Medicine work experience for school pupils

[34and3]

Hi everyone

My daughter is only in year 8 but hellbent on pursuing medicine so doing everything we can to encourage and support.

An anaesthetist friend has arranged for her to attend a non-clinical course but was wondering what other school-aged experience is around?

I've heard of medicfest but the venues are all miles away from us.

Thanks

St John's Ambulance Cadets

Se what there might be at your local care home (policies on those age 16-18 vary, but as staff are DBS checked it can be managed)

I was going to suggest this as one of DD's friends did it. There can be long waiting lists though.

A few of her friends also volunteered in care homes too but a bit older than your DD.

Hospital volunteer. I’ve met a few young people volunteering, chatting with patients and doing the tea round when I was nursing, that were looking at medicine.

Honestly … medicine is not a good career these days. Pay and conditions are awful. It’s a huge strain on mental health and family/ relationships.
I say this as a hospital consultant who was passionate about medicine. GPs have it even worse.
None of us would want our children to go into medicine.

Perhaps encourage her to talk to a few doctors about practicing medicine and encourage her to thinl widely about options.

Thanks I've joined six SJ cadets waiting lists!

A friends daughter was always going to do medicine, from primary school, so they paid for private education in the secondary years. She got to A levels and realised that she doesn’t want to do it anymore.

I think remember she is only Y8, Don't focus too much on any one career path. Does she love science? Look at activities/ reading that extend that interest. Things like scouts, SJ ambulance, Army Cadets, D of E are all great. They should be about building a resilent young person with lots of interests. The application process to medicine is tough and there are lots of points where it becomes a less viable option for some people, ie not getting top GSCE grades, not getting predicted AAA at the end of Y11. If she loves science and is developing socially through her extra curricular activities that opens many career options. When she is 16 there will be a lot more medically related experience available to her.

Typo - AAA end of Y12

Oh of course things may change. She's also very interested in architecture but we're just trying to encourage her and if she keeps up with it, great. If not, she's just had more experiences which can only be a good thing.

Mine is the same, except vet med. she’s done two weeks work experience at a vet and doing 6 weeks this summer.

Volunteering at a home for the elderly? The place my great uncle lived in has a few teenagers who would make tea, chat with the residents, help out. One girl would put the ladies hair up in rollers for them and do their make up and nails if they stopped being able to do it. They were lovely.

Seemed like very good experience for any 'patient facing' roles, especially with our aging population a high amount of patients in most specialties are elderly and being good at interacting with and knowing generally how to support someone frail and infirm is useful. Plys lets them know if care work is for them- or if they are better suited to other work.

Same for supported living facilities and day centers for people with learning disabilities, there are also half term and holiday clubs for children with learning disabilities that really value young volunteers to play with and work with the children

. Helpful and very good experience in working with a specialised client base. There is always small jobs to be done and volunteers are good. Healthcare woyld be a lot better for them if medicsl professionals understood how to work with people with learninng disabilities better.

DD is 1st Year Med.
There are two reasons for doing work experience/observation.

First is to give them a real idea about what doctoring is like (as opposed to Holby City…) so they don’t waste their own time on an application and training for which they are not suited.

Second is to show the Med School that they have some sticking power - do they carry on volunteering for a good length of time? - and also that they have come into contact with the general public and have had to deal with tricky situations on their own.

DD applied during COVID, so there were very few F2F opportunities going. She did several ‘virtual’ work experiences, and also spoke to a wide range of health professionals who kindly agreed to a telephone call or an email exchange.

She had 4 interviews, and ALL of them picked up on the fact that she’d volunteered at the local stables since she was 10. They asked her about working alongside different people and dealing with tricky customers. A friend of hers was also asked about her experience of a Saturday job in a local cafe.

All the open days said something along the lines of ‘we really aren’t interested if you’ve spent a week shadowing your godfather, the eminent cardiologist’!