MEL Medicine is a monthly medical science kit for teens 14 and up. Each box has professional medical tools and materials for up to five hands-on projects, such as suturing artificial skin or recording your own ECG, plus a new virtual patient to diagnose in the MEL Science app.

What's inside

MEL currently lists 8 medicine sets.

• Therapy: a first patient exam with a stethoscope and pulse oximeter, blood pressure, heart and lung sounds.
• Surgery: a real scalpel, surgical needles, a needle holder and suture material for practicing stitches on artificial skin.
• Dentistry: Caries: a dental bur, light-curing composite and a UV lamp for drilling and filling model cavities.
• ECG: an ECG device and electrodes to record your own heart trace, with one experiment recorded on a mobile phone.
• The others are Dentistry: Orthodontics, Pharmacy, Pharmacy: Pasteur and the Cell Factory, and Laboratory Diagnostics: Urinalysis.

How it works

You pick one or more subjects at checkout and can switch subjects at any time from your MEL account. A new kit ships every month. You can pause or cancel with one click in My Account and reactivate later.

Each month also unlocks a virtual patient in the app, and video guides from doctors walk through the tools.

What kids learn

Teens practice real clinical skills, from taking a patient history and measuring blood pressure to tying surgical knots and reading a cardiogram, then use them to diagnose a virtual patient. It's an honest preview of what different medical careers involve.

Good to know before you buy

• MEL lists Medicine at $64.90 a month, about twice its other subjects.
• The kits include sharp tools such as a scalpel and needles, which is why MEL sets the age at 14 and says the sets were tested with teenagers.
• With 8 sets listed, a subscription runs out of new topics in about 8 months.
• You'll need a phone for the app and the ECG recording.
• Buying it as a gift? Enter the child's address at checkout.
• MEL doesn't publish a holiday shipping cutoff on its subject pages, so order early if the first box needs to arrive by a set date.

How it compares

MEL calls this the first and only medical subscription in the world. For a younger child interested in the body or the lab, MEL Chemistry (10+) is the closer fit.

Who it's for

Teens considering medicine, nursing, dentistry or pharmacy, high schoolers who want hands-on biology beyond the textbook, and anyone shopping for a future-doctor gift.