How much work experience needed for medicine?

I'm struggling to find work experience at the moment. I've done some virtual ones recently and am applying for a local hospital one in the summer but I can't find any in person ones. One of my parents' friends said I could sit in at their practice at some point but I'm worried that I'm not getting any definite plans and I'll end up without any.

How much is needed realistically? And is virtual work experience bad in comparison to in person?

I'm struggling to find work experience at the moment. I've done some virtual ones recently and am applying for a local hospital one in the summer but I can't find any in person ones. One of my parents' friends said I could sit in at their practice at some point but I'm worried that I'm not getting any definite plans and I'll end up without any.

How much is needed realistically? And is virtual work experience bad in comparison to in person?

Volunteering gives you more transferable skills and says more about you as a person than shadowing does. Long term volunteering positions - ideally with different client groups ie say, elderly people, children, or people with disabilities - get you the chance to show responsibility and to develop skills working with people over a long period of time and give you an idea of whether you will actually enjoy working with people. By comparison, shadowing basically says you can fill in forms, send some emails, and can walk or sit down for however long you happened to do it for.
Yes, I’m being slightly facetious. But the ratio really shouldn’t be tipped towards work experience. Work experience should give you an opportunity to identify skills and qualities necessary to do the job and then relate it to your own skill set and personal qualities that you have developed in various settings and roles. And one set of work experience is pretty much the same as another once it comes time to you actually condensing all of this into a personal statement. And work experience/shadowing will count for almost nothing in the interview, in which questions tend to be formulated around “tell me about a time when you…”

The Manchester form for medicine is actually really telling. People who have done little else besides shadowing tend to have almost nothing to say on that form and really struggle to pad it out. If you look at that form, you’ll get an idea of the sorts of things you should be able to talk about in a personal statement. Likewise, look at interview questions for medicine and try to have a think about what sort of answers you would want to give.

Thanks so much! I’ve tried to volunteer with a children’s charity for months but the application process hasn’t been working for me and they’ve been trying to work it out but it’s taking so long so I’m thinking of looking maybe at a local care home instead so I can get that long term experience. I do litter picking but as you pointed out the volunteering should probably be people centred.

I’ve done a part time job for the last six months in retail where I’ve experienced helping people and working in a team etc, but I’m assuming most unis wouldn’t count this as an experience for transferable skills. I’m going to resign from the job soon to focus on studies and pick up some volunteering too, but I was wondering if you thought my part time job was of any use at all in mentioning in interviews if they do ask me a ‘tell me a time when’ sort of question.