This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

How much work exp. do I need?

My school has given me a contact in social services and I have my won contact who can get me into hospitals and other places like that. I'm planning on starting in the summer hols this year (I'm in year 11), as my dad won't let me start in the easter hols because he wants me to revise then.
So, how much experience do I need exactly to make a successful application to a top med school? 1 year? Also, I have to say what I learned from it right? Can i just say something like it has given me a more realistic picture of the environment that I would be working in if i became a doctor, it has taught me more about the mental and physical requirements for success, i have learnt the demands of working in a team and individually etc........

Reply 1

jeebsa

Or you could just skip the work experience and lie on your ps

i was practically Indiana Jones on mine

Reply 2

Renal

17

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=10068464

You could think about trying to get something now for a couple of hours a week, visiting a nursing home for example, because long-term placements are good as well as holiday experience.

Reply 4

Speedbird2008

3

1 week of shadowing a hospital doctor

1 week shadowing a GP

Work in a nursing home

That is pretty much it. :smile:

And also, I always never understand why people lie in their PS like Jeebsa... I would, as I can bull%%%%%%%% well in an interview. Don't have a go at me, I am just interested about why you shouldn't, from current students and the like. :smile:

Reply 5

icapturethecastle

16

age old : quality not quantity...in ur ps...u have to be able to say what u have learned and gained , rather than listing it all off...

generally:
doing voluntary work in somewhere like elderly care home/hospice...for about a few months if not more...
shadowing a doctor in hospital
:dito: G.P. surgery

Reply 6

icapturethecastle

16

walrusgod

Can i just say something like it has given me a more realistic picture of the environment that I would be working in if i became a doctor, it has taught me more about the mental and physical requirements for success, i have learnt the demands of working in a team and individually etc........

^that^

and also you'll have a lot more to say once you've done the work experience

Reply 7

Annaconda

17

you could do something realy unusual like we in a natural medicine place, and say it was interesting to see what modern medicine developed from and how some of the ideas and medicines are essentially the same today e.g. bear bile used in chinese medicine, a synthetic version used today etc

that might make you stand out a bit

or a lab or something like that to see the research element etc

Reply 8

greenerwhiterblacker

Well yeah I did a week in a lab - didnt get asked about it though so not sure how interested in it they were.

Reply 9

x.beth.x

11

Just do what you want to do and what interests you/ what you think you'd benefit from doing.

For example I already have a week in a GP surgery and I volunteer at my local old people's home and on the wards of a hospital.

Some people may say this is enough already, but tbh I don't feel like I have gained enough yet to say I feel I have enough experience to apply for medicine. So I am already organising a week with someone my parents know who works in an oncology unit which is something that really interests me. I'm also hoping to do another week in another specialist unit in the summer but I'm not quite sure where yet. I also think working in a hospice would be a real learning curve in dealing with the worse side of medicine and learning how to comfort people who have been told they are terminally ill.

Damn it I just want to do everything!

Reply 10

username43584

8

I did virtually no work experience because it's hard to come across in Northern Ireland if you're not 18 - I did a week shadowing clinical physiologists in Belfast City (and incidentally met a really close friend)

But I could talk well about it...I got a lot out of it. Plus I've held down several jobs since I was 16 so I'm obviously not shy of employment (sometimes I wonder at the amount of people in my medical school who have literally not done a full day's work in their lives...how will they cope when they graduate and have to work all the hours that God sends!!) and on comparison with my work experience, the conditions of being a waitress or butcher are more similar to that of a JHO than sitting in a office typing, for example.

However I would advise doing more work experience, especially some form of long-term volunteering. I do this on a Wednesday afternoon at the moment and I'm planning on applying for more next term at one of our teaching hospitals. It really is awesome - I enjoy it and I've made good friends out of it.

Reply 11

Cirsium

19

walrusgod

My school has given me a contact in social services and I have my won contact who can get me into hospitals and other places like that. I'm planning on starting in the summer hols this year (I'm in year 11), as my dad won't let me start in the easter hols because he wants me to revise then.
So, how much experience do I need exactly to make a successful application to a top med school? 1 year? Also, I have to say what I learned from it right? Can i just say something like it has given me a more realistic picture of the environment that I would be working in if i became a doctor, it has taught me more about the mental and physical requirements for success, i have learnt the demands of working in a team and individually etc........

Knowing very little about medicine, but having read about 60 odd medicine statements in this application I would say that the minimum people tend to apply with is about 3 weeks of shadowing. Very organised people (who usually have mums or dads as doctors) sometimes manage a whole summer or shadowing but that's rare. I'd say the best applications I've read probably have about 2 months worth but by that point there's redundancy.

Generally I advise putting one thing for every placement you did (so it'd be better to have 1 week in 4 places than 4 weeks in one place) - the more different kinds of experience you can the better as you can specifically refer to things about that speciality.

Reply 12

Wangers

16

becca2389

However I would advise doing more work experience, especially some form of long-term volunteering. I do this on a Wednesday afternoon at the moment and I'm planning on applying for more next term at one of our teaching hospitals. It really is awesome - I enjoy it and I've made good friends out of it.

As in HCA stuff? If you're into volunteering, look into helping with MENCAP - I did two weeks with them BEST TIME EVER. Well organised, and absolutly brialliant fun. (stressful and humbling and absolutly exhausting) but it completly changed my views on disabilities.

Reply 13

i'm no superman

15

It's not actually about 'how much' you've done - it's about what you've actually learned from the experience. There will be some candidates who have had a dozen work experience placements and just list this. It's worth nothing if you can't talk about what you've learned and the experience on the whole.

Reply 14

Helenia

20

walrusgod

My school has given me a contact in social services and I have my won contact who can get me into hospitals and other places like that. I'm planning on starting in the summer hols this year (I'm in year 11), as my dad won't let me start in the easter hols because he wants me to revise then.
So, how much experience do I need exactly to make a successful application to a top med school? 1 year? Also, I have to say what I learned from it right? Can i just say something like it has given me a more realistic picture of the environment that I would be working in if i became a doctor, it has taught me more about the mental and physical requirements for success, i have learnt the demands of working in a team and individually etc........

How about you actually do some work experience and then say what you actually learned? If you can bull%%%%%%%% that lot before doing it, there's no point putting it on your statement as it won't make you stand out at all.

Reply 15

Wangers

16

jeebsa

Or you could just skip the work experience and lie on your ps
i was practically Indiana Jones on mine

Yes, the major flaw in that Baldrickesq plan being you're trying to bluff people who actually work in hospitals and know how %%%%%%%% they can be. It might work, then again it might not. Its not about lying, its about how truthful it sounds.

Reply 16

Renal

17

I'd have no qualms with a letter to The Council if I thought some %%%%%%%% had lied their way into medical school.

And once The Council have their teeth into you...* :colone:

(*Interestingly, sexually harassing patients seems to go down better with them)

Reply 17

digitalis

17

I think "top medical school" should be a banned phrase on TSR.

Reply 18

Renal

17

Replaced with

.

Reply 19

Becca-Sarah

19

Why is the question asked by the OP phrased as if work exp has a minimum value that needs to be met? Surely you do enough work experience to satisfy yourself that medicine is a vocation that you can truthfully see yourself doing for decades to come, not just to be able to waffle convincingly through a 20min interview? I did a total of four weeks full time shadowing, with both GP's and hospital docs, and have eight months of volunteering at a hospice and a hospital, plus working part time at a GP surgery this year, but if I had the opportunity to spend more time shadowing docs I'd jump at the chance. If work exp is something you endure 'to get into medicine' rather than the chance to learn more about medicine and spend time with fantastic doctors and, more importantly, interesting patients... why are you applying for medicine?

How much work exp. do I need?

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you