If you’re considering Medicine, it’s no doubt a competitive course, and therefore you’d likely need more than your eventual A-Level (or equivalent) grades.
When it comes to building a “portfolio”, there are no fixed checkboxes to tick. However, there are some best practices that have guaranteed successful admission for medical school applicants.
Besides your CCA(s), chasing your passion and engaging in your hobbies (which are important!), there are three main areas that would be beneficial: (1) a leadership position or experience, (2) some form of regular long-term volunteering, and (3) medical-related attachment / job shadowing.
(1) and (2) would be useful not just for Medicine, but definitely advantageous for any other course you might be applying for.
1. Leadership
This does not have to be a “big” leadership position like Student Council President or the like. It could be anything, like PW group leader, or CCA Exco etc.
Essentially, while we all like to believe (and this is a personal belief of mine) that leadership does not have to come with an official position, it’s good to have one simply because that will be something you can put in your portfolio.
Leadership is something that they always look out for, particularly in Medicine, but also in any other university course. And it’s just not very convincing to say “I have leadership qualities” when you have no experiences of leadership that you can easily proffer as examples.
2. Community Service
Most of us would have engaged in some form of CIP at some point. The key here is to not just do it as an ad hoc, one-off event, but to do it long-term. For instance, I volunteered at a nursing home weekly for close to two years. This shows not just the heart to serve, but commitment to service.
If you are ambitious and have the will and the time, you could start your own project as well. Ideally, you’d do this with a small team of peers (as it could be very taxing to manage everything alone). It would also be helpful if your school has the relevant platforms or opportunities for you to kickstart such initiatives; you could go find out more and leverage on these.
A last note: it would be ideal to engage in some form of community work that involves human interaction and direct engagement with the people you’re serving. Shelving books at the library is great, but it doesn’t bring you in direct contact with the community. Volunteering at a nursing home, in contrast, would allow you to befriend the elderly, conduct exercises and activities for them, chat with them, and so on. Serving at Meet-the-People sessions will bring you on the ground to listen to and empathise with the issues faced by fellow residents, and to play a part in alleviating their concerns.
People are at the heart of Medicine. Choose any community and any cause you believe in, but consider doing something that would allow you to demonstrate your heart for serving people.
3. Medical Work Experience
This is a tacky issue, as opportunities are limited and there are many potential candidates vying for one. I wrote in further detail in this other article the various ways you can try to secure such an opportunity.
In general, if you don’t have personal / parental connections (like me, and probably the majority of students out there), approaching your local GPs or clinics is a good place to start. Besides that, don’t be afraid to try cold calling and cold emailing—you’ve got nothing to lose. (In fact, this was how I got my attachment opportunity.)
When looking for an attachment, try to find one that at least offers either some interaction with patients, or the chance to observe the doctor’s work. If you choose to take on a purely admin role with neither of those two opportunities, it may not be a very meaningful experience in terms of your learning and exposure.
Another note is that the attachment does not have to be long. In fact, most hospitals (if they allow job shadowing at all), would probably only offer two to three days, or at most a week. That is more than sufficient for you to see the work of the doctor in a particular department.
The reason why medical work experience is so coveted is that besides allowing you to see for yourself if this path is really for you, when added to your portfolio (and personal statement), it does show your interest in the medical field.
In lieu of an attachment (as these are not easy to get), you can always attend a variety of Medicine or healthcare-related events and programmes, which could also give you insight into this career path. They are just not as “portfolio-worthy”, especially if your level of participation was mainly a passive attendee at these programmes.
Lastly, I personally did not have the opportunity for medical work experience. (I finally secured a hospital attachment, then was told just one week before that it would have to be cancelled—it was exactly the time when COVID-19 broke out.) So it goes to show that this is not a necessary prerequisite to get into medical school. But of course, if you are fortunate to have the opportunity, it would be nice exposure and something that really shows your interest in the course.
How “Much” Do I Need In My Portfolio?
On an ending note, please know that you do not need to have a myriad of activities filling your portfolio. Focus on a couple of things and do them well. Hit the Big 3, and you should be more than good to go.
In some ways, the “significance” or “value” of each activity or achievement matters more than how many of them you can accumulate. In short, quality over quantity.
Even if you stack up a ton of activities, (1) you will not be able to expound on all of them in your personal statement (due to the limited word count), and (2) you will only be able to upload the top 10 in the NUS Medicine application portal (10 may seem like a fair bit, but this includes everything from academic and non-academic awards to CIP, CCA, NS etc).
So rather than diluting your efforts, it may be wise to target a few “high-end” activities and achievements to focus on, in your two or so years before applying.
Where Can I Find Opportunities?
Here, we gave an overview of the key areas to hit to build a solid portfolio as a potential medical school applicant. For ideas on events and opportunities, hop over to this page: Want to Study Medicine? Here’s What You Can Do in JC.