Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I am in my final year of a Biochemistry with forensic science degree, although I am intending to stay on at uni/live in the area. My degree has close links with the school of biological and chemical sciences, medical sciences, the law department, and the materials department. If you want a tour around campus or around specific SBCS sites I would be happy to help, or otherwise I would be glad to help anyone in a more general tour of uni.

Ooh Hannah, I wish I could have done something like that, it sounds fascinating.

A real CSI lady. Must be a great course and I often wonder if what we see on the box is accurate or not...

A friend of my duaghter is doing something similar and said it is essentially correct but everything takes Muuuuuuuuch loooooonger. But that wouldn't make very good television would it, 8 weeks later the DNA test comes back, I don't think so.

Hello! I'm thinking about going into either biomedical sciences/neurology/psychology and wondered if any of you guys would be able to offer me some advice or if you know about some sort of work shadowing? Any feedback would be appreciated as I don't really know all that much - other than that this is the path I'd like to pursue as a career later on...

What kind of work experience are you looking for? eg laboratory testing, research, academic teaching etc? and where abouts? I may be able to ask around, but generally due to risk assessments etc they usually require you to be at least in your first year of uni to be in labs. Neuro might be easier in this respect as hospitals tend to allow work experience in clinical departments but not lab departments. There are some summer placements in various research facilities that allow small research projects to be undertaken during yrs 12/13, if I see any I'll post them.

At the moment, I'm don't really mind to much about specific areas work placement wise - something neurological is the path I'd ideally like to go down, but I welcome anything else too That way I can get more of a variation anyway, and perhaps find I end up considering other branches of medicine as well. Generally work shadowing though, following doctors, research, admin - it's all good, all extra things to put on personal statement
If you could ask around, that would be BRILLIANT Thank you! Clinical departments are fine too.
Summer placements? Do you know how long those would be roughly speaking - a couple of days, a couple of weeks, the whole holiday - because I think I have some other things planned during the summer hols already...
But thank you so much for helping! Please keep me posted if you can

Oh! One last thing! You wouldn't happen to know what the grade requirements are for medicine, would you? If not, is there a number I can call to find out?

-Summer placements tend to be about 6-8 weeks so maybe not what you're looking for, but really good on ucas/cv if you're considering a career in research.

-Grade reqs for medicine will depend entirely on the universities but tend to be AAB and above at A2. You can look on the ucas site or on specific university sites for the details, but the grade reqs advertised will be for 2011 entry, and may change in future yrs. Other than grades there are a lot of other considerations specific to each university for medicine applications so you would need to read these in detail.

-I will ask around if anyone is prepared to take someone for work experience and let you know if anything comes up.

6-8 weeks - OK, do you know if that would be everyday for six weeks? Because if not, I think it could be OK Thank you!
AAB at A2 - do you unis care about AS Level Grades or is it almost solely based on A2 Level Grades - which is more important - getting good A2 predicted grades or amazing AS grades (just in case I screw up when the exams turn up )
Thank you so much , seriously, really appreciate it.

generally tends to be mon to fri for the length of placement, but all depending on the specific place. You need both good AS grades and A2s- AS for the predictions and as they will make their own predictions from AS grades, and A2 as any offers would be based on these. When I was at CH they had specific medic careers sessions to cover all this. You can check out medschoolsonline, and new media medicine- both give loads of information on this stuff and getting work experience.

OK. They had nothing at CH nowadays, I had one 'work experience' thing when I was in UF where they arranged for us to go to the Barclays Bank in London for a couple of hours - but that was it...
I'll check out those sites you suggested! Thanks again ^_^

I had to arrange my own 'proper' work experience placement as well, but they did have some careers workshops with advice during Deps year.

Found this list of contacts- The first area includes lab work, not sure how up to date the list is, but at least it suggests that work experience is possible in the labs in the Barts and the London trust.

http://www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/doc ... -_sept.pdf

The below link is to the trusts guidelines and advice for work experience

http://www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/wor ... ience2.asp

I personally did mine in the summer between Deos & Grecians when I was at school at east surrey hospital in Redhill, but not sure if they still do this programme, or whether they allow lab experience.

Thank you very very much! Really appreciate it.
I checked out the links and the lab experience is still available