Harsh opinion - is it fair to give work experience to students who in reality haven't the academic ability to enter the profession e.g. medcine?

[mids2019]

I work in a large NHSq trust and we are continually being asked by our widening participation team to take on work experience students for a range of medical careers including clinical science and medicine.
A lot of the children unfortunately are forecast 3/4/5s at GCSE yet schools and the widening participation team keep saying we should be giving work experience to these children who in reality won't be qualified for some professiions out of what I see is a misguided sense of fairness.

The medics push back at this saying they simply have no time and time would be wasted enthusing a child about a profession they would be unlikely to be able to do.

The medics are quite happy to take students from a locally high performing grammar school as a matter of course unofficially (and often due to parental connections)

isn’t that a double standard? Private ‘not ideal’ so you don’t pursue that but you sound critical of the NHS for not supporting?

If I were a patient I would refuse a work experience child in a physio appointment. I would feel too vulnerable and the benefit to the pupil (guiding a career choice at best, filling a compulsory workweek at worst) doesn’t outweigh that. Students medics (or student physios) are a different matter as they are clearly being trained not entertained.

No child should get preferential treatment via parents. All schemes should be open to all backgrounds but look at suitable qualifications.

Nice thought @TizerorFizzand schemes are open to all, if not WP specific ones (there aren't that many of these).

But no one can stop the consultant taking his friends kids. It's why many schemes have popped up from current doctors who didn't have connections, but places are always limited.

Not sure why this poster thinks grammar school students can't be WP ? It's got nothing to do with the type of state school.

@mumsneedwine Lots of private companies absolutely stop this! They won’t insure non official WE students. As usual medicine is different! Why? Highly paying law firms do not allow this. Consultants and others should not be allowed to do this.

@TizerorFizz I know a year 12 doing WEX this summer at daddy's chambers. And another one working with a magic circle law firm because auntie happens to be a partner 🤷‍♀️. No official channels were used (I know because I signed the paperwork at school).

@mumsneedwine Most barristers offer a mini pupillage scheme and they do not accept dc of barristers that are there. Magic Circle - Clearly wrong and is it coincidence? In most places it’s well and truly banned. Although 1 day doesn’t hurt! Or sitting in court but magic circle pay interns so really poor.

Both for a week, happens every year. Can only tell you the reality, if people are breaking rules not much schools can do. We get them to fill out all the insurance forms and if they comply then kids can go. Best one was the student who spent the week at the Monaco GP with family friend with the team. We had not been informed about the yacht parties they would be attending !

@mumsneedwine I can see schools can do nothing but I’m surprised nhs allows random dc on their premises following a parent about. What would happen if the dc caused a huge problem where a patient was involved? Could be minor or very serious.

Civil Service internship. Only children of the "working class" | Mumsnet

Yes, your mummy and daddy have right jobs for you to be able to do internships in Civil Service. Those pesky grammar school kids won't be allowed to.

It's only right they are prioritised for medical experience then.

I used to do widening participation for the university when I was a student. Our guidance was really clear that we shouldn’t be making promises to kids without the likely grades to get in as it wouldn’t be fair on them or a good use of resource. We were really trying to target the very bright kids in poor schools who might need confidence boost or a push to apply. I can’t see that there is any point doing medical work experience for those getting less than stellar GCSE’s but it would make much more sense to be scooping up the kids doing well in the non-grammar schools and doing other forms of health professional work experience for the interested ones that won’t get the grades for medicine.

@nearlylovemyusername that's for an unpaid internship to try and get less private school kids in the civil service. So it more represents the whole country. Nothing to do with actual jobs !

@TizerorFizz I assume they'd be asked to leave. Parents helping their kids find opportunities is nothing new and will never change. All WP scenes do is try and provide some of those opportunities to others.

There are many jobs in a hospital so having some WEX can open eyes to the variety of roles.

Read the thread. This is Fast Track. But it doesn't really matter.

Kids of professional parents are banned from applying somewhere. State level discrimination. So if the same group of parents were trying to compensate this would only be fair.

