What is work experience?

What is work experience?

Work experience is any activity or life experience that helps you to prepare for medical school. This means any activity that allows you to demonstrate that you have:

• Had people-focused experience of providing a service, care, support or help to others, and that you understand the realities of working in a caring profession

• Developed some of the values, attitudes and behaviours essential to being a doctor such as conscientiousness, effective communication and the ability to interact with a wide variety of people.

• A realistic understanding of medicine and in particular the physical, organisational and emotional demands of a medical career

Usual ways you can achieve work experience 

• Volunteer regularly (usually students join Interact Club or Red Cross)

• Hospital attachments (look out for opportunities under the ECG Repository in our College Portal)

• Temporary jobs at a clinic or hospital after graduation

Other ways you can achieve experience

• Talking with doctors and medical students (on-line if required)

• Attending a university information session/open day (on-line if required)

• Reading medical literature e.g The British Medical Journal’s open access information

• Reading books on medicine e.g. "How Doctors Think" by Jerome Groopman, "What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine" by Danielle Ofri etc

• Keep a reflective diary on what is happening in the news and online

• Virtual work experience e.g. Brighton and Sussex Medical School

• Explore online e.g.

  • Singapore Healthhub

  • Guardian’s science page

  • The Telegraph’s health page

  • Healthcare careers in UK

  • Online documentaries, TED talks etc

The key ideas here are 

• Quality of experience over quantity

• Accumulate reflection on experiences gained​