Personal and professional development at medical school

Developing personally and professionally while at medical school can really help your studies and prepare you for your future career. Get some ideas, tips and resources to help you. 

It’s important to balance your time spent at medical school between your studies and personal and professional development. Not only will it help develop your skills, but it'll also help with training and job applications.

What could I do? 

Don’t feel you have to do too many things. Choose activities that you’ll enjoy. Here are some examples:

  • consider applying for prizes awarded by your medical school or the Royal Colleges. If you win a prize, it could be rewarding in more ways than one!
  • being elected as a representative on a committee at your medical school or outside (eg the BMA Medical Students Committee) will show that other students have faith in your ability to represent their views
  • your university will have all kinds of clubs, societies and focus groups that you could join. You could get involved in schemes that aim to widen access to medical school, or particular groups, such as Medsin, a student network and charity that aims to tackle global and local health inequalities. There are too many other ideas to list here, but there are even music groups aimed at medical students, eg the European Medical Students Orchestra
  • get involved in clinical audits. These are normally led by doctors or other professionals, but you can help by offering to collect and interpret data etc
  • you can gain experience whilst at medical school and develop yourself through work shadowing, volunteering or through relevant summer jobs or part-time work
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