Hand holding up phone with Instagram feed

Instagram is my all-time favourite social media platform. To make the daily (or hourly) scrolling on your phone more meaningful, why not follow some med-related Instagram accounts?

There are honestly so many out there. I’ve curated a list of the best ones here, as well as some that I find to be useful for potential Medicine applicants (specifically for Singapore). I’ll be updating this page if I come across any new finds.

Lastly, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or DM me on Instagram @thelowkeymedic if you’d like to share your favourites.

International health and medical organisations

World Health Organization

Their graphics and multimedia keep you informed of the latest issues in global health and healthcare. Of course, currently the spotlight is on the COVID-19 pandemic, and there is no better and more authoritative source to get your updates from than the WHO.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Their posts highlight how the MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, provides medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Even if you don’t aspire towards humanitarian medicine, @doctorswithoutborders spotlights pertinent global health issues and their impact on some of the most vulnerable populations around the world.  

Singapore medical schools and societies

NHMed’20

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, the organising team has taken the annual NHMed Symposium online. They are posting various resources designed for you to find out more about the healthcare sector. Their focus is not solely Medicine but also Allied Health, Nursing, and Dentistry. Check out what they have in store, including actual conversations with healthcare professionals in their most recent “Get to Know Me” series.

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Introducing our third and final speaker in the “get to know me” series – Dr Ho Li Chin! 🌟 A doctor working in the A&E department of Mount Alvernia Hospital, Dr Ho and his team work tirelessly to save the lives of their patients. Having been through the SARS pandemic, Dr Ho’s experiences working in the fast-paced, oft taxing Accident and Emergency Department have shaped his perspective on medicine. Even after over 20 years in his line of work, he is still going strong, held abreast by his brio for saving lives. Feel free to drop a comment (or send a tellonym from the link on our bio!) if you have any questions for Dr Ho, by 19 May 12 noon. Your questions just might be featured in our next video instalment! ☺️

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NUS Medicine

This is the official Instagram account of the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. Recently, they have been regularly posting the #COVID19Chronicles, a series of educational illustrations about the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

NUS Medical Society

While their posts are more targeted at NUS medical students, you can find out all about the cool events and initiatives that they organise, giving you a glimpse into medical school life at NUS.

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“I didn’t really know that I wanted to run for president until quite late. I think it was a confluence of the various experiences I’ve had through Med School that led me to my decision. I was in CommServ since M1, and from M3 to M4 I served as the CommServ director. I also took part in a few screening projects as well, such as NHS and iRemember. Through these opportunities, I saw how meaningful the initiatives that MedSoc supports are. I wanted to use my experience working with the school and our projects in a greater capacity, and I felt that MedSoc was one of the best ways to do this.” Jun Hao is an M5, and the President of the 70th NUS Medical Society. As President, he strived to give back to others, by improving the events organised by MedSoc and improving the quality of lives of our students. “I had the phenomenal privilege of serving as FOCCIP head in M2, and FOCCIP used to have a different target group each year. During my M1 FOCCIP, we did a mini-health screening for the elderly rental flat population, and one of our struggles was figuring out how to longitudinally follow up on our visits and the data we collected. Together with our FOP head Ramesh and my co-head Joy, we brainstormed on how we could improve FOCCIP to be more impactful to our beneficiaries and more memorable for our juniors. After many weeks of considering different potential beneficiaries and going down to different VWOs, we finally decided on reaching out to migrant workers.” When asked what his proudest accomplishment was, it was not something done during his term as President, but rather as FOCCIP head in M2, where he and his committee refined the beneficiaries of FOCCIP to suit the large volunteer numbers we have and its temporal nature. Since FOCCIP 2016, all of our subsequent FOCCIPs have continued to engage our migrant brothers. This goes to show no matter your role, whether as President or as a committee member, you never know how big your impact may be and you should never underestimate the change one simple action of yours could bring about for generations to come! “One of the people who I really look up to and want to thank is Norman, the President of the 69th (cont.)

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LKCMedicine

This is the official Instagram account of the NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. Their most recent posts have been on #whylkcmedicine, which are super insightful for you to find out what makes LKCMedicine unique, with input from both students and faculty.

LKCMedicine Medical Society

Just like with @nusmedsoc, @purpleandsilver gives you an insider’s look into life as a medical student at their school. Their “Month-In-A-Minute” shows you the happenings at LKCMedicine for that particular month, all condensed into a one-minute video.

Duke-NUS Medical School

This is the official Instagram account of the Duke-NUS Medical School. Follow them if you wish to apply for graduate Medicine in Singapore. Otherwise, content on COVID-19 and other health issues can be found on the other pages mentioned above.

SiMSA

The Singapore Medical Students’ Association – International (SiMSA) is an independent organisation that represents Singapore medical students internationally. They are perhaps less well-known, but they’ve been posting useful graphics on COVID-19. You can also scroll through their past posts to find out about the opportunities for local medical students to connect with medical students from around the world.

Medical student studygram and lifestyle

These are my personal favourites. I am absolutely in love with their aesthetics. (No one asked me to promote this by the way! They are genuinely my favourites and, as always, I share the best stuff with you guys.)

@bana_vu

I cannot tell you how much I love her aesthetic. You will be blown away by her drawings, and even her notes are pure art. This prodigiously artsy studygram is run by a 3rd year medical student in the UK.

