I liked the idea of being able to undertake a placement directly relevant to my future career, as i aspire to become a General Practitioner. I felt this placement would be of a lot more beneficial to me, rather than just searching for a temporary part time job over summer.
Organisation website
I simply contacted, my prospective employers through their email address, outlining my interest in wanting to do a work experience placement with them. I sent my CV and a cover letter.
I gained both administrative and clinical experience, seeing first-hand how a primary care service provider within the NHS operates. This involved an oversight to recruitment, accounting and resourcing of the business. Clinically I learnt how an advanced clinical practitioner operates within a GP setting. As this experience involved real-life patients, and I was only a student limited to the responsibilities, I could undertake. Nonetheless, it was still a thoroughly enriching experience
In the clinical setting I got to observe many different consultations. This allowed me to appreciate the new role of advanced practitioner and how their role serves as a novel solution to ease the burdening demands on GPs. The clinics i observed were mainly long term disease management clinics medication reviews as well as first line treatment of minor illness and injuries.
I really enjoyed being able to sit in on different consultations, seeing how the practitioners use their inquisitive detective like questions and communication skills to come to the relevant diagnosis, all within a time frame. Seeing how they take a focused history to establish the cause of the patients presentation, will hopefully allow me to better my own diagnostic skills in the future.
This was a placement I thoroughly enjoyed, and as such there was nothing challenging of note.
Yes, the clinical knowledge I have gained thus far in my degree, helped me to understand why the practitioners asked the questions they do in order to diagnose and understand how well controlled a long term condition is.
It has affirmed my desire to pursue a career in general practice.
my steps are the same as prior to starting this placement. I plan on doing 2 years foundation training, and then enrolling in 3 years GP training.
Form completed: 15 Sep 2019