One Stop Packing List: Medical Student Edition

Starting your journey in medicine is exciting, but for students moving away from home it can be challenging to figure out what you need to take.

Here, we would like to help make your move as seamless as possible with a one stop packing list: medical school edition.

Basics/Miscellaneous

• Clothes and footwear
• Stationery
• Umbrella
• Door wedge
• Digital devices: laptop, smartphone, tablet, charging cables, headphones, speakers, storage device (or a Cloud back-up account)
• Mini sewing kit
• Face masks 
• Backpack

Bedroom 

• Bedding (1x duvet, 1x duvet cover, 2x pillows, 2x pillowcase, 1x mattress protector, 1x blanket, 1x fitted bed sheet)
• Book ends 
• Bin bags
• Extension cord, surge protected multi-tab power strip
• Over the door organiser
• Laundry basket
• First aid kit
• Posters
  

Bathroom 

• Towel
• Toilet roll
• Toiletries, including emergency medications
  

Kitchen (if not living at a catered residence)

• Washing up liquid
• Oven tray
• Pots and pans
• Cling wrap
• Aluminium foil
• Baking paper
• Dish cloth
• Can opener
• Bottle opener
• Tea towel
• Crockery
• Oven gloves
• Tupperware
• Mugs

Specifically for Medics

Textbooks 

Contrary to what you might be tempted to do, you DO NOT need to bring medical textbooks to university and should definitely NOT buy textbooks to bring with you. Most universities will have a medical library or a medicine section of the library that will stock almost every textbook you seek. Even more options are available online and as textbooks are constantly being updated, new versions are constantly printed making old versions less valuable if you intend to sell them secondhand. 

Exams are usually based on your lecture notes anyway so while textbooks may help explain a concept in more depth, it would be ludicrous, not to mention extremely stressful, to try and base your knowledge off textbooks alone. 

Lab coat

If you don’t already have one, it might be a good idea to buy one before you start medical school. You’ll be needing one for every lab/dissecting session and you might be denied entry to without one. 

Over the ankle socks

While handling scalpels and other sharp objects, over the ankle socks are sometimes required to ensure you don’t cut yourself if you drop what you’re holding. 

Smart Clothing

If your medical school offers early clinical exposure, you might find yourself in a GP clinic or hospital where, unless shadowing in surgery, you will be expected to dress appropriately and to the dress code. The dress code in a GP clinic and hospital is generally the same: keep it smart and clean. Start small, bring a few outfits with you and build on it throughout medical school!

• Men: Collared shirts with sleeves ending above the elbow and closed toe shoes.
• Women: Hair ties, tops with sleeves ending above the elbow, and closed toe shoes. Excessively short skirts, exposed midriffs or exposed underwear are not acceptable. Long or dangly jewellery can interfere with patient contact and should be avoided.
• When in doubt, think about the junior doctors you shadowed while on work experience.

Erasable white board

A good way to practice active recall, a whiteboard replaces the need to waste paper and is extremely useful for brainstorming, making mind maps and general organisation. Getting through medical school involves learning and memorising several pathways for which a whiteboard can make the process much easier. 

Stethoscope

We don’t recommend you buy a stethoscope before you start university, as you might find you don’t quite need it as a first year. You just need one before you start clinical sessions.

Tendon Hammer

A tendon hammer may be listed on your required packing list for medical school but we wouldn’t recommend you buy one at all. Most situations which will require you to use one will have one present for you to practice with.