea to gather together a group of keen individuals that are equally interested as you, that could make up a future committee; this will not only make the whole process more enjoyable, but it will also make it much easier to delegate the workload of organising events. You are likely to need approval to use some areas of the school (a room for meetings and talks?) and you will probably need to have a rough idea of what you will be organising. In essence, talk to whoever is responsible for establishing societies in your school and make sure you are aware of the requirements and deadlines!

What to do with it?

Once you have established your society, it’s time to organize events! You might wish to organise talks to get more members: contact some local doctors to come and talk to students about why a career in Medicine is an incredible option. It would be a good idea to also organize personal statement proofreading circles: an extra pair of eyes can spot silly mistakes and give you cues and tips on how to improve. You could also consider UCAT/BMAT preparation courses; these can be either led by older students, friends that have already taken the exam or professionals that might do deals for big groups of people attending. Interview practice would be another good idea for your MedSoc: you could consider setting up MMI circuits or panel interviews with your peers! These events can be quite a challenge to organize so make sure you do your research to make it as painless and non-time-consuming as possible. You could even offer academic support to help students achieve their offers. Consider ticketing your events if you have a strict budget!

I hope these essential tips to establishing a Medical Society have helped you. Best of luck with it! If your school already has a MedSoc, be sure to join it, bring new ideas and take advantages of what they’re offering: even if you didn’t establish it yourself, you can help make it better and bigger for the next generations of medics!

Establishing A Medicine Society At Your School

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