Five Year 10 students tell of their work experience of Musgrove Park

Nance, Kalina, Cristina, Amy and Caitlin (not pictured) are a group of year 10 students who visited Musgrove Park Hospital last month for a week of work experience.

Work experience in the NHS can be so fulfilling for students as they look at what they want to do in the future, and it is also a great way to showcase the many diverse types of roles we have available in the NHS – starting recruitment at the very earliest point!

We hope that they all felt inspired during their time with us – and we hope to see them back here as an NHS colleague one day!

During their week, the five students wrote the following message:

Our work experience – by Amy, Nance, Kalina, Cristina and Caitlin

We are all interested in healthcare as a profession therefore this experience greatly benefited us for the following reasons:

There are over 350 jobs in the NHS and only a few are known by the average person. By being offered this opportunity, gave us a greater understanding on just how many different roles are needed to make a hospital, and being able to find a path that best suits us.

Additionally, it saves us from choosing the wrong career because saying ‘no’ to one career path is just as valid as saying ‘yes’ to another.

As you may know, practical work is different from textbooks as there is a limit to how much textbooks can explain.

Miccy (who is a nurse apprentice) told us that the general exposure to a department helps gain a feel for the hospital setting, such as the different sights and smells. This offered us a perspective that we could only get by physically being there.

Also, by having this first-hand experience it helped us address common misconceptions and myths surrounding the different job roles in the NHS.

For example, we were not aware of the extent of a midwife’s duties because of the way they are presented in social media, which makes their job look easy.

However, after talking to Beth, she explained how delivering babies is only a small part of their role, which comes with many complications itself.

The main reason for why work experience will greatly benefit us is that, as some of you may know, getting a job without experience is harder and completing this week with the NHS helps us stand out to future employers and universities.

Everyone at one point was a learner, so we would appreciate it if more departments were willing to offer work experience to expand our knowledge.

Thank you Musgrove!