@studyholmes

Sarah is another Year 3 UK medical student. Her studygram is super artistic as well, with darker edits and her own unique style.

@thenerdyproject

Audrey is studying Stem Cell Biology and Neuroscience in Toronto. She posts unbelievably aesthetic photos of her desk, often featuring her digital notes.

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Hellooo friends!! I just announced the giveaway winner in my story so congrats to the winner. (The winner was randomly chosen by @poooli.print ) I can’t wait to host more giveaways! So stay tuned 🤓 I was actually waiting for the pandemic to calm down a bit so I could handpick some items for a 50K giveaway but now I’m thinking of ordering online! And I’ll host it very soon. 😅💛 . —————————————— . . . . . . . . . #studygram #studymotivation #studytips #studyblr #studygrammer #studyspo #ipadpronotes #digitalnotes #notestagram #studyspots #collegelife #unumfam #studynotes #newstudygram #studyspiration #studyspace #studywithme @unumdesign #premed #premedstudent #premedlife #studygramcommunity #studyblrcommunity #bulletjournal #studyspiration #studycommunity #paperless #paperlessstudent #instastudy #digitalnotetaking #notetaking

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@lifeofamedic_

She’s a 3rd year medical student at the University of Manchester. I first knew of her through her blog, which I think has even greater reach than her Instagram. (I’ll definitely do a post on my favourite blogs sometime!) But I do love the aesthetics of her feed. And she shares more of her day-to-day life on Instagram as well.

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3 years of medical school and I seem to have already written SEVENTEEN “week in the life” posts 😂 I do feel like they’re well appreciated though, so hopefully I’ll keep up with them in the future even though they take the most time to put together. If you feel like reading (or probably more realistically, skimming through 😅) some of them I’ve linked them all on to one page on my blog so you can navigate through them easily. ⠀ Writing my last one got me thinking about just how different third year was to 1 & 2! Third year is by far my favourite year of medical school – for me, it finally felt like I was properly studying Medicine! I genuinely don’t think I could have done another year of pre-clinical med. When you’re just learning content without seeing the patients and putting everything into the clinical context it does become quite difficult to remember it all. ⠀ At Manchester, during our pre-clinical years we cover the following semesters: Life Cycle, Cardioresp, Mind & Movement, Nutrition & Metabolism. 🧠 Mind & Movement was definitely my favourite, though it was the one with the most content (it’s not as bad as everyone makes out though, so don’t worry if you’re starting Sem 3 next year)! ⠀ What’s been your favourite year/semester of medical school so far? 💉

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@a.medstudents.journey

I also discovered her blog first, and then found her Instagram. A 5th year medical student in Europe, her captions tend to be longer as she writes about snippets of her life. This can give you some idea of what a medical student’s life is like. (In her latest post, she mentions her favourite accounts—so you can check those out as well and discover more aesthetic feeds.)

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What Nursing Students Wished Med Students Knew ft. @bsn_to_be ~ NEW BLOG POST . . . 💡This fun collaboration with a fellow student is now live on my blog! If you're a nursing student, a med student, or interested in either, I think it could be a really interesting read. Huge thank you to Meris (@bsn_to_be) for sharing her thoughts on the subject to eloquently. . . . 🌟 I did a poll yesterday to see the breakdown of my followers, and I was a bit surprised with the results – med students: 1141, nursing students: 140. I hope it's not because of me, and I'd love to get to know more nurses and nursing students. Please share your favorites below. I'll start with mine: @janicestudies @sincerelynursejen @caitlynandcharlee @yournursingeducator @armynurse.studydiary #nursing #nursingstudent #nursinglife #nursingschool #medicalstudent #medgram #nurse #studygram #studygrammer #studygramcommunity #studyblr #nursingstudents #rnbsn #medlife #medicalstudies #healthcarestudent #medicalcommunity #hcw #studylife #studyinspo

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Natalie Wall

Natalie is an incoming surgery resident from Salt Lake City, Utah. Her posts integrate more of lifestyle and travel, but she also shares about her journey as a doctor. I’m mainly in love with her amazing photos and seamless feed (which you can’t see from this particular post).

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Medicine is hard. The last couple of months I’ve struggled to feel any resemblance of normal. Go to the hospital in the dark, come home in the dark. My one day off a week usually spent catching up on the sleep that escaped me the other six. Dark eye circles have become permanent and unrelenting tattoos. — On the very first day of medical school, we were taken to the hospital to interview patients and learn about their medical conditions. I met an individual awaiting a heart transplant. Some sort of sign, I thought, seeing as I wanted to go into cardiac surgery. Little did I know, years later, I’d be on service the day the call came into the hospital that an organ became available for them. Little did I know, years later, I’d be in the surgery in which we’d remove the old heart and replace it with a new one. — Medicine is hard. But that’s what makes it absolutely worth it.

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My top 3 picks for med-related Instagram accounts

In summary, here are my top 3 picks:

  1. @who – for the most authoritative and up-to-date information on global health issues.
  2. @nusmedicine & @ntu_lkcmedicine – and any other medical schools you’re aspiring towards.
  3. @bana_vu – this is my favourite med-related studygram (and might just be my favourite studygram too).