But this isn't even a case here - statistically grammar kids are much more likely to have required academic ability than comp kids in the same grammar area. NHS trust don't have capacity to do extensive testing, so they go for the crude measure here. Rightly so

@mumsneedwine In my view unauthorised dc brought in by a parent would be a disciplinary offence. Their dc should apply in the normal way. It’s not acceptable. It’s also grossly unfair when other dc who are equally deserving don’t get a chance.

I think only some CS fast stream internships will be reserved for the deserving poor. Well they might not be remotely poor - just have some less than stellar job when dc is 14. This can be independently educated dc on a bursary. Around 1/6 of fast stream applicants are already on fsm from their own stats. Overall success rate for all applicants, and many are not university leavers, is 2.2%. Far better chance of getting to medical school.

Barristers in chambers annd partners in law firms are self-employed. NHS Hospital consultants are not and their employing NHS Trust is totally at liberty to say all work experience placements must be organised centrally.

Ours does. London teaching hospital. It is centrally run, I have no idea how the kids are selected but they are from local state schools (we aren’t a grammar area). Kids are in the lower 6th, so 16/17.

pre-GCSE it would be much better for the NHS to lay on structured careers sessions with local universities rather than offer work experience. 14/15 year olds are really too young to be put in a clinical setting with patients who are vulnerable. It may also place them in distressing situations they are unable to cope with, or even just get bored. Much better to be introduced to a range of careers in a format that enables them to be better informed about choices they have.

My local trust has similar and only for those the summer before applying for medicine - you have to complete an online course first and then they offer you two days of placement. You can request specific departments but may get placed anywhere. Anyone can apply from any school in the area (think there is a separate programme for potential mature students). No informal arrangements are allowed. You can also apply through them to do WEx in other areas (eg nursing, AHPs).

There are separate schools sessions offered by the local universities targeted at younger children who might be interested in medicine or other health carers - visits to schools and day-long events with lectures, lab visits, patient models and current students to talk to.

And for the poster whose friend’s granddaughter couldn’t get experience shadowing a doctor - neither could I, so I spent six months working as a bank HCA on a stroke ward aged 16 (around my Alevels, so mostly weekends). That was plenty enough to demonstrate both commitment over time, and an understanding of the NHS, which is what med schools want - it was certainly far more helpful to my application than sitting in a medical parent’s clinic for a week would have been.

Other options would be phlebotomy, the hospital volunteering service, St John’s Ambulance, etc. Formal work experience is probably the least helpful to your application (because in a lot of schools it is pre-arranged, so will have taken absolutely no effort or commitment on the part of the student whatsoever).

Formal work experience is probably the least helpful to your application

Though that is not really the point of work experience - which is about you deciding whether it is a career you want.

Yep we offer them through the medical school - teddy bear hospital for KS1, school visits for KS2, through to some sort of trauma sim for KS3 (which is meant to teach teamwork as well as enthusing kids about careers as nurses, radiographers and paramedics).

Agreed, but the earlier poster was saying lack of shadowing was the sole reason her friend’s granddaughter didn’t get into med school. And it won’t have been.

It's actually quite hard to get over what a doctor does all day to a work experience student.

I remember one following me when I was a junior doctor who was very excited about me going round taking bloods. I couldn't get across to her that I found it mind numbingly boring and it wasn't exactly what I'd spent 6 years studying for because to her it just looked radically different to school.

You remind me of accompanying my DC class swimming (they needed volunteers to accompany them as they had to walk there). The first week they were assessed for groups, and the first assessment was putting their head underwater. It seemed silly until I realised quite a few couldn’t do it. I think it is very easy to get used to a certain environment, such as a hospital and patients, and forget how alien it is to many people or how uncomfortable some people find it. It might not seem much to follow you around taking bloods but it is a bit like those children putting their heads underwater - for some it will be enough to decide they don’t want to do it.

@Piggywaspushed lots of hospitals will take from 16. Here's one that's v popular

https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/learning/gosh-learning-academy/outreach-and-work-experience/gosh-young-visitors-programme/