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)

Idk i dont think this is a wide spread case? Most of the WP things my dd applies to are so competitive that only those with the highest gcses ( as a levels are only predicted) are selected. Many also have gcse requirements. Eg for Manchester access program you must have 7 7s at gcse for medicine strand to even be considered

Where is your evidence it is only the local grammar school.or people with connections who will get the work experience.

In my local hospital there is a scheme. The students have to apply and there is a set criteria on who can access it. Certain grades recited etc.

Obviously the local grammar knows about it so a lot of kids from there get to do it. But other kids from local colleges also attend. It's just the grammar school is used to the application process and can help more.

Also I work in a GP surgery. Any kids from a local school with the motivation and determination who makes the effort to write us an email.

We will usually arrange a weeks worth of shadowing where they can sit with various professionals. We usually get at least a couple a year. ( obviously they will have an induction and have to sign confidentiality clauses etc).

Right. I don’t believe it.

But does this not already usually happen?? Many many WP programs are like this

I agree. Years ago I was asked by a friend who taught at a big comprehensive school near the company I was working for to take a couple of work experience young people. It was a large, quiet office where we pushed a lot of paperwork: it wasn't anything that most teens would be interested in and I made this really clear to my friend, but she thought she had a couple of more academic boys who'd benefit from a week with us.

They came, I arranged for them to visit various departments of our dull, office-based business. Colleagues put themselves out to explain how the business worked, what the different roles were and what was involved. They set them a couple of hours of basic level tasks each day: putting expense receipts in date order, filing etc, which they did half-heartedly and poorly. Some of the young guys took them out to play football in the local park each lunch break: one took them for burgers.

The lads were bored out of their skulls, spent their time drawing and mucking around on the computers (one wanted to know whether he could play video games in the office) and fell asleep with their heads on the desk after lunch. After their last day it became clear they'd stolen pens, stationery, reams of paper, dozens of highlighter pens and a file of contacts from someone's desk. In the following weeks various clients received fake invoices purporting to be from us, requesting payment to an unknown account. I had to talk to the school and the police.

I spent a couple of weeks teaching an adult course. Everyone on it was long term unemployed.

They did some 'employability' qualification with me and they then did a food hyenine certificate and a manual handling course. I added in some very basic BSL (the alphabet and how to ask someone's name) and guiding a blind person.

After that they were guaranteed an interview with the local hospital.

Several months later I was admitted to that hospital and my food was brought to me by someone who had taken the course.

There is no reason (other than money, which I know is a big issue) why something similar, maybe class in the morning then shadowing in the afternoon.

We had something similar but they didn’t give up and they started young eg age 7 asking about work experience in the local practice. They hunted down every possible lead and networked. We have no medics in the family - they found one person lead to another to another. Eg volunteering to jazz up the display boards at a local care home lead to a meeting with a nurse, who passed them on to someone else. Too young to work in a care home - not too young to water the plants etc

Surely this is the answer ensuring fairness and openness and resolving the issue?

FWIW I've seen a lot of giving work experience through connections and only looking at which school the child comes from outside of the NHS too and I think it's abysmal NHS continues this way where most other professions have moved away from it many years ago.

Wouldn't it be easier to only offer doctor-focused work experience to Y12s who are taking science A-levels?

This is the big issue. They are being prejudice. However, they shouldn’t be made to waste their time either.

Someone needs to coordinate with the local secondary schools and run an NHS careers program with them from year 8 onwards. A lead in the school should identify students who are interested early on and grade boundaries in order to progress through the years.

Speaking as an HCP whose son got 4 STEM A*s from a comp, you are damaging your case by saying that restricting work experience opportunities to grammar school students only is ‘deemed a pragmatic solution’ to the problem of managing work experience requests (hilarious tbh but having grown up in a grammar school area I recognise the mindset). I don’t see why it would be any harder to say ‘to have work experience with one of our medics you must have a minimum of 6 grade 7s and above at GCSE including double science and maths’.

Agreed also that there are work experience opportunities out there for medicine that don’t involve doctor time, the classic option being a nursing home. The student medics I know mostly got actual jobs as bank HCAs.

I've been teaching science, in particular Physics for near 20 years, although I went on to gain BSc, MSc and PhD in Physics I got a C in the subject at A level, failed GCSE maths twice (passed the third time by cheating, shh don't tell anyone! and got a D in A level maths, entry to Cardiff for Physics then was two E's thankfully!

I was highly passionate about the subject, but it wasn't until getting settled at uni (almost failed the first year!) that things really started to work.

If we look back over the inventors of some of the technologies we take for granted we find many "failures" often who never held any qualifications, Edison for example or Marconi, a man who made academic failure into an artform, yet gave us radio communication and built a vast business.

Of course I want my Dr to actually be qualified as such, but it annoys me that medicine has such high entry requirements and many with lesser A levels would make really good Dr's. I mean you can still get on Nuclear Physics at some universities this year with 2 D's !

I am genuinely surprised by the suggestion that grammar school students should be unofficially prioritised for NHS work experience placements. This not only reinforces elitism but also places the Trust at potential legal and reputational risk including exposure to discrimination claims. Any practice that favours particular schools, especially based on parental connections, undermines the principles of fairness and transparency that public institutions are duty-bound to uphold.

While it is understandable that NHS staff particularly clinicians are under time pressure and wish to make placements meaningful, it is not their role to determine worthiness based on predicted academic outcomes. Selection based on assumptions about future success reflects a hierarchical and exclusionary culture, often found in medicine, that works to preserve privilege rather than broaden opportunity.

Many of the students targeted by widening participation (WP) schemes face well-documented structural disadvantages, under-resourced schools, limited access to academic support, and no family connections to healthcare. Denying them opportunities because they are not already high achieving isn’t a neutral decision it is an act of gatekeeping, and it perpetuates inequality.

To suggest that it is a waste of time to enthuse these students is, a prejudiced and defeatist position. Exposure to real healthcare settings can be the catalyst that helps students raise their aspirations and improve academic performance. Even if a student doesn’t become a doctor, they may go on to pursue nursing, allied health, or healthcare support roles all of which are essential to a functioning NHS.

Work experience should be about exposure to healthcare more broadly, not a vetting mechanism for medicine. The idea that placements should only go to those on track for specific careers not only misrepresents the purpose of WP but also reinforces an elitist mindset. The Trust should be upholding responsibilities under the Equality Act and the NHS Constitution by ensuring access to all young people regardless of background or predicted grades. The trust should reject practices that protect privilege under the guise of pragmatism

I think it most definitely is ‘class bias’ and frankly appalling!
If there’s an issue of staff not having enough time to manage work experience students, then the numbers of those students needs to be reduced - but not by some elitist system of potential intelligence. What should happen is that students apply via a blind application system so that everyone gets an equal chance.
Most students on work experience actually don’t go on to follow those career paths anyway!

Weird that you think someone on a work experience placement would perform operations or fly a plane 😳

I think there are 2 separate issues, if they don't have time (which is of course entirely reasonable) then there needs to be a manageable way to give an experience potentially involving a wider range of staff to "spread the load". (Or make it a shorter period of time)
but I think it doesn't seem fair to say they don't have time for 1 set of students but can find time for a different set. The bright kids (regardless of what school they go to) will have many more options open to them and could potentially go into tech or finance rather than medicine, anyway....

Of course I don’t 🙄. But it’s the first step on that road. Skilled jobs should be allocated on merit.

Why do people think the dc of medics go on to be medics? Pure advantage. Of course parents sort work experience out for them. The employer also has a duty to sort and sift suitable work experience applicants. Not just from one school - all suitable applicants. There are dc in secondary schools who are capable of being doctors, even in a grammar LA! I’d also wait until y12. Not suitable before this.

I am so against the idea that unless you are at a certain grade, you should not get the same experiences as those who are higher.

Lets face it, those that go to grammar school are usually already from well to do families and it reinforces the message that only people from a certain class can get certain jobs.

I really wanted to go into medicine but my school refused to entertain the idea and I wasn’t allowed to do any work experience because my grades were low as my coursework wasn’t done.
My coursework wasn’t done because my mentally ill mum wouldn’t let me in the house or would go through my school and throw out all of my work because it was ‘dirty’.

Of course, not everyone can get the chance to do this work experience and if it’s people who will never live independently etc then there’s no point in them going.

But I don’t think grades alone should be an indicator and it’s exactly why so many medicine programmes now have places for students with lower grades or who’ve been in care etc because people recognise that your family life has an impact on your school grades and actually these people often make incredible professionals because they haven’t had it as easy.

I think the elite work experience should be based on behaviour and effort, rather than grades alone.

I actually think if time and funds allow, then all young people should be given the chance to experience good careers because they’ll then aspire to be successful.

I am surprised your trust hasn't clamped down on 'unofficial' work experience as there are just so many confidentiality and safeguarding issues involved.

It's a very long time since I saw any school kids on work experience in medicine due to this, they all do the official programme.

However back when we did see them, it is really annoying to have someone with you who frankly isn't going to make the grades. The students are time consuming to have shadowing you, it rapidly becomes apparent if they are serious or not, whether they have been told (or figured out for themselves) how to behave in a clinical environment and if they aren't up to it then it is a painful slog through the week for the doctor.

Many many people follow their parents into jobs. It’s because they see the job, find it interesting, and understand the pathway to get there. It’s exactly the same for trades.

This is a good point - it is tiresome to have student to shadow you especially as medics are expected to coach and support junior doctors. They also have to provide clinical oversight to rest of the clinical team. This is also applies to other professional - I have to supervise student doing their student placement. It can be time consuming.

Only taking kids who attend grammar school or have parental connections is just plain wrong, what about the high achieving, motivated students at the local comp? Or are we now saying that you can only be a doctor if you already have money and connections to get you in?

but a hospital has a huge range of jobs…why not work with the schools to organise a more general work experience scheme, hearing from a observing a variety of roles in the hospital that may be of interest to them?

It isn’t all about being a doctor surely?

Yes, which is exactly why I remain unconvinced that 14/15 year olds are getting a 'proper' work experience with doctors in any NHS trust as described by the OP. 17 year olds - yes, perhaps. But that is exceedingly difficult to arrange.

I don't think it's harsh.

I think we need to move away from the 'you can be whatever you want to be in life' idea as it often isn't true.