How much work experience do I actually need?

My experience

Just to entertain the question in terms of the quantity of work experience you need, the truth is that we all have a limited time to work with anyway. Most people start in the summer holiday before Year 12, and after that there are your Christmas and Easter breaks. Your school most likely schedules internal exams after half term breaks, so planning work experience around that time might not be ideal. By the summer before Year 13, you’re doing UCAT preparations, if not already dreading the fact you’re working during holiday. Obviously medical schools are aware of our limitations, and they certainly don’t expect all applicants to start getting work experience years before applying.

Here is the work experience that I managed to get, all of which are done within a year - During summer before Year 12, I did a 3-day doctor attachment at the respiratory unit of an NHS hospital; In Hong Kong, I had a 3-week volunteering placement at a public hospital, which included visits to care homes and community centres, as well as a summer programme in CUHK. Over Year 12, I did weekly visitations to a local community hospital to talk to patients; During the Easter break, I had another 5-day doctor attachment at a HK private hospital, this time in the surgery department. 

(Almost all of these placements were secured by researching doctors’ contacts online, and emailing them with a self-introduction and a CV. This takes some trial and error of course, but there will be people who will provide opportunities if you’re proactive for it.)

Without the placements interfering with my schoolwork and free time, I felt like I’ve already had enough content to mention in my applications. High quality work experience contains insight into skills and qualities that are ideal for a doctor to have, as well as chances for you to build these skills. However, it does take work on our part as well, to be able to observe and reflect these qualities from seemingly normal events.

Why actually do work experience

The most important thing for me when going on placements was proving to myself that my reasons to apply to medicine are justified. When asked the ‘Why medicine?’ question, everyone gives a variation of answers that essentially says they’d like to help people, but the experience while volunteering and attaching to doctors is the way to show that helping people does bring you a sense of achievement. 

Therefore, the key is getting reflections that you can refer to within your personal statement and interviews. You would observe good qualities that are required in the medical profession, and then prove that you have the relevant skills and personality traits to be fit for the job - which is why medical schools should be fighting to accept you in the first place! In this case, I actually found hands-on volunteering experiences easier to talk about compared to shadowing doctors during their consultations.

Some people worry that there are certain aspects of work experience that they haven’t tried, and I was no exception. I originally wanted to find opportunities to go into a surgery ward, and to go overseas for volunteering, neither of which I managed to find the time and a programme that accepted me for. However, these experiences aren’t essential boxes to check, not to mention they’re precious opportunities that not everyone can get. Besides, during interviews you most likely talk about your skills and qualities through a mixture of medical and non-medical settings, such as your extracurricular schoolwork.