Last Updated on October 18, 2023 by Laura Turner
Are you a busy prehealth or health professional student – or are you shopping for one? Then check out our curated list of gift ideas for the future physician, veterinarian, dentist, psychologist, or other prehealth students in your life. Plus, many of these items are available with special Black Friday deals so that you can save on your purchase.
Note: Student Doctor Network will receive an affiliate payment for purchases made via the links in this article. Thank you for supporting our nonprofit mission!
Dress for Success
As the weather gets colder, keeping your toes toasty is important. Show off your future profession with fun socks. Options include these medical socks available for both men and women, dog socks for future vets, and brains for budding psychologists.
If a t-shirt or hoodie is more your style, visit the SDN Merchandise store from Bonfire for a variety of options, including for physicians, dentists, and pharmacists. Help us keep SDN running and look cool doing it!
Support Your Studies
Staying focused on the Krebs cycle or alkanes can be a challenge if your next-door neighbor is having a loud Call of Duty marathon. Noise-canceling headphones can be a lifesaver. Beats offers great over-the-ear and earbud versions.
If Anatomy is your focus, reach back to kindergarten to help you study by using the famous Anatomy Coloring Book. A set of high-quality colored pencils from Castle Arts will help you clearly delineate different structures.
If you want to reduce the amount of paper that you are consuming in your studies, consider a Rocketbook reusable notebook, which can be erased with water and reused. The Pro version includes an NFC hotspot to send your notes to digital devices (and no rings on the left for the left-handed folks out there).
Finally, if you are looking for stocking stuffers for your student, the basics are always useful. BIC Highlighters help note important details in texts, and Zebra pens will help you take notes on those highlights.
Get Camera Ready
Virtual interviewing is becoming more common. Make sure you’re ready for your closeup with a high-rated webcam. A quality microphone will ensure your interviewers can hear what you have to say. And while not a necessity, an inexpensive ring light will definitely make you look better on camera.
Feeding the Brain
Keeping yourself fed and hydrated while you push through your studies can be a challenge. Finding easy meals, such as the ones detailed in Dinner in One, a one-pot meal cookbook, let you complete prep and clean up fast and get back to the books. If you are organized (and if you are a pre-med, that goes without saying), you can complete meal prep on a down day and freeze your dinners in individual serving containers, so all you have to do is heat them up. Another great tool for fast meal prep is an all-in-one electric air fryer, slow cooker, and pressure cooker from Instant Pot. I was an Instant Pot skeptic, but it is now my most used cooking appliance – it’s that useful.
Keeping yourself hydrated on the go is important as well. Hydroflask makes top-notch water bottles that will keep your water or another beverage cold for hours. If you need to keep your drink cool or hot on your commute, the Stanley tumbler is a great option available in a variety of colors.
And if you need a caffeine kick to push through, Death Wish coffee will put you over the top. For tea drinkers, this assortment from the Republic of Tea has both caffeinated and decaf options. The Ember mug will keep your caffeine delivery system of choice piping hot as you work through your homework.
Hitting the Books
While doing more reading while you are in school might seem daunting, it can help you prepare for the reading sections of admissions exams and give you topics to discuss in your admissions interviews. Mary Roach’s Gulp, now available in paperback, provides an entertaining look at the digestive system. To get some perspective on the recent COVID-19 pandemic, check out Sanjay Gupta’s World War C, which tries to identify the lessons learned from this pandemic that we can apply to the next one. For an analysis of the opioid crisis and its continuing impact, read Raising Lazarus, the latest by Dopesick author Beth Macy. Finally, author Siddhartha Mukherjee’s latest, The Song of the Cell, goes into depth on our increasing ability to manipulate health at the cellular level.
Looking for further inspiration? Explore the SDN store on Amazon for a wide range of ideas and resources!
Laura Turner, MS, is the Executive Director of the Health Professional Student Association (HPSA), which publishes the Student Doctor Network (SDN). Prior to working with HPSA, she served for eight years as the Executive Director of SDN. At HPSA and SDN, Laura has been instrumental in providing students with tools and resources to pursue their aspirations in healthcare. Her previous roles include business analyst positions at The Capital Group and product management and marketing roles at software companies Paciolan, Adexa, and MSC Software.
In her current role at HPSA, Laura continues to drive innovation and forge partnerships to better support aspiring healthcare professionals. She is grateful for the opportunity to help countless individuals to achieve their dreams.