[Democracy]

Hello all, just a quick q about my work experience woes, please help!

So I rang my local hospital's work experience department and they sent me the forms and an itinery of what I'd be doing. It involves stuff like making beds, talking to patients, fetching drinks, etc, which I'm looking forward to. However, in threads like this, people have gone into cardiology, the path lab, the op theatre, and more. I want to be a surgeon later on, so I really would be in heaven if I could get into the Op Theatre. However, nothing clinical was mentioned on the timetable, even though I'll be 17 when the work experience commences (which is the age for witnessing clinical stuff)

So my question is: To arrange a work experience in Cardiology and Op Theatre, do I re-ring the work experience lady and ask, wether I can go into the cardiology and op theatre too?

OR do I ring the individual department, eg Cardiology, and ask them wether I can spend a week shadowing a consultant, or anaesthetist or w/e? I'm kinda guessing it's the individual department thing, but I may be wrong.

I will enjoy the bed making stuff, I love talking to people, however I was also hoping to also have some clinical stuff to talk about hopefully next year in my interview...I mean this guy at my school got to witness a coronary angioplasty, and I think that kind of thing would be so cool to not only see but to talk about.

Read essay and respond please!

Cheers XD

[ph9]

hmm i'm fairly certain you have to be 18+ to go into the operating theatre...?

when i did my week's work experience, i just wrote to the undergrad department of my local hospital asking if i could shadow a doctor and they sorted out a week for me at the gastro department... i didn't have to specifically write to a department but then it probably varies hospital to hospital

when i was on my work exp, the doctor in charge of me would randomly send me over to cardio or paediatrics when there was nothing going on in our ward... perhaps you could get to go off and see an endoscopy (the most exciting thing i saw all week lol) or something?

phone them up and ask if they do work shadowing placements, might as well and if they don't, try other hospitals. i suppose 'work' and 'shadowing' are keywords....

[Johnny C.]

Well really you should do your work experience in the department you would like to observe. So if you want to see a coronary angioplasty, then you need to be in the cardiology department etc...

Usually, once you're on your work experience, you can get to see different things just by asking nicely. I did one of my work experience placements in ITU and asked if I could see some surgery. So one of the consultants phoned up a colleague and I got to spend a day observing ENT surgery.

[Democracy]

Thanks to you both. That's cleared things up a bit more for me...so I'll try ringing Cardiology tomorrow and asking about a shadowing placement.

[mrs_bellamy]

(Original post by Democracy)
Thanks to you both. That's cleared things up a bit more for me...so I'll try ringing Cardiology tomorrow and asking about a shadowing placement.

Yeah thats a good idea. I did work experience in 2 hospitals, first one I wrote to the work exp person and got admin sort of stuff, the second one I wrote to a few departments in the hospital, and got more clinical stuff in cardiology (saw surgery, echos, ecgs, went to ICU etc, was awesome). Maybe try calling/writing to a few departments, cos only one of the departments I wrote to replied.

If it doesn't work, the work exp they've offered you is fine, and im sure you'll still have a great time and see loads, but if you really want cardiology you might as well try.

Good luck with it!

[Democracy]

(Original post by Marvi)
Yeah thats a good idea. I did work experience in 2 hospitals, first one I wrote to the work exp person and got admin sort of stuff, the second one I wrote to a few departments in the hospital, and got more clinical stuff in cardiology (saw surgery, echos, ecgs, went to ICU etc, was awesome). Maybe try calling/writing to a few departments, cos only one of the departments I wrote to replied.

If it doesn't work, the work exp they've offered you is fine, and im sure you'll still have a great time and see loads, but if you really want cardiology you might as well try.

Good luck with it!

Thanks, all that stuff you did sounds really good XD. So I guess I'll ring first thing tomorrow, since no one was really in yesterday to help.

[arpeggio]

It's a good idea to ask if you want to see something specific. Hospitals also get work experience students in who want to be nurses, paramedics, occupational therapists... they can't know what you want to go into or what area you'd like to see unless you say! I'm on work experience this week myself - I spent most of today filing and shredding paper, but luckily I'm allowed to go into theatre tomorrow, which only happened because I had a conversation with the staff nurse about it! So yeah, if you're nice and polite about it then I'm sure someone will let you

[darzona]

Take whatever they offer you! Then you can make yourself known as a nice/friendly/helpful person, and go from there - they might offer you more if you ask afterwards.
There's also always the possibility that whilst you are making beds etc, you will get to speak to a doctor/nurse who will be really helpful and offer to let you follow them that afternoon or something - there are often people who actually really enjoy helping wk exp people and talking for hours about their job *remembers radiology tech man who talked about the intimate workings of his mri scanner for almost 2 hours*!
Certainly try what other people have suggested and you may well get a result. Unfortunately, a large part of getting work experience seems to be 'who you know', irritating though this may be. Get in, make yourself known, then they're more likely to choose you over other applicants for shadowing type work experience!

[Revd. Mike]

My work experience was amazing, entirely clinical, with a large part in theatres.I learnt a lot No filing or making tea for me! (One of the surgical registrars actually made me a cup of tea, which made me laugh seeing as it's usually the other way round )

[Democracy]

(Original post by Revd. Mike)
My work experience was amazing, entirely clinical, with a large part in theatres.I learnt a lot No filing or making tea for me! (One of the surgical registrars actually made me a cup of tea, which made me laugh seeing as it's usually the other way round )

Did you go to the QE2?

[Revd. Mike]

I did indeed Gosh, you're not local are you?

[Democracy]

I used to live in Hertfordshire. I still go to a school there...and one of my friends is going for work experience at the QE2...and since it's on your user profile thing that you live in potters bar, I just made a lucky guess :P

[deutschland99]

hi friends,

iam starting my work experience in a hospital t'morrow. 2 days in cardiology and 2 days in Neurology.

could you please tell me what sort of intersting things i can ask them about? like what i want to see?

thanks 4 help!