The Essential Guide to Medical and Dental Work Experience
Asalamu Alaikum!
Work experience is essential for aspiring medical and dental students, offering insight into healthcare and strengthening university applications. It helps develop key skills, enhances reflections for personal statements, and prepares you for interviews. This guide covers how to find placements and make the most of them.
Medicine
Work experience is a great way to learn more about your future career. For aspiring doctors, it provides key insights into how the NHS operates, the role of healthcare professionals, and the patient journey through the healthcare system. Not only does it deepen your understanding of medicine, but it also strengthens your medical school application.
The first place to start is by speaking to your career advisor or teachers. They have experience guiding students towards placements and may have contacts with organisations that regularly accept students. Alternatively, you can compile a list of local GP surgeries and hospitals to contact directly. Reach out via email or phone, introducing yourself and inquiring about available placements. Some places may require an application form or CV.
If securing a GP or hospital placement proves difficult, don’t worry. Medical schools value experience in any care or service role. Volunteering at care homes, charities like St John’s Ambulance, or organizations such as Kissing it Better can provide equally valuable experience.
During your placement, you will likely shadow healthcare professionals and interact with patients. You will observe how multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) collaborate to provide optimal care, gain insight into the daily workings of a hospital ward or GP surgery, and understand the demands of working in healthcare. Patients may also share their experiences, giving you a deeper understanding of the impact of healthcare on their lives.
To maximize your experience, keep a reflective journal. Take note of key observations, such as the skills demonstrated by healthcare professionals and their impact on patient care. Frameworks like STARR or Gibbs’ reflective cycle can help structure your reflections. Additionally, professionalism is crucial—arrive on time, dress appropriately, take notes, and ask thoughtful questions.
Work experience is the first step on your journey to medical school, so take every opportunity to learn and enjoy the experience!
Dentistry
Assalmualaikum guys! My name is Abdulrahman, and I’m a first-year dental student at UoB. As Muna mentioned, work experience is key to understanding the NHS and healthcare system, as well as how different members of the multidisciplinary team collaborate to provide the highest standard of patient care.
Beyond gaining knowledge, work experience is essential for reflections in personal statements and interviews. The strongest interview answers demonstrate a candidate’s ability to reflect on their observations, show how these experiences deepened their understanding of dentistry, and provide examples of how they have demonstrated relevant skills. Ideally, they also mention how they plan to apply these skills in the future. Below is a snippet from my personal statement:
“During a placement at a dental practice, I observed a variety of procedures, including extractions and root canal treatments. This experience highlighted the expertise and precision required in dental work. I also recognized the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in delivering optimal patient care through effective communication and patient-centred care.”
Dental work experience also introduces an interesting discussion topic: NHS vs. Private Dentistry. This is a common ‘Hot Topic’ in interviews. Whether you shadow an NHS or private dentist—or neither—it’s useful to understand key differences. Focus on main points like the UDA system, accessibility of NHS dentists, and the rise of dental tourism due to the limited availability of NHS dental care.
The best way to secure dental work experience is by asking your dentist and contacting local practices via email or in person with a CV. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, dental work experience has become increasingly difficult to obtain, especially for those without industry connections. Fortunately, most dental schools understand this and do not require specific dental work experience. Instead, they accept any form of healthcare experience, such as pharmacy or hospital placements, as long as candidates can relate their learnings back to dentistry.
For additional learning, there are excellent free online resources:
What matters most is not just the experience itself but how you reflect on and apply what you’ve learned. Good luck with your journey into medicine or dentistry!
Muna & Abdul
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