You are entering a profession with multiple challenges and opportunities. From day one, you can join CMF, a movement of like-minded students, to grow in faith, speak for Jesus and serve others. CONNECT 'when you come together... let all things be done for building up' (1 Corinthians 14:26) CMF is here to...
Dave had just started medical school. He didn't know many people, and was keen to find a lively and welcoming church. Ideally with free food. He soon found a large, student church near campus, with achingly cool people and 'awesome' worship music. The YouTube videos they used instead of sermons...
put God first Daily devotions are an important and helpful way of reading Scripture and deepening your relationship with God. Find a time to read Scripture that works for you. Whether that's in the morning, during your lunch break or before bed, try to take some time out with God....
Time, or rather the lack of it, is a subject close to every medic's heart. Perhaps we laugh ruefully at Ecclesiastes' claim that 'there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.' (1) If only. When you pause for breath, you might notice that...
In the summer of AD 386, a young man lay weeping under a fig tree in a Milanese garden. Tormented by his failure to overcome his sinfulness, he cried out to God: 'Will you be angry forever?' Suddenly he heard a child's voice, chanting. 'Take and read; take and read'....
As you embark on several years of study, you will spend most of your waking hours engaged in writing, reading, revising, placements and lectures. And yet we rarely hear a sermon on work. So here are four things for you to take into your studies: your work doesn't define you The...
…who suffers from mental illness In my second year, I became unwell with depression and anxiety. To the outside world I seemed fine but I actually felt incredibly alone and ashamed. Despite treatment and support, things progressively worsened and I was almost hospitalised two weeks before my end of year exams....
You've just enjoyed a discussion of autonomy in an ethics seminar. During the coffee break your friend asks: 'You Christians seemed to have a lot to say in that session. What do you actually believe?' You've got five minutes. What will you say? The motto 'Be Prepared' is important...
'Where's home for you?' If you haven't worked out an answer before freshers' week starts, do it now. Along with 'what course do you do?' and 'which halls are you in?', it is one of the staples of conversation in queues to register, or at the first meeting of the...
a junior doctor Dr Phoebe Owen What area of medicine are you in? I am a core trainee in psychiatry (CT2). Why did you choose this area? At medical school I enjoyed so many areas but when I got a foundation rotation with a psychiatry placement I found I loved it, that I...
You may still be wondering what CMF is all about. Well, there are CMF student groups in more than 25 English, seven Irish, five Scottish and two Welsh medical schools, and a growing number of nurses groups. Church? CU? CMF? The CMF group is not a church, nor is it the...
CMF splits the country into nine regions, identical to the ones that UCCF does for CUs. Recently, the different student CMF groups in the north west have been building closer relationships with one another. This began with a weekend away in the autumn, bringing together medical and healthcare students from...
Other students always love to point out that Oxford and Cambridge preclinical students have three eight week terms, which (in theory) equals twenty-eight weeks holiday! Not everyone gets quite such a generous entitlement. But wherever you study, the summer holidays during the early years of medical school are the longest...
can I pray with a patient? A patient might ask for prayer. Perhaps with a GP they know to be a Christian. Or perhaps from a student who they've got to know well. These situations are the exception, not the rule. But prayer can be greatly valued by patients at the...
At first glance it appears relatively uncontroversial. After all, the World Health Organisation (WHO) describes health as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity', (1) which isn't so different. In some parts of the NHS spiritual care is embraced....
I t's easy to think that prescribing antibiotics is a 'scientific' decision, without the need for ethics or 'value judgments'. But if the patient is foreign, unconscious, terminally ill, with life-threatening pneumonia, and if the antibiotics are very expensive with nasty side-effects, all sorts of ethical considerations become apparent: consent;...
Arriving at university you will become aware, if you aren't already, of a vast number of ethical issues: drug policies, mental health, abortion, reproductive technologies, genetic engineering, slavery, gender dysphoria, freedom of conscience, end of life decisions and organ donation, to name but a few. My question is: 'Should we...
Endocrinology. You know, a subspecialty that a few will pursue, but most won't. Sadly, that is how many people see medical mission. But is that how God is calling us to think? what's the problem? The vast majority of the world live in low or middle income countries (LMICs). In the...
Christian doctors and nurses, inspired by the example and teaching of Jesus, have been at the forefront of efforts to alleviate human suffering, cure disease, and advance knowledge and understanding. the hospital movement Before Christianity, there were several hospital-like centres in Buddhist regions. The ancient Greeks practised a very simple form...
Rachel Owusu-Ankomah is CMF Head of Student Ministries. Well, you have arrived at university. A myriad of emotions may be flooding you: excitement, fear and confusion. Perhaps a mix of questions: can I do this? What will people be like? Will I make friends? How do I get to lecture...