Work Experience

[nickmgh]

If forced to choose between the two, what do people think is more beneficial - a weeks shadowing in a GP surgery or a weeks shadowing in a hospital? This is on top of longer term volunteering, which I am already undertaking.

Many thanks

Nick

[MrMonkey]

It's not so much what you've done it's what you learn from it so that's more important. So I'd say do whichever you think you'd like to do more, if you think you might be a GP go for that, but I would have thought that you would possibly get to see more in a hospital.

[MrMonkey]

Just thought of another way to look at it, if you're already volunteering in a hospital type setting, you could consider shadowing a GP so you can see that side of being a Doctor, and vice versa. Just so you can say you've been exposed to as much as possible.

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

If you shadowed a GP you might see more of doctors' communication skills during consultations which are a big interview topic. In a hospital you could see hi-tech procedures which you wouldn't see at the GP's, but might be harder to talk about at interview?

[snakefisch]

Hospital! Much more exciting
It also depends if the GP they actually let you in on the appointments. I asked practically every GP in my area and they either refused or said I wasn't allowed due to patient confidentiality. In the end I settled for Reception.

[livim]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that GP work experience was considered very impressive but it is very hard to get due to patient confidentiality. Its supposed to be good because you see a variety of patients and conditions in one place, you see a doctor interact with a wide variety of people some with new conditions some monitoring long term conditions. You see them taking patient histories and could talk about the trust built up between patient and doctor as often very personal things have to be shared during the consultation. IMO GP shadowing - if you can get it and if you can get into the actual patient meetings as snakefisch says - would give you a lot to talk about.
Having said all of that, on my hospital work experience I did see ward rounds and spent a day in surgery and the surgeons out patient clinic but I was very lucky (surgeon happened to come to talk about a patient and said I should come to theatre the next day if I fancied it) and most of my friends only saw ward rounds.
Good luck!