placement student Review

- following around doctors, nurses, office staff and consultants as they worked through their routines for each day - learning how doctors make patient notes and the importance of each patient file and how information is processed and stored - learning about different laws involving patient confidentiality, the limits of family involvement and responsibility of different staff

- the different laws in place to protect both the patients and the staff, as well as the families of patients - how different information about patients is stored to comply with legal requirements and make sure consultants can access the information they need quickly and efficiently - how a consultant decides treatment for someone and the issues surrounding patients refusing treatment

i had a lot of fun on my work experience because i got to meet a wide range of staff with different jobs and got to talk to them all about their experience in working in their roles on a daily basis. i also enjoyed talking to the consultants about more technical things like the biology behind treatments which was very interesting as a biology a level student

it was pretty well organised as the departments expected me being there and allocated me a junior doctor to work with so they could explain anything i had questions about and were very useful when doing the daily ward rounds. i was in a different department each day so i always got to see something new

i learned a lot about what it would be like to be a doctor, nurse and office staff as i got to shadow staff in each role. the patient orientated care outlook of the NHS isn't as enforced in practise as i imagined, although it is clear that staff care about their jobs and the bigger picture

my work experience was very useful as it helped me decide that i want to work as a nurse in the future rather than a doctor or consultant as i want to be part of the patient care aspect of medicine instead of than the treatment and technical aspect of it.

no i was not paid or reimbursed meal costs, location costs and social costs were not covered by the department my placement was organised with i was told this before i started the placement but i live far from where my placement took place so i would have appreciated it

i was able to meet a whole range of different staff from different departments, all with different roles within their departments. this allowed me to get the opinions of different people on the NHS and the all the various paths that can lead to working in a hospital, both working with staff and data

Yes

it was a very useful work experience placement and really helped me narrow down my future career choices i also enjoyed it as the staff were very friendly and willing to explain things to me there are also loads of different people to talk to so you really get to see a range of different job roles that you can see if you want to follow

give enough notice otherwise you will probably fail to secure a placement apply to more than one hospital as some do not have the capacity to accommodate for students or are too busy apply to more than one type of department as it increases your chance of securing a placement, even if you are very passionate about one field. they may let you change your decision after applying if possible