how to talk about work experience in personal statement medicine

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How To Discuss Work Experience In Your Medicine Personal Statement

Work experience is a crucial part of your medicine personal statement. Instead of writing a paragraph listing various places you gained experience, you should use your work experience to help you demonstrate your dedication and drive to learn more about medicine.

Each university will have their own requirements and attitudes to work experience. For example, the medical schools at Cardiff and Leeds are among those which formally assess the non-academic aspects of your application. Contrastingly, the likes of Oxford and Imperial will use them less formally, more to get a greater perspective of the candidate as a whole and their suitability to the vocation.

Pick out the Best Bits

When planning the work experience section of your medicine personal statement, take time to consider the things you learned in each placement.

While 4 work experience placements doing the same thing in the same department may have generally given you exposure to one thing, try to think more about how it motivated you rather than the actual tasks.

If you did get the opportunity to perform any tests during your work experience, don’t be too quick to brag. Instead, evaluate each experience. If you can only pick out one key experience from your placements, that is fine. If you have had exposure to different places, such as a doctor’s surgery and a hospital, you may be able to pinpoint key moments.

Soft Skills

Discuss moments which helped you to evaluate or confirm your desire to study medicine and pursue a career in it. Soft skills are equally as important as the intelligence needed in medicine.

It is one thing to be talented academically, but people skills and social interactions are paramount, and sometimes difficult, in this profession. Demonstrating that you have had exposure to this and understand the importance of these soft skills is another key factor.

Think of these two words: Learning & Impact. With each piece of work experience you choose to discuss, consider and evaluate what you learned and the impact it had on your decision to study medicine. Remember, it is fine to highlight both highs and lows, so long as they are relevant.

Whatever you do, though, do not put yourself down.

No Need to Name Drop

You don’t have to, and in fact, shouldn’t list the names of the places you did work experience.

The people reading your application won’t be bothered about which hospital you went to. What they do care about is how it has shaped or inspired you.

Being Proactive

In all walks of life, it is great to see an applicant’s proactivity to go out and grab opportunities whenever they can. With medicine, it is especially important.

Having the drive to seek out opportunities on your own, not just wherever school sends you, demonstrates that you truly do have a desire to pursue this career. This is a key measure of motivation and will be picked up on by the people reading your application.

Voluntary Work

Your voluntary work, whether directly related to medicine or not, can also be a great way to demonstrate soft skills.

Whether you have coached a school sports team or volunteered at a care home, you will have developed skills that will help you in your career. For example, teamwork and confidence are skills you can learn in many different situations and are all highly important in medical practice.

Writing About Work Experience

When constructing your medical personal statement, select the skills and learning you wish to discuss and then you can relate them to your application.

The admissions director at Kings College London stated that too often, applications “look like a shopping list”. This can easily happen if you reel off the different hospitals or departments you did work experience at.

To avoid the shopping list effect, identifying the impacts of these experiences and write about said impact. Admissions teams will learn a lot more about you this way, and you can showcase your motivations in an effective way.

Your Medicine Personal Statement

Remember that the discussion of your work experience is just one component of a strong personal statement. Tackling each element of the medicine personal statement, even just by brainstorming or mind-mapping it out, can help you to make sure you have included everything possible to showcase your strong capability to succeed in medicine.

Often, some applicants have trouble trying to cut down all of their fantastic experiences and motivations to fit into the word count. If you need some pointers on how you can cleverly cut down words without sacrificing the best bits of your medicine personal statement, take a look at our blog on reducing the word count of your medicine personal statement .

In our successful medicine personal statement example and analysis we cover step by step what led to that medicine personal statement receiving four offers for medical school. If you require any further information to help you build the perfect application, then you could also get in touch with the admissions teams directly.

Medicine Personal Statement Review

Should you require any additional guidance or a second opinion on your medical school personal statement, we can help. With our personal statement review service , your personal statement will be reviewed by both a professional medical admissions editor and a fully qualified doctor, who received all four UCAS offers to study Medicine. The doctor will check any factual details and the editor can suggest any tweaks, making sure that your Medicine personal statement is the best that it can be.

