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Pathology work experience

Hi, I'm currently in year 12 and I'm interested in a career in pathology. I've been trying to find pathology work experience, but our local hospital won't open the pathology unit to work experience people. However they do have a "general" work experience week (which won't include pathology), is it worth going anyway to get experience of a medical environment?
Also, could you recommend any other work experience/ volunteer work etc. that could be relevant or helpful?
Thank you
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Ghotay
13
Do you want to apply for medicine and specialise as a pathologist, or are you planning to apply to a different degree and become a lab tech or similar?

If the former, I would say get whatever work experience you can and just focus on getting into med school. Once you're in medical school you'll have plenty of opportunities to get involved in your speciality of interest. Nobody really cares about what speciality you say you want to do at such an early stage, because so many people end up changing their minds.

If the latter, then I don't know too much about it but my advice would be to do the work experience anyway, because it's only going to strengthen your CV and there's really no reason not to. Whatever it is that you end up seeing, you could probably spin into something relevant for PS purposes anyway.

As for work experience, I don't know how far you'd get, but you could try contacting the Royal College of Pathologists and see if they could get you in touch with someone http://www.rcpath.org/careers

Just remember: ALL work experience is GOOD work experience
Original post by OPJD
Hi, I'm currently in year 12 and I'm interested in a career in pathology. I've been trying to find pathology work experience, but our local hospital won't open the pathology unit to work experience people. However they do have a "general" work experience week (which won't include pathology), is it worth going anyway to get experience of a medical environment?
Also, could you recommend any other work experience/ volunteer work etc. that could be relevant or helpful?
Thank you


As above it really depends whether you want to be a medical doctor specializing in pathology (what most people mean by pathologist) or a clinical scientist working in pathology. The routes of entry are different.

If you want to be a medical pathologist then you have to go through medical school and become a junior doctor first before entering into a pathology training programme. Even as a pathologist, you will be working with other doctors giving your opinion on diagnosis and management, so it is imperative you have a strong medical background. So I would advise you go for a general medical work experience week. This will also be important for your application to medical school.

If you want to be a clinical scientist working in pathology, then you need a 2:1 honours degree in a relevant biological/biomedical discipline and then apply for an NHS training post. Although you will still be involved in patient care and management, this role is more focused on lab-work. I wouldn't worry too much about work experience at this stage, just focus on getting into university to study for a biology degree.

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