literature review medical school

How a Literature Course Can Help Premed Students

Most medical schools require exposure to literature, which can help develop a critical eye and research skills.

How a Literature Course Can Help Premeds

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In literature classes premed students may encounter ideas, cultures and views they might not otherwise.

When most people hear the term premedical classes, they think about the chemistry, physics and biology courses that medical schools require students to complete prior to matriculation. The fact that most med schools also require a year of college English courses may come as a surprise.

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While the rationale for embracing the hard sciences before starting a science-based career is obvious, the importance of building a solid foundation in the humanities may be less apparent to prospective med students. Participating in collegiate-level literature classes builds skills that may not be developed elsewhere in the premed curriculum. Literature courses can nurture your analytical skills; enhance your ability to comprehend and synthesize findings in peer-reviewed research; and present opportunities to broaden your perspective on social, emotional and economic issues.

If you are a premed student selecting courses for next term, consider enrolling in a literature course for three important reasons:

• Literature courses can help you develop a critical eye.
• Literature courses teach you how to be a researcher.
• Literature courses expose you to ideas, cultures and views you may otherwise miss.

Literature Courses Can Help You Develop a Critical Eye

Literature courses are all about interpretation. Unlike science courses, which require the memorization and manipulation of facts and principles, literature classes ask you to determine what an author is saying, what an author is not saying and to make sense of a text beyond what is directly in front of you on the page.

Drawing on your experiences, other literary texts and multidisciplinary lenses, literature courses require you to apply a magnifying glass to a sentence – or even a word – while simultaneously reaching into the vast expanse of academia and culture. In no other discipline will you find yourself dealing not only with the class materials at hand, but also with the philosophical, sociological, psychological, anthropological, historical and economic contexts in which those materials live.

Many colleges and universities offer literature courses focused on close literary analysis that best develop this critical eye. At Bryn Mawr College , my alma mater, Methods of Literary Study provides a semester-long forum in which students weave primary literary texts, literary theory and their personal perspectives to piece together a nuanced interpretation of course materials. Seeking out a similar class can help you foster the interpretive skills necessary to understand the complex clinical presentations you will see as a physician.

Literature Courses Teach You How to be a Researcher

Becoming a good researcher involves more than knowing how to use lab equipment, crunch numbers and summarize data. All new research is built upon the shoulders of work already done. Being able to take in and synthesize the body of work that came before your project is key to contributing to the advancement of any given field. Lab science courses do a great job of teaching students how to do experiments in a vacuum, but when it comes to situating the results of those experiments within a larger context, science classes often fall short.

In contrast, literature courses impart the skills needed to complete what’s known as a literature review, or a review of academic articles pertinent to your subject of interest. In the medical world, literature reviews are crucial for obtaining institutional approval to move forward with an experiment, present work to peers and publish in academic journals. Writing papers for literature classes requires students to delve into past interpretations of a text before offering new viewpoints.

Courses in classical literature perhaps best nurture review skills, as time-honored texts come packaged with significant bodies of critical research begging for understanding and synthesis prior to drawing conclusions. Because research is important not only in the medical school application process, but as a medical student and physician as well, think about taking a literature class that emphasizes literary review.

Literature Courses Expose You to Ideas, Cultures and Views You May Otherwise Miss

Throughout your medical career, you will encounter patients and colleagues whose perspectives contrast with your own. Part of being a good physician is being able to meet contrasting viewpoints with empathy and openness, and with sensitivity to the cultural context in which they were raised. Literature classes – especially those that focus on texts from a certain culture – are one way you can start expanding your worldview during your undergraduate years.

I still remember a class I took in contemporary African fiction during my senior year of college. Though reading texts from sub-Saharan authors was no substitute for immersing myself within any one of the multitudes of cultures on the African continent, the course helped me gain a basic understanding of cultural values of which I had been ignorant. Exploring multiethnic texts was an important means by which I developed myself as a well-rounded student and cultivated a curiosity in ideas outside of my own experience.

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Need a guide through the murky medical school admissions process? Medical School Admissions Doctor offers a roundup of expert and student voices in the field to guide prospective students in their pursuit of a medical education. The blog is currently authored by Dr. Ali Loftizadeh, Dr. Azadeh Salek and Zach Grimmett at Admissions Helpers , a provider of medical school application services; Dr. Renee Marinelli at MedSchoolCoach , a premed and med school admissions consultancy; Dr. Rachel Rizal, co-founder and CEO of the Cracking Med School Admissions consultancy; Dr. Cassie Kosarec at Varsity Tutors , an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report; Dr. Kathleen Franco, a med school emeritus professor and psychiatrist; and Liana Meffert, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine and a writer for Admissions Helpers. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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• Melbourne Medical School
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Literature review

Literature reviews are a way of identifying what is already known about a research area and what the gaps are. To do a literature review, you will need to identify relevant literature, often through searching academic databases, and then review existing literature. Most often, you will do the literature review at the beginning of your research project, but it is iterative, so you may choose to change the literature review as you move through your project.

Searching the literature

The University of Melbourne Library has some resources about searching the literature. Leonie spoke about how she met with a librarian about searching the literature. You may also want to meet face-to-face with a librarian or attend a class at the library to learn more about literature searching. When you search the literature, you may find journal articles, reports, books and other materials.

Filing, categorising and managing literature

In order to manage the literature you have identified through searches, you may choose to use a reference manager. The University of Melbourne has access to RefWorks and Endnote. Further information about accessing this software is available through the University of Melbourne Library .

Writing a literature review

The purpose of the literature review is to identify what is already known about a particular research area and critically analyse prior studies. It will also help you to identify any gaps in the research and situate your research in what is already known about a particular topic.

• Aveyard, H. (2010). Doing a literature review in health and social care: A practical guide . London, UK: McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved from Proquest https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unimelb/detail.action?docID=771406
• Reeves, S., Koppel, I., Barr, H., Freeth, D., Hammick, M. (2002). Twelve tips for undertaking a systematic review. Medical Teacher . 24(4), 358-363 .
• Grant, M.J. and Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal .
• Jesson, J., & Lacey, F. (2006). How to do (or not to do) a critical literature review. Pharmacy Education , 6(2), 139-148 .