Excessive Medicine work experience?

Sounds good, I've done a week in-depth following the same consultant around through ward rounds, clinics, bronchoscopy and admin. I've also done more work experience last week, where I explored different departments for a whole week including endocrinology, rheumatology, OGD endoscopy (oesophagus, gastro, duodenum), colonoscopy and orthopaedics surgery clinc. I'm also aiming to get a voluntary job for the next couple of weeks running upto exam time. Does that seem enough?

EDIT:
I think it should be enough because I realise I really want to do medicine now and I understand the day to day basis work.

Do you really? I may sound harsh here, but what you've just described to me is a whistle-stop tour of various departments, seeing a few patients and a few procedures, going "wow, this is so cool," and that's about it. Have you actually spoken to any patients about what they're feeling, what they're scared of, what their experience of being poked, prodded and having cameras in various orifices is? Do you know what the junior doctors actually do day in, day out to keep the place running and the punters hopefully on the road to recovery? Listing a bunch of procedures and specialties is all very well, but to me personally it's not that impressive - it just means you got lucky and found a hospital with a well-organised work experience programme.

Definitely get the voluntary work on board, either in hospital or in the community, and start really thinking about what Medicine is when it's not fancy tests and clinics.

No don't get me wrong but I actually did everything you have said, I had very long conversations with alot of the patients and some of them were pretty relaxed and others were tense and most importantly was watching the doctors communicating with the patients letting them know of the procedure, the benefits and side effects. I like how in many cases the doctor will present treatments and let the patient choose while giving them guidance. Patient contact was very important to me, I went in to talk to the patients rather than follow the consultants because I think medicine involves alot of communication with the patient and in couple of years time thats what I want to do and I want to make sure I can do so. I also talked to junior doctors who told me about the whole process from getting into medical school, F1 F2 and the shifts, the commitment and what they actually do on a day to day basis. I also got to talk to a few registrars who went through their day tasks, how their shifts work, the MRCP and I also had decent conversations with the consultants who let me know about the dedication, commitment, their day to day job, repsonsibilities, medical errors and the consequences and primary healthcare system. I could go on for a while but I'll leave it at that. Thanks though

Excellent. In that case talk more about that than a list of departments and different types of endoscopies!

I'd still say some long-term volunteering of some sort would be definitely beneficial, as well as possibly considering some sort of GP experience if you can get it.

you still don't have enough (any?) voluntary experience. most successful applicants here have at least a year of ongoing contribution to a project of some form. you should really try and get involved with something. also, i think the idea that you think you've managed to see all there is to see in a fortnight is pretty telling.

most of the stuff i did was through charities. i did some nice projects with age concern and they were really helpful and i'd strongly recommend getting involved with them, although they're more into active recruitment towards winter.

the other people that were helpful were macmillan nurses, and the stroke association. i used to help run a stroke club in my area.

i'd say think outside the box, decide what sort of thing you're interested in and try and think of something you can do related to that. use the phonebook or also this site can be helpful.

also you can probably do stuff at school. either with mentoring or running a club for younger students maybe. there's usually loads of things you can do in a school, especially if it's errrm a bit rougher. just have a think about what sort of thing you like and do that.

As such, anything additional to that, in my rather limited experience, will probably have to be purely for your personal benefit.

You say it as if its a bad thing, I'm still doing the volunteering I started in year 12 and am loving it! Have organised another work experience too this summer just "for fun" so to speak.

I agree that perhaps you will only have space to write about a few different placements but the more you do the greater the width of your experiences will be, hopefully the more you will know about medicine and hopefully again you will be more sure whether it is the career for you.

At interview you will be more likely to be able to pick out a relevant example when discussing other topics if you have done more, so (as long as it isnt affecting your grades) I would say the more the better.

You're thinking of experience purely as a means of getting in aren't you?