Young Enterprise + medicine = ?

I'm in lower 6th year, and I'm planning to study medicine at uni, (preferably Oxbridge).

I've decided to begin a Young Enterprise company (as MD) this year, which may end up being a fairly significant undertaking overall.

Is this worth doing considering I'm going to be studying medicine? I've heard conflicting views - some say it is useless to the subject, and some say it demonstrates leadership ability and the ability to cope with stress.

Considering the extra pressure which this would mean, would it be wise to continue? Has anyone found participating in Young Enterprise is useful at all for medicine applications?

Reply 1

Fluffy

Providing you have a range of 'work experience'/voluntary activities under your belt as well, I would have thought YE is a helpful string to add to your bow.

Reply 2

agonline

About work experience:

-St. John Ambulance for 3 years now, First Aid at Work qualified
-1 week Work experience at MRI dept. of St. Mary's hospital
-1 week residential planned at Medsim (Nottingham uni)
-1 week Work Experience planned at hospital in Dusseldorf, Germany
-Occasional help with Mencap and fundraising activities.

Should I be looking to do a 2 week work experience in hospital next summer?

In terms of voluntary activities, must this be related to medicine (i.e. helping at old peoples' homes etc.) or can other charity work apply too?

Reply 3

3.14159265

wow, the admissions lot will like you

Reply 4

Fluffy

Please note: MedSim and MedSix are NOT classed as work experience. Only put them only your UCAS form if you are really that short of things to put down.

Reply 5

agonline

Should I not put Medlink (That's what I meant in my previous post, I'm not planning to do medsim) down at all? Or will a passing reference do?

I've also signed up for Model United Nations to improve my public speaking - I've been told that the UCAS PS whould only be 4000 characters. Worth putting it it in?

(sorry to keep at this, I've just been given a lot of conflicting info and I'm trying to sort everything out)

Reply 6

Fluffy

Passing reference - don't even bother! Regardless of what the organisers of thses things tell you, all admission tutors think of these courses, is that you have the money to attend.

Have a search arounf on the admissionsforum - admissions officers at Barts and at St Georges have both posted their stance on these courses in the past. They're not seen as relevant experience. Use the space on your UCAS form for something you can't gain by buying it!

Reply 7

hellooooo

being MD for a Y.E company is a helluva lot of work i can tell u that for a fact...so be prepered to spend a lot of time on this..

Reply 8

hellooooo

but sayin that they do like to see young enterprise on the personal statements cos it shows teamwork etc etc..

Reply 9

Lecter

Oh no! I mentioned it, i could have talked about volunteering at the GP but i said this instead as i got to speak to loads of medical students, and medsim was quite practical. I know its not work exp but i thought it helped me!

My work exp/voluntary work;

I volunteer at St John's Ambulance, to be taking first aid at work course as soon as my membership comes through even though I have been going there since late July as they only got round to giving me the application stuff 2 weeks ago.
I have been volunteering at my local residential home for neuro degenerative diseases for 1 year and 4 months, in the holidays I have increased my hours to 6 split into 2 days. I know this isn’t much but I am not allowed to do any clinical stuff so I have to talk to the patients, but I talk to nurses about what they have done and when the doctor comes round, also sometimes feeding the very ill patients.
I volunteer at Good Hope Hospital, and have been since the beginning of August, 4-5 hours a week. I was initially on outpatients but this week I have changed to EAU (emergency assessment unit) so I get to see more practical stuff rather than just taking outpatients to their appointments or taking files/samples around.
Last year for 4 months I volunteered at a GP surgery but this was so boring as I only did admin work, was not allowed to sit in consultation which was rather annoying but I suppose the other side of healthcare spectrum, paper-pushing! Also I volunteered at 2 shelter homes every week for the same 4 months, just looking after the elderly patients by talking to them, bring their food or sorting stuff out.
Hospital experience; I have done one week at BUPA hospital Little Aston and at Queens Hospital Burton, just seeing different departments, but sitting in consultations and observing some procedures. At Burton, I saw a lot of stuff in A&E department and sat in a talk about obs and gyny with the consultant.
Additionally, I work at Halfords and have been since August 2004. Its a good job in the sense I have a lot of contact with the public so helps with confidence and communication skills, dealing with pressure as sometimes you get a very long queue or angry customer and no one wants to help you - staff there I mean!
I help out with my sort of local Muslim community in Birmingham, with big events such as a charity fair a couple of weeks ago.

I am with Millennium Volunteers.

I am a member of DoE, so I do running for that and the Hospital work. I said in my PS I may go to Canada with them but I think I shouldn’t have said that as I would rather go the expedition here and use the money to go travelling instead as £1500 is a lot of money; maybe inter-railing in Europe.

In my gap year I plan to go abroad, either Thailand or my home country of Afghanistan as I have family there thus will work out cheaper than going to the Tsunami area, getting ripped off by these companies and trying get more hospital work experience/shadowing.

Is it worth getting a job as a HCA rather than all thise voluntary work and Halfords?

Reply 10

randdom

I did ye don't know if it helped with my admission but I put it into my personal statement. If you have the time i think it is a nice thing to do that makes you stand out from the group