Warwick-Graduate entry medicine work experience

Good morning all,

I have a question regarding Warwick Uni's GEM course. Its regarding the work experience. On their website it states you need to have work experience of 70 hours health or social care related work experience (needs to come from 2 experiences -including two health or social care organisation and two roles/professions) . I am planning on working as a carer at a hospital setting which will involve hands on provision of health. Alongside this, I was thinking about also applying to become a carer in residential care homes (also hands on). Would this be enough to meet the entry requirements for Warwick's GEM? I am worried that since they both involve carer job it won't be enough to meet their requirements? Both roles are carer but they are in different settings? one in residential care and the other in hospital settings? Please can someone advice on this?

Kind regards,
Kinglee

Reply 1

Jaketurner97

Hi there!

It doesn’t matter if both settings are a carer as such, so long as they’re different settings! I’m starting at Warwick this September and my experience was 2 years as a community HCA and then I started working in a private clinic (99% of our patients are through NHS referrals) also as a HCA. They prefer one of your experiences to be in or at least involved with the NHS but it’s not a deal breaker I don’t think, just far more ideal. So long as your responsibilities vary between experiences you should be fine 🙂 in my case, the duties of a community HCA are TOTALLY different to what I now do in the clinic so that definitely helped my application and talking points during the MMI 🙂 hope this helps!

Don’t forget that one experience can only account for a maximum of 50 hours of the total 70 required, I’d only just started at the clinic and barely scraped the extra 20 hours I needed to make mine up to the 70 before the deadline to submit my experience 😂

If you have anymore questions feel free to ask!

Jake

University of Warwick

Coventry

Reply 2

kinglee

Many thanks for your reply Jake! First of, huge congrats for getting a place at Warwick GEM! Secondly. From your experience as a carer, do you know if HCA roles in care homes have slightly different responsibilities to that of hospital carer? I want to believe the responsibilities are different, but I am not sure as I have only worked in a care home so far.

Please may I throw couple more questions at you? (hope you don't mind answering them....)
1) Please may I ask what you achieved for your UCAT scores? (hope you don't mind me asking..).
2) did you undertake any shadowing work experiences? like doctor shadowing ?

I really appreciate you sharing knowledge and advice!!!
Many thanks in advance,
King lee

Reply 3

Jaketurner97

Thank you!

I haven't personally worked in any care homes myself but when I was a community HCA some of my colleagues had done. From what they told me it wasn't all too much different from community work really and since I've done both community and hospital I can only compare hospital to care home through that comparison (if that makes sense 😂). Community and hospital are very similar in my opinion, they both involve hands on personal care with patients (i.e incontinence care), assisting with feeding, washing, taking medications, moving and handling etc. the only difference in your duties that I can think of from the top of my head is that in hospitals you're taking patient observations, blood glucose levels etc. This isn't to say that there aren't difference in the PATIENTS, however, as broadly speaking the majority of patients in hospital are acutely unwell or are there because they require closer monitored specialist care for something that can't be provided at their own homes and I think this comparison also applies to hospital vs care home. So whilst your duties are extremely similar there are more things to be aware of in each.

Haha no I don't mind the extra questions, don't worry!
1) I scored 2820 overall
VR: 630
DM: 650
QR: 710
AR: 830

2) I did shadow a gastroenterology consultant a few years ago for 2 weeks which was a great experience and probably where I truly found out I wanted to be a doctor, however, I didn't declare it to Warwick as I no longer have any way to contact the consultant for them to provide any evidence that I did it and I didn't feel that it was vital given that I already had the 70 hours needed. If you get the opportunity to shadow a doctor in either primary or secondary care though then I highly recommend it.

Jake

Reply 4

kinglee

Hi Jake! Thanks for sharing your insight as well as your amazing UCAT scores! Once again congrats!! Please may I also ask a confusion that I have? When you did the community HCA role, was there a probationary period? Does this refer to the initial training period? I am asking because, I have applied to a therapy support worker role, but the role has a 6 month probationary period, I am worried by the time I finish this period I would not be able to accumulate enough working hours to accomodate Warwicks entry requirements ? On their website, it states 'Training and/or induction for a role does not count towards the 70 hours.' Do you know if this referes to the probationary period or the initial training they provide? How was it for your work, did you have to complete the probationary period, then only does the work experience start counting? Your guidance/advice is much appreciated ! (sorry struggling to find the work experience at the moment).