work experiance

Hi just wanted to know how much work experiance should i do, as in days.

How much have you done if any?

Also when you put this in UCAS do they ask for refrences because some studnets might just say they have done some when they have not.

Thank You

Reply 1

-sonal-

ive done two weeks , but that was in yr 11. u dont have to do work experience but it is desirable for unis. a week works experience would be fine tho. in ucas they dont ask for references , i wrote about it on my personal statement - but its not a good idea to lie because they can easily track up on wherever u said u worked

Reply 2

JUSTME1

you see i can work one day a week while im at college, so if i work for four days over a month do i put a months work experiance or a weeks. Do you need to put dates on the UCAS form.

Its that i dont wnat to be misleading and the unis thinking I did a month if I have to put dates in.

Reply 3

petzneo

Well, I did both hospital and community work experience. For community I did what you are going to do, but instead of a job I did it in the form of work experience. No difference really. JUSTME1, are you applying for pharmacy next year? I just want to be sure, as if you are I definitely suggest you get some work experience in a hospital, not because of the unis, although it does look good in a PS, but also as it is completely different to a community pharmacy and it would be good for you to see the other form of pharmacist you could become. For hospital w.e. the best thing to do is to email the hospitals closest to you and ask for w.e. as yo have more chance of getting it!

I know that on UCAS they ask for referees and the name of your job, but thats all I know.

Good luck with the work experience!

Reply 4

JUSTME1

Ill be applying this september ,am I doing work experiance to early. Its that I want to find out what its like before ,to make sure I do want to apply for pharmacy.

petzneo what sort of work did you do both at the community and hospital pharmacy?

Thanks for your replies

anyone?

You don't really need to worry too much about what unis know about the length of time you spent doing your work experiance. It doesn't have to be exact to the correct number of days. You can just approximate and put down a weeks worth if you're doing 4 days.

I think four days is more than enough to be honest. You will just need to pick up the general jist of what the job is like. If people lie about it and say they've done work experiance when they havn't unis can easily pick up upon it at the interview as they're quite likely to ask about it.

No you're not doing work experiance too early. The earlier the better as some places will have a set limit on the number of students they take per year. Just make sure you remember everything you saw/learnt because you would want to add to your personal statement and you might be asked about it in your interview. Maybe make a diary with a few short notes on they things you learnt there.

Reply 7

username35227

zahra_89

yah zahra has pretty much said what i was going to say :smile:

having work experience is good for the personal statement and interview however working in a pharmacy for a few wednesday afternoons or all year long will not affect your application. you just have to show you are keen to study pharmacy and all the baggage with it.
good luck with all your interviews people and you will definitely enjoy pharmacy.

Reply 8

Irrelevance

I can safely say it massively helps in interviews, i only did a few wednesday afternoons but that taught me loads about what happens behind the dispensary. And it's not too early, in my opinion, as long as you remember everything that you learnt, you'll be aight

Good luck with your application

Reply 9

JUSTME1

Thank You all for your help.

Reply 10

work_til_failure

Its not the quantity but rather the quality. Having experienced at first hand the role of a hospital pharmacist i predict that many people dont know about what comprises of a pharmacists role in the hospital...lets face it i dident....my impression was that the same drug-producing activities took place in both hosp and community, and that patient ward-rounds were only for the doctors to carry out.

Reply 11

petzneo

JUSTME1

Ill be applying this september ,am I doing work experience to early. Its that I want to find out what its like before ,to make sure I do want to apply for pharmacy.

petzneo what sort of work did you do both at the community and hospital pharmacy?

Thanks for your replies

Hospital :

Learned all about Controlled drugs
Stock take report
Drug Information - the important of it and so on
Worked for a day just in Outpatients
2 ward rounds - Gynecology and Orthopaedics
Filing and learning how to make a label properly
Organising medication
Worked in the Medical Unit Pharmacy
Pharmacy stores for a day
stocking up the Cardiac arrest box
and the emergency cupboard

and basically shadowing the pharmacists...

Community

Finding and labelling medication ready for patients
Filing prescriptions
Cleaning and stocking up medication
And learning a lot about pharmacy from the pharmacist.

Oh and I make one medicine by adding water, I think that was the most I did!

Reply 12

JUSTME1

How long did you work there?
Did you do all that in a few days?

Reply 13

petzneo

I did the hospital one for 5 days, and the community one every saturday for a month

Reply 14

Allthewayhome

I've got you all beat - 18 years.
Born into the job.

Been in/around my dad's since I was a little chappie.
Honestly, it was depressing when he retired. Look's like I'll have to rebuild the empire :P
Though, no doubt I'll get my pap to locum for us once in a while, you know, just to keep him going.

Reply 15

Irrelevance

I worked in a community pharmacy 1 day a week for about a month/month and a half learnt:

Many drug names/what they do
How to use the patient database
Actually made up prescriptions - taking stuff of the shelves, labelling etc
Saw how controlled drugs were managed
Saw how PTC works
DUPing
And the most important one - learnt to praise the almighty BNF

Reply 16

petzneo

Irrelevance

Whats a PTC again ?? I forget what it stands for...

Reply 17

Irrelevance

Prescribe to collect as i recall

Reply 18

vesi

OK, so as I can see work experiance is essential,isn't it? :confused:

Because in my country there is no such thing done before you go to uni, and this kind of activity (let's call it that way) isn't practiced at all. It would be really strange if I just pop up in a pharmacy and want to see how everything works.They will think I am comming from Mars :biggrin: