5) Medical work experience

Gaining medical work experience prior to your applications is an excellent way of getting a hands-on feel of whether a career in medicine is right for you as well as an invaluable addition to your CV that is required by all universities.

Now this is the strange thing. Getting relevant medical work experience can be one of the hardest tasks facing a prospective medical student. When first faced with the challenge of obtaining work experience students tend to get in touch with GP surgeries and hospitals and request work experience. They are then faced with rejections or being asked to complete lots of forms for the chance to be part of a hospitals work experience programme which often consists of 20 places per year for those lucky students that are accepted, so the chances of getting work experience in hospitals is often very remote. This is down to 3 main factors.

Firstly hospitals are very oversubscribed when it comes to requests for work experience. You've got literally tens of thousands of people trying to get experience and the hospitals simply don't have the space for everyone. Secondly, there's no real system that is in place for the hospitals to manage students entering hospitals on work experience schemes. We all know NHS hospitals are stretched with their resources and private hospitals often won't entertain the idea of letting students observe in their hospitals and as they have no pressure or real need to do so, you'll find they won't go out of their way to implement a truly effective work experience scheme. The third reason why hospitals aren't too keen on allowing students through their doors is patient confidentiality and insurance issues. Doctors have a duty to keep any information of diagnoses of patients confidential. Students simply visiting a hospital on work experience do not so they have an issue with students being around sensitive, confidential information. Also should a student be involved in any kind of injury to themselves or a patient then the burden of any resulting legal action, compensation or blame may fall at the feet of the hospital. Now with no directive from the government or obligation to provide work experience schemes in hospitals, why would a hospital take those risks? And the strangest part is despite all of these issues, medical schools will stipulate that students have to gain relevant work experience nonetheless.

The key here is variety. The medical schools do know how hard it is to get work experience in a hospital, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try but you should also supplement your search with other relevant work experiences that are easier to obtain. Volunteering is a great way to show your caring side and desire to give up your time for the benefit of others.Volunteering in care based roles in particular is really good experience, things like care homes, charities and youth groups are often looking for volunteers and you can use your experience of these to demonstrate you are willing and able to dedicate yourself to helping the less fortunate or able people in society.

The value that work experience brings to a medical school application cannot be underestimated. In a competitive area of higher education with more applications for courses than available places, having a relevant employment history, no matter how brief, can really enable you to stand out from the crowd and be seen as an ideal candidate. Volunteer positions are usually subject to background checks, which does take time, so bear this in mind and act swiftly.