Careers Service

Building skills and experience for medicine

Building skills and experience

Work experience is a valuable way to demonstrate both your motivation for medicine and the skills needed to ultimately become a clinician.

• Use our transferable skills pages to explore ways to gain the top skills employers are looking for

Clinical work experience

• Use LinkedIn to connect with current medical students and/or medical school graduates at your institution/s of choice (and/or Manchester). Then arrange a conversation in which you can ask them for their advice on clinical work experience.
• Join relevant student societies. The UMSU societies’ list offers a range of options.
• Apply to a local hospital or hospice to volunteer. The Manchester University Hospital Trust volunteering team get a lot of applications, so consider applying to another hospital in the Greater Manchester area or closer to home.
• Look for Healthcare Assistant roles on NHS Jobs.
• Consider joining St. John’s Ambulance volunteers, or gain training as a First Aider, Mental First Aider (for example as a Wellbeing rep) or First Responder.

Care-giving work experience

• Part-time ‘support worker’ roles e.g. through the not-for-profit social enterprises like Creative Support. Organisations sometimes advertise support worker roles on CareerConnect.
• Volunteering at a local care home can provide an insight into what it means to be a caregiver.
• Use the UoM Volunteer Hub to find volunteering experiences. For care-related opportunities take a look at the themes: Healthy living and active lifestyles, Children and young people and Supporting adults.

Online opportunities

• The Royal College of General Practice has an online resource that gives insight into General Practice for any UK-based person aged over 16.
• Brighton and Sussex Medical School offer a virtual work experience course.
• Life of a Medic writer created a COVID blog post ‘master list’ on virtual work experience opportunities for aspiring medical students.

Experiencing the NHS / patients

Most of your training will take place in the NHS so any opportunity to gain experience within or allied to the NHS will be helpful.

• Part-time administrative roles may be advertised by NHS Jobs.
• Consider joining one of the many public and patient voice initiatives run by the NHS.
• The Royal Voluntary Service offers volunteering roles in Hospitals and the community and can be an alternative way to experience the NHS
• Take part in NHS clinical research and talk to the researchers involved.