You have got the sniffles. You feel a bit ill. Satisfied with your scholarly diagnosis of “cold,” you pop a Panadol and down some hot chicken-noodle soup — excellent doctoring. By week’s end, your symptoms return with a vengeance. Your “sinuses are at it again.” You need something more robust: lemon tea, perhaps? But your body’s burning up, and your head feels like it’s being crushed. Ibuprofen does nothing. Over days, you become bedridden and confused. Simple tasks start to feel strangely difficult, and you are waking up… in the ER post-seizure. “I have a brain abscess?! How did we get here?!” you say. We can run down the list of all socioeconomic barriers to medical education, but I’d also like you to consider that it might be because almost no one gets taught to think like a doctor... including medical students.

I found little solace in the doctors and professors I posed these concerns to, often being brushed off with some version of “Do not worry, you'll relearn medicine in residency anyway”. I would ask myself, “Then what have I been studying for the past years?” This nonchalance almost felt cruel at times. Examinations felt contrived, rewarding regurgitation rather than discernment, and perhaps rightfully so. Even ‘problem-based learning’ (PBL), a historically great introduction to medical education, remains poorly implemented in most medical schools today, as experts are notoriously terrible at explaining their thought process unless deliberately trained to do so. There is too little time and students do not participate and/or know facts equally, according to program directors.

A 2017 study showed that over half the medical schools in the US did not formally teach any clinical reasoning during clinical years, and the ones that did taught only an average of 6 hours throughout the entirety of medical school. That is a terrifying figure. Thankfully, the tide is turning, with some schools integrating formal reasoning curricula as early as the very first day of med school. Wonderful online communities like ‘Clinical Problem Solvers’ have cropped up to help budding doctors reason better.

If it is such a problem, why stop with medical students? Why not pre-health students, medical researchers, and engineers? Why not ‘everyday’ people? Everyone deserves to be able to reason medically, from the enthusiastic undergrad memorizing what 2,3-BPG is (again), to the patient advocating for themselves in a flawed medical environment.

What if, just what if… everyone could think a little bit like a doctor?

That is when Mind Over Medicine was born.

Unlike traditional pre-med education, which focuses heavily on memorization, Mind Over Medicine provides a very interactive, engaging, and early introduction to diagnostic thinking — a skill often reserved for medical school. In this group, we aim to cultivate practical decision-making abilities by engaging students in small-group, case-based workshops, preparing participants for the realities of patient care. The blend of live interactive discussions, problem-solving exercises, and mentorship from medical students makes this a unique and invaluable experience for those aspiring to enter healthcare.

We had our first workshop earlier this year called ‘Patterns in the Noise’. This saw us coordinate a fun educational simulation with students acting as patients (even including makeup!) and physicians carrying out guided medical case reviews. We hope to build on what we’ve learnt from this event and gather more students (even those not interested in med school) to interact with Mind Over Medicine.

Look out for Mind Over Medicine or NeSMAH posters around campus for a way to get involved, either with your clinical curiosity and expertise, management experience, or acting skills!