Work Expirience for DS 15 wants to be a Dr

[Ninjacat]

What on earth should he do?
Patient confidentiality seems to leave little options for working with a Dr.
What other options can lovely MNs suggest?
(We are in Bristol)
TIA

Care home? Nursing home? Working with Shelter?

One thing I always feel about Doctors (good ones that is) is they have an ability to communicate in a caring and understanding way. That's not a skill all academically clever people have. Perhaps something which brings out that skill in him and for which he might be able to get a reference to that effect.

I agree care of the elderly - rest or nursing home

Hi there.
I live in Bristol and do know people that have done voluntary work in some of the local hospitals e.g. serving tea and coffee to visitors and outpatients, helping with hospital radio etc. This was at the Children's Hospital, St. Michaels hospital and the BRI. St. Peters Hospice also runs a scheme for volunteers and all these options may be worth investigating.
Bristol University may also have Open Days and Activities for students interested in studying Medicine and even if ds would like to study elsewhere it may help to look round and find out more about what a medical degree involves. HTH

Thank you.
Will look in to all those ideas.
N
Ps also have 2yr old hence short messages

My friend's ds also wants to be a doctor: he did his WE last term. One week at a doctor's surgery, working with the receptionists, and one week at the hospital; again a lot of it paperwork based but I think he did also get to go round and help on the wards. Basically, it is worth contacting local hospitals and clinics to find out if can arrange something. Some workplaces that take a lot of WE students have a fixed programme that shows something of how the workplace functions. The aspiring actors around here do a stint at the local theatre: naturally they don't get to go on stage or even backstage apart from a guided tour, but they do get to see how the theatre functions as a business.

My dd did her work experience at a Special Needs School last March. She was then invited to a week at the Hospital in July. Check to see if your hospital has a Work Experience team - they took two students (high achieving) from invited schools.

It changed dd's life. She loved it. Good luck to your ds.

I agree, anything working with people with special needs or the elderly will appeal to University admission departments.

One of my friends volunteered throughout sixth form at a local hospice. She is now a GP.

I agree with Special Needs school, ours often has Y10 students who come in for WE who want to train as doctors.

(Dr speaking)

I've just done practice interviews with sixth formers applying to medical school. Whilst it's always good to see people who have spent time in medicine itself, the most impressive candidates had spent good amounts of time - AND regularly, over a long period of time - one or two school years - speaking to patients. I don't want to hear about how the surgeon let you hold the laparoscope, I DO want to hear how you spent every Wednesday afternoon for two years sitting with old ladies in a residential home, how you didn't like it at first, but by the end of it you'd developed a good relationship with one or two residents and how you found them really interesting and you looked forward to your visits/ got given a xmas present/ etc.

My time in sixth form visiting an old people's home helped with my med school application, and the skills I learnt then help me every working day in dealing with patients.

Medical schools want to see evidence that you give a damn about people, especially in un-glamorous settings. So many interviewees are all about the knowledge, the science, the technology, but can't really say much about teamwork, about patients, about the less shiny side of medicine.

Both UBHT and NBT run work experience placements. Weston General does too, obviously a bit further away, but a different experience in a smaller hospital.

Yes, I agree with Alexandra that longer term volunteering goes down really well - has he considered St Peter's Hospice? Or I have a friend who runs a daycentre for the elderly in Bristol who are always looking for help, there's plenty of suitable things to do out there! St John Ambulance might be another angle - and he'd get to go to footie/music/events for free as a first aider once trained!

I do think that traditional work experience has a place though - it doesn't help you to decide if medicine is for you to volunteer in an old folks' home or whatever, and you need a good idea what you're letting yourself in for these days, so I do think a hospital placement is worthwhile.

Is there not a minimum age for work (even voluntary) in hospitals..is it not 18?
Dim and distant past memory .......

He needs to get work experience in a hospital (work shadowing).

Hospitals are used to providing this experience given that it is an essential part of the application process.

Nursing home experience is great to show your caring side, but not essential.

Interview panels know that it's really hard to get good quality shadowing experience unless you can do the "my dad's golf buddy is an orthopaedic surgeon" type thing - not exactly great for attracting a wide range of candidates into medical school. That's not easy for many pupils. Possibly academic, though, given it'll cost so much to get though med school that only the wealthiest students will consider it.

Another doc here who also sat on interview panels.

Interviewers know that for kids who don't know doctors personally, getting useful WE is nigh on impossible. It also isn't that helpful. WHat is more useful, and demonstrates far more skills appropriate to medicine, is working/volunteering with the elderly or special needs.

Personally, I worked in a nursing home for a few years (mainly for the money actually) but also did work experience with occupational therapists who worked with special needs children. It was a fantastic experience and gave me something a bit different to talk about at interview.

Oflip 16 round here.

I was planning to go into medicine at GCSE / A-level time (applied, got offers, changed mind) and did some work experience which I think helped, though at 16 / 17, I'm not sure I'd have been allowed to do all this at 15.

Spending time at GP surgeries during school WE time involved filing paper records, so was pretty boring. During two half terms, arranged myself, I spent a week at a local vet practice - confidentiality rules don't apply, so you can watch operations and gory bits, useful to get an idea of how you respond to that, if not the same. Another week at the local hospital pathology lab - a day each in different sections, it's mostly about how they test different body fluids and cells, interesting background, and on the last day I was allowed to watch a post-mortem - fascinating, though I think someone had misunderstood and thought I was already a medical student!

I also volunteered on a ward for at least a year, going in at weekends to chat to patients and occasionally to doctors. Didn't learn much about medicine but something about how hospitals are run and how patients experience things. I'd agree totally that 'people experience' will be most valuable, especially at this age. I suspect my teenage job of dishwashing and waitressing at weekends for three years was not irrelevant, as it showed ability to deal with people, mucky jobs, organise myself to deliver practical tasks responsively and stick with something else while studying.

It's true that doctors' children have easier access but also true that at some hospitals there are a few consultants who are willing to take WE pupils from any background.
My DS did his WE with a hospital consultant last year. Of course he had to sign up to respect patient confidentiality and patients had to give consent , but that did not prevent him having a wide and varied experience. He was allowed on wards, observed clinics and procedures and attended meetings.
In fact he decided medicine was not for him, which IMO made it just as worthwhile an exercise.

My DH got work experience at an undertakers before starting his medical degree. He found it helpful both with working with people at obviously a very emotional time, but also being around dead bodies which gave him more confidence at anatomy later.

there is excellent advice on www.thestudentroom.co.uk search for the medicine wiki and read about how other people have found work experience.

In addition to some relevant experience (and they appreciate the problems of getting into hospitals so nursing/care home/ hospice are good) they will also want to see that applicants understand the long hours, that they will need to undertake lifelong learning and that they appreciate how to work in a team. Anything that involves working with the less able seems to go down well.

I work in a large GP practice and we have several students working here after school each day - on reception, answering phones, filing, copying, printing repeat prescriptions etc. They get paid and gain an insight into the the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes a practice work. Come the holidays they all get to work loads too.

something else that he could do is work in a pharmacy. It would provide a little insight into other possible roles apart from medicine. 60% of applicants to medical schools are said to get no offers. Even students with excellent qualifications don't often get 4 offers. He needs to take a long hard look at what medicine entails and the alternatives, he will need to be able to say at interview why it's medicine and not another part of the team anyway. If he goes to medical school he may have to move for his foundation Doctor training. If he does an intercalated degree you may be funding him for 6 years and the 5th year could be a financial nightmare (6th year not easy either, NHS bursaries are inadequate).