If you would like us to review your whole application as well as the personal statement, our 360-degree application review is an alternative option for you.

Feel free to get in touch about any questions regarding your application to study medicine.

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The Importance of the Personal Statement

The personal statement is so important because it helps the admissions committee connect with and understand you and make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into. They’re going to be less willing to take a risk on a student they think will be unhappy as a physician. So if your personal statement reads like you’re going into medicine for the wrong reasons (money, prestige, parental pressure, etc.), they’re unlikely to admit you even if you have great stats.

It’s in your best interest to ensure that you have enough exposure to the field to be sure that this is the right career for you. Otherwise, you might find yourself burned out and miserable early in your career or leave medicine altogether. There is no single right reason to become a physician, but pursuing medicine should, at the very least, be an informed decision.

Like nearly everything in this process, how each school weighs the personal statement depends on the school. Many schools will rely heavily on the personal statement when deciding whether to offer a student an interview, and other schools may weigh other sections more heavily.

Since you can’t know or control how the admissions committee will evaluate your personal statement, you should focus on doing your best on each aspect of the medical school application.

When Should You Write the Personal Statement?

Most students find that the personal statement takes longer than they think it will. You don’t want to be caught not giving yourself enough time to write a great personal statement, so starting early is critical. Because of the time required to draft the personal statement, we recommend beginning in January of the year you apply to medical school.

You might be tempted to try to write the perfect personal statement on your first try or feel like you have to. This kind of thinking will only hold you back and keep you from getting started.

This very early stage of drafting might just look like brainstorming and listing all of the stories you might want to include in your personal statement. It’s also a good time to journal and reflect on your journey so far so that you can dig deeper in your personal statement and activity descriptions .

Starting early gives you plenty of time to write the personal statement, edit your drafts, get feedback from fresh eyes, and polish it. Taking time away from it between drafts will also give you the perspective to be able to evaluate your own work.

Ideally, you’re journaling and reflecting long before it’s time to actually sit down and write the personal statement. How you do this journaling is up to what makes sense for you. You can do it in a physical journal, a spreadsheet, a word document, or in the journal entry space in Mappd whenever you go to log your hours. This way, even if you’ve forgotten the details or the impact of an experience when you go to write your personal statement, you can refresh it in your mind.

How Long is the Personal Statement?

AACOMAS and AMCAS cap the personal statement at 5,300 characters, including spaces. TMDSAS allots 5,000 characters for the personal statement, also including spaces. While you don’t have to use every character available to you, you should aim for a length of at least 5,000 characters for AACOMAS and AMCAS. Anything shorter may not have enough substance or may not flow as well as a slightly longer essay would.

If you’re really struggling to come up with enough material for your personal statement, this might be a clue that you haven’t had enough experience to prove to yourself that you want to be a physician. Or it might be a sign that you haven’t reflected on your experiences deeply enough. Either way, this should be a sign to take a hard look at your journey so far and look for any shortcomings. You want to find and fix these before you hit submit on your application.

What Makes a Great Personal Statement?

The best personal statements tell a story that is authentic to the student writing it. You should aim to engage the senses of the reader and let them in on what you felt emotionally. The best and easiest way to do this is to focus on showing vs. telling. If you need advice on how to do this effectively, you can find plenty of guides and articles online about showing and effective storytelling.

You might need to spend your first draft just getting the facts down and then reword a lot of it to do more showing as you revise and edit, and that’s okay. Focus on improving each draft and emphasizing showing by the final draft instead of getting stuck on doing it perfectly from the very beginning.

You also want to start in a way that makes the admissions officer want to keep reading. Keep in mind that the personal statement doesn’t have to be in chronological order, so you can start with the most interesting part of your story.

As you get into the later stages of editing, you can also rearrange the pieces and see which order is the most interesting to read. This is a place where having another set of eyes can be incredibly helpful in giving feedback on whether things make sense or flow