This August I had the opportunity to spend two weeks doing work experience, attending
clinic and theatre at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Once a woman brought her elderly
mother to the gynaecology clinic. She had trouble standing up and had neurological problems thatgave her a bad tremor. In the doctors’ room I expressed my concern to the registrar that they might
not have safety measures installed at home in case of her falling. The doctor advised me to politely
raise it, and it felt amazing to be able to get involved in a conversation with the family
appropriately. It further reassured me in pursuing medicine as a vocation, so I can keep learningand draw conclusions, making a person’s life as safe and comfortable as possible, all with empathy
and understanding.
Besides the RMH work experience, I have already been volunteering at Duna MedicalCenter, a private hospital in Budapest. I am a helper to nurses and OR staff, doing auxiliary care,surgery prep and disinfection. I carry out jobs the nurses might not have time for, for example
tending to the emotional needs of patients. I found it intriguing how academic knowledge was put
into real-life practice and seeing how a multidisciplinary team works. These opportunities gaveme an insight into the everyday life of a doctor and how patients are assessed and treated. I had achance to experience the differences between the NHS and Hungarian healthcare and sought out
explanations for procedures and diagnoses. It was a real privilege when I could join a conversationor had a suggestion that turned out to be right.
My interest in immunology was sparked by Secrets of the Human Body by the VanTullekens. The “Under Attack'' chapter made me think about how the immune system must be able
to identify cancer cells. Otherwise the probabilities would suggest many more occurrences ofserious cancers, according to further studies. In 2019, I was able to join the weekly meetings of agroup of elite mathematicians and doctors, whose work focuses around immune checkpoint
inhibitor therapy. They discuss immunological theories and recent academic publications. Keeping
up with the readings and preparing my questions was an encouraging challenge.
In Year 9, I wrote a 1200 word essay for a school project on the biochemistry of ageing,
centred around telomere length and the mechanism of cancer cells. This inspired me to read
popular science books, including Bad Science by Goldacre, whose techniques of recognising flaws
in experiments and reasoning I aim to employ when reading scientific texts. My interest intelomeres was renewed when I started thinking about what telomere lengths mean in terms of longterm survival, how they affect relapses and quality of life in cancer survivors. This was based on

two studies, one concluded that longer telomeres in leukocytes increase the risk of glioma, theother showed that shorter telomeres mean worse survival in cutaneous melanoma patients.
I have always had a strong love for competing. I was able to channel this into maths for thepast 7 years, and recently biology, earning four national titles in the former. I have attended
invitation-based weekend and summer maths camps for the past six years, organised by thenational teams. Since 2019, I have been tutoring at and helping run the weekend camps. I was also
responsible for the one-on-one classes of the most talented students there. Additionally, I holdclasses at my school’s maths club for grades 7-10. Balancing competitive tennis, academics anddrama allowed me to improve my time-management and prioritisation skills. Drama classes havealso been a chance to gain communication and team-working skills when working on scenes
together.
While I realised through work experience and reading that medicine is a physically andmentally demanding job, my experiences make me confident that I possess the aptitude, skills, andmotivation to excel in this gratifying and intellectually stimulating vocation.