Current affairs shouldn’t form a huge chunk of your personal statement as what you write about should be more focussed on your motivation, qualities, experiences which show that you understand what a career in medicine entails.
It’s not essential that you evidence knowledge of current affairs in your person statement at all – I had no mention of any current affairs at all in mine. If you do want to still mention it in some way in yours it’ll be good if you can link it to something e.g. a book you read and reflected on, something you saw during your work experience that links to the current news situation, or if you did any research projects based around a “hot topic”. I’d say just mentioning you read health-related news without having something more to say about it isn’t going to be very strong and that space could be better used with you talking about other experiences you’ve had. Generally, current affairs are more going to be assessed at interview and the purpose of the personal statement is more to assess your motivation and suitability for medicine.
If you still want to bring in current affairs you can do so with the perspective of proving your scientific interest. You can mention something interesting you read and reflect on it further by talking about what that taught you about medicine, skills required in medicine, the future of the NHS, or anything else that’s relevant. This should all be done in 1 sentence (maximum 2). You shouldn’t use up space in your personal statement going into detail about what it was you read or the ins and outs of new scientific research, instead if you want to mention something you should make reference to the topic and focus more on your personal reflection.
Before you add anything in ask yourself whether your sentence contributes to proving your motivation or suitability in anyway – if it doesn’t, it’s probably best left out.
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