Work experience

I've been debating whether I wanted to pursue medicine since the start of year 12 ( September 2017). Around 6 months ago I came to the conclusion that it was something I really wanted to do. My problem is that I don't know if my work experience is enough. I've volunteered at a hospice for just over 2 months. I did everything possible to get a hospital placement but didn't get one and now I've been trying GPs but they either say no or don't reply after I email.

My friend got an offer from Manchester for medicine and he's told me that my part time job is something I can talk about aswell as my hospice experience

I've been working at a dessert shop for 15 months where I have developed team working, communication and leadership skills. I recently became a team leader and I feel this is something I can talk about. Maybe say how doctors are the leaders of Health care and I can translate these leadership skills over to the profession? or take lead in group projects while studying medicine ? I can even talk about the commitment required of keeping a part time job and the time management skills I have gained from it.

If you guys think this is sufficient please let me know and if you have any advice or something I can add it will be much appreciated :smile:

Reply 1

ax12

20

Original post by Ahsan0916

I've been debating whether I wanted to pursue medicine since the start of year 12 ( September 2017). Around 6 months ago I came to the conclusion that it was something I really wanted to do. My problem is that I don't know if my work experience is enough. I've volunteered at a hospice for just over 2 months. I did everything possible to get a hospital placement but didn't get one and now I've been trying GPs but they either say no or don't reply after I email.

My friend got an offer from Manchester for medicine and he's told me that my part time job is something I can talk about aswell as my hospice experience

I've been working at a dessert shop for 15 months where I have developed team working, communication and leadership skills. I recently became a team leader and I feel this is something I can talk about. Maybe say how doctors are the leaders of Health care and I can translate these leadership skills over to the profession? or take lead in group projects while studying medicine ? I can even talk about the commitment required of keeping a part time job and the time management skills I have gained from it.

If you guys think this is sufficient please let me know and if you have any advice or something I can add it will be much appreciated :smile:

Hospital work experience isn't the be-all-and-end-all because a lot of people struggle to get it. I'd definitely talk about your paid work and volunteering in your personal statement, and talk about what you've learned from them. A hospice is a medical environment and you're seeing patients who we can no longer do anything for in terms of curing their conditions, but who we can still support and make the end of their lives as comfortable as possible. Make sure you show that you know what a medical career is like and us your experience to show how you are suitable for it. There are universities like Leicester who don't look at your personal statement at all, and some which put very little weighting on it anyway.

Reply 2

ACMM

2

Hi there,

Work experience is useful, of course. The idea behind work experience is to gain an insight into what medicine is actually like - the benefits and pitfalls of a career in medicine. This is so that you can make an informed decision on whether medicine is for you and so that universities can see that you've thought about your decision carefully. However, universities generally understand that this can be difficult to get. Your friend is correct and your experience, both volunteering in a hospice (directly observing healthcare staff!!!) and working in the dessert shop, can supplement the lack of hospital/GP work experience. Your reflection of your experiences is what really matters, though. What did you see/experience/do? How did you feel about what you saw/experienced/did? What did you learn from those experiences?
What skills did you use/gain/improve/see in those experiences? Did you do anything further to build upon/gain the skills that you saw?

Best of luck

- Adanna (ACMM)

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 3

Democracy

20

Original post by Ahsan0916

I've been working at a dessert shop for 15 months where I have developed team working, communication and leadership skills. I recently became a team leader and I feel this is something I can talk about. Maybe say how doctors are the leaders of Health care and I can translate these leadership skills over to the profession? or take lead in group projects while studying medicine ? I can even talk about the commitment required of keeping a part time job and the time management skills I have gained from it.

Two months of hospice volunteering is definitely a good thing - if you can reflect well on that I think that would probably be sufficient.

You can talk about the skills you've developed from your paid work, however, be careful about making sweeping and rather anachronistic statements like "doctors are the leaders of healthcare" - if this were actually true, I think morale might be a bit higher than it currently is!

Politicians and managers ultimately lead healthcare; some of these individiuals are medically trained, but the majority are not. For the purposes of a med school personal statement it's not hugely important to focus on leadership anyway imho, I'd probably focus more on the other skills you've learnt from your job like organisation, time management etc.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 4

Ahsan0916

OP

11

Thanks that's made me feel a bit more confident. One more question i would like to ask is about the universities in applying to. My gcses are 1A* 5As and 3Cs. To complement my weaker gcses I'm aiming for a relatively high ukcat which i think I can achieve (avg 700 atleast). I'm applying to universities that focus more on ukcat e.g. Newcastle, Plymouth and st Andrews. For my fourth choice I decided on Bristol since i met the requirements but i read that it's gcse heavy but that was from a few years ago. Is it worth applying there or should I choose a different university like Sheffield ?

(edited 5 years ago)

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