Work experience for the field of Medicine (1 Viewer)

tofusenpai

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I'm currently in yr 10 and I want to do work experience for Medicine.Do you know how and where I can get it?
 

Speed6

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Ask your careers advisor for a work experience placement around a ward in a hospital. Be prepared to give supporting document that you are fully immunized and up to date with your vaccinations. Don't expect to see surgeries being performed or whatever, as a year 10 student good luck getting in an operating theatre or anything similar to that. Major personal hygiene issues (even if you had a shower before you even started or used a bottle of dettol to clean your body), it will prevent someone like you, unlike a medical proffesional, access to an area like that which requires a lot of hygiene practises needed to be done before a surgery begins.

Sorry about the rambling towards the last part, but I hope this helps.
 

Medman

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Get in early because usually there's months and months of waiting time for hospitals. Just call or visit your local hospital.
 

Schmeag

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I'm currently in yr 10 and I want to do work experience for Medicine.Do you know how and where I can get it?
As the others said, contact the hospital directly and early. Sometimes it will be through a student coordinator so it could be worth asking for them.

Re: hygiene practices - it's definitely not that bad. You won't be able to see everything or even all that much. I used to get a lot of work experience students when I was doing a pre-surgery health assessment clinic. I'm sure I bored them to death.
 
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Not really relevant to work experience via high school but you can look into the Gap Medics program if you want exposure to the healthcare environment - e.g. surgery. You have the opportunity to go overseas and shadow doctors in countries such a Tanzania, Croatia, Poland and Thailand (http://www.gapmedics.com.au/).
 

tofusenpai

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You know how we need a week of compulsory work experience in year 10? Im planning to do some work experience at a hospital. Just google search {insertnearbyhospital} work experience. :) you could also try your local chemist.


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Thanks I was gonna try for the children's hospitals but most are in the city area like randwick so might try for Westmead children's. I was also gonna try for a pharmacy
 

tofusenpai

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Wait is this for all schools? I wasn't aware that a week of work experience was compulsory? :eek:
Same in my school it isn't and I go to a comprehensive one maybe it's just implemented in selective schools I know it is in privates since my bestfriend told me
 

patpatpat

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I'm currently in yr 10 and I want to do work experience for Medicine.Do you know how and where I can get it?
Work experience in a hospital is pretty crap tbh. Back in the days most of my friends and I spent our time licking envelopes for the ward clerk, the latest work experience student I've seen on the ward seem to spend most of his time reading the posters on the walls. There are various privacy and OH&S reasons why you wouldn't be exposed to the more interesting things, and even if you were taken on a ward round it's unlikely you'd understand anything. You certainly won't get access to senior doctors who could act as referees.

That's not to say that you shouldn't do the obligatory week in a hospital, but you should look for other opportunity as well.

St John Cadets (http://cadets.stjohn.org.au/) is a fantastic way to get some clinical exposure and demonstrate your long standing interest in medicine and community service. It will get you a first aid certificate, and you will treat patients and help out at large events. I used to recommend it to all my students as one of the best things to help an application, and it seemed to always come up at the interviews. I'd recommend signing up asap, as many divisions have intakes every 6 months, and you want to get 2 years under your belt before going into year 12.

Otherwise consider other possibilities like getting work experience with a research team (data entry etc) that you could turn into an ongoing commitment, and which would give you access to well established doctors whose names you can drop on application forms and during interviews. Also could consider something like Careflight/Westpac Lifesavers and see if you could score a trip in a helicopter.

With respect, do not even think about GapMedics - organisations like this offer nothing more than a glorified holiday. You are not at the stage in your career where you want to be learning about HIV prevention in Tanzania, and it will just be a waste of money. If you want something like this, go and volunteer at an Aboriginal Community in western NSW and build houses or something, will be a lot more impressive.

[Edit] what is with schools not offering a week of work experience, I thought it was compulsory for all year 10 students...
 

Speed6

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^ Government's budget hits on schools took effect I guess.
 

bangladesh

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Get in early because usually there's months and months of waiting time for hospitals. Just call or visit your local hospital.
not really, i organised mine at north shore within a week before my placement
 

moonbear129

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Westmead Children didn't allow me for work experience in 2013 so I ended up going to St Vincent's hospital :) the process is such a trek though by providing all the evidence of your vaccinations etcc it took ages! I know a few people from other schools who actually went inside an operating theatre but I just went around wards and followed doctors etcc still a good experience though!

Oh and I just emailed the hospitals directly :)
 

tofusenpai

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Westmead Children didn't allow me for work experience in 2013 so I ended up going to St Vincent's hospital :) the process is such a trek though by providing all the evidence of your vaccinations etcc it took ages! I know a few people from other schools who actually went inside an operating theatre but I just went around wards and followed doctors etcc still a good experience though!

Oh and I just emailed the hospitals directly :)
I actually went to Westmead today since it was more convenient and yeah they said they kinda stopped the thing but I might do the volunteering there.The head of the volunteering department wasn't there so they told me to come back at the end of February.I was gonna do St Vincent but it's a bit distant but I know they're only offering nursing work experience at the moment when they emailed me
 

mayla

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Some of my friends called up their local GPs and asked if they could shadow them for the day.

Also my friend told me that when she asked to do work experience at a private hospital and I think she was able to see more there? Not too definite about that though.
 

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