“Just as expected!” My firm partner Paullina shouted aloud right after our first bedside teaching session at Ward D7 of Addenbrooke’s hospital. We, as first year student doctors of University of Cambridge, were just too excited and flushed with joy. After long painstaking three years of preclinical studies with seemingly endless physiology lectures and anatomy practicals, we were finally in the hospital, fully equipped with our brand-new stethoscopes around our necks and flashy identification cards. It was the first day of our training to be a doctor, and our first bedside teaching session with Dr Flynn was just extraordinary.

             Practicing medicine is with out a doubt one of the most prestigious jobs not only owing to the fact that a doctor can promote health and fight diseases but also the rewards and enormous gratitude doctors often receive from patients. Medicine is a perfect combination where art and science can coexist with a lot of human contact. I would like to encourage many students to consider medicine as their future career paths. However, unrivalled intensity, high costs and the long duration of the medical course should be examined carefully beforehand. Commitment to succeed academically and maturity to perform at their best under stress are required.

                        Numerous exceptionally bright students apply to 25 medical schools in the UK and every year, approximately 6000 new medical students embark on their five to six years of medical education. Admission to medical school effectively signifies the admittance to medical profession. Competition to the entry is fierce and this is further complicated for Korea students by limited quota system, allowing only 6% of foreign admissions per school. In the UK, the admission system to higher educations generally allows students to apply to up to six universities. However, applicants intending to read medicine may only apply to four medical schools. Unlike US medical schools, admission does not require any preliminary higher education degree, and students can generally commence medical education immediately after graduating from colleges (equivalents to Korean high schools). After submitting the applications, students must sit premedical admission tests, and their admission forms are eval!uated by admission tutors. For admission, good academic attainment is required, as understanding science is core to learning medicine. In general, offers are made to obtain at least two As and one B in A levels, but one should acknowledge that over 70% successful candidates enter medical school with more than three As. However, it must be noted that great academic achievement is not the sole quality admission tutors seek. Extracurricular activities, voluntary involvement in community services, previous exposure to relevant medical environments and most importantly, personal qualities are assessed. Curiosity, creativity, initiative, flexibility, and leadership are all desirable characteristics for the aspiring doctor. Also, maintaining fit health is important, since the practice of medicine requires the highest standards of personal competence.

             On admission, you should be ready to exert yourself fully to be a doctor. Learning medicine is enforced by a formidable range of teaching methods. During the first period of medical school, students are timetabled for lectures and practicals just like the other university students. Familiarising medical terms and understanding the broad concepts in human physiology and anatomy are often focused onto scientific truths and facts in a didactic manner. Yet, many schools nowadays employ a new curriculum, where students are introduced to patients and exposed to clinical environments from considerably early stages. For instance, I interviewed my first ever patient in the first week of starting the medical course. Many medical schools offer intercalated Bsc year allowing medical students to obtain an expedited three year science degree course in just one year. This may be optional, and very often involves a wide range of choices on subjects medical students can briefly engage themselves in other than medicine. For me, this was an excellent chance to widen my perspectives into molecular basis of diseases, and to undertake my own laboratory based research. Then, a whole new era of clinical medicine embraces science-driven students and it primarily focuses on integrating theoretical teaching and clinical medicine into real life. From this stage, interacting with real patients in hospital as a student doctor forms the basis of learning