HunkyDory, though others will say that it does not matter where you study and that a doctor is a doctor etc, medical schools are different and there is a wide variety of medical careers. There is a fundamental decision about what might suit.
DD is academic but also dyslexic, and went to Bristol (in the days when they did not require either UCAT or BMAT) which is quite a hands on course. She is practical and decided to not to apply to Oxbridge/London, even though her odds of getting a BMAT school were higher. (UCAT is difficult for those with slow processing speeds, so there were only a limited number of places she wanted to go to and could get into.) She considered it a two year process and would have reapplied and taken BMAT if unsuccessful first time round.
If your DC is potentially interested in academic medicine they should consider Oxbridge/London. A consultant friend who does some interviewing says they actively prefer those who have the potential to go onto research. (She is not too sure about this!) Or somewhere like Bristol that allows external intercalculations. DD spent a year at Imperial studying bio medical engineering and loved it. Loads of really exciting things are happening. The Imperial students and their course were clearly more academically orientated, but not necessarily better. Her intercalation offered five funded PhD places, though even if interested she would not have been eligible as Bristol required her to return after the year. The important thing is that it has given her useful understanding of the technology in the (very competitive) field that she wants to enter and will look good on her CV when she starts applying for jobs.
However that said, most are not, and will prefer a five year course over six.
The thing that we are now aware of which we were not before (non medic family) is how long it takes. 5/6years of medical school is only the start. F1/F2, specialist training where you have to study whilst working, and more. DD could well be in her 30s before she is able to settle. One reason why many change their plans and either opt for the more straightforward GP training (still 3 years!) or opt out of medicine altogether.
There is debate about whether work experience is useful in terms of applications, and whether something like part time work in a shop is just as good. I would argue that it is useful for the applicant. Shadowing helps understand what medical careers are about, and more menial jobs give a taste of the more basic parts of medicine. At 16, DD spent a summer volunteering/working in very sheltered housing: cleaning waitressing (including cutting up food for residents) and kitchen portering. The manager suggested that not everyone finds it easy to work with the elderly, and given a high proportion of patients will be elderly it is worth finding this out early. There will always be some students who arrive at medical school to discover that they find, say, bodily fluids difficult and want out. Or the prospect of working for a bureaucratic monopolistic employer. The more an applicant knows about the job, the more they are likely to enjoy the course.