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Paths / Path 39

Medicine

How the body works, how it fails, how doctors reason, and what medicine can and can't do.

For: anyone thinking of studying medicine or nursing, anyone who has sat in a doctor's office and wanted to understand what was happening, anyone who reads health news.

Shaped by the UK General Medical Council's Outcomes for Graduates (2018), the AAMC's Core Entrustable Professional Activities, Canada's CanMEDS roles and the World Federation for Medical Education's global standards; told for both routes into medicine, the six-year degree straight from school (most of the world) and the four-year MD after college (the US and Canada). Descriptive, not medical advice.

17readings
3.6 hoursof reading
4stages
17 reads
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Stage 1

Year 1 · The normal body

5 readings · 1.1 hours
  1. 01ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Biochemistry: The Chemistry That Keeps Itself Going

    The molecules and metabolism behind every disease.
  2. 02ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Cell Biology: The Smallest Unit That Is Alive

    Cells, and cancer as their breakdown.
  3. 03ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Physiology: How Bodies Keep Themselves Alive

    How the body keeps itself alive.
  4. 04ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Anatomy: Where Everything Is, and Why There

    The body's structure, region by region.
  5. 05ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Genetics: Inheritance, Chance and What Genes Can't Tell You

    Inheritance, and the genetics behind disease.
Stage 2

Year 2 · How things go wrong

4 readings · 51 min
  1. 06ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Pathology: How Bodies Go Wrong, in Order

    Inflammation, repair, tumours and the mechanisms of disease.
  2. 07ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Immunology: An Army That Learns What to Fight and What to Spare

    The immune system, from infection to allergy and autoimmunity.
  3. 08ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Microbiology: The Invisible Majority

    Bacteria, viruses and resistance.
  4. 09ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Pharmacology: What a Drug Does, and What the Body Does Back

    How drugs act on the body, and the body on drugs.
Stage 3

Year 3 · Evidence and judgment

4 readings · 53 min
  1. 10ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Epidemiology & Evidence-Based Medicine: Out of How Many, Compared With What?

    How medicine knows what works.
  2. 11ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Clinical Reasoning & Diagnosis: Probability With a Human in the Loop

    From symptoms to diagnosis: how clinicians think, and how they err.
  3. 12ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Medical Ethics & Law: Whose Body, Whose Decision

    Consent, confidentiality, end of life and the law.
  4. 13ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Clinical Psychology: Where Normal Ends and Care Begins

    Mental illness and its treatment.
Stage 4

Year 4 · Patients and populations

4 readings · 50 min
  1. 14ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Surgery, Anaesthesia & Emergency Care: The First Hour and the Operating Room

    Operations, anaesthesia and the first hour after an emergency.
  2. 15ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Public & Global Health: Health Beyond the Clinic

    Health beyond the clinic: populations, systems and the world.
  3. 16ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Biological Psychology: The Wet Machine Behind the Mind

    The nervous system and the brain.
  4. 17ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Bioinformatics & Genomics: Biology as Data

    Genomic medicine and its data.
When you finish

the free OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology 2e; the Khan Academy health and medicine courses, free; the textbooks named at the end of each subject. See also the library's 01 Nervous System & Body and 25 Drugs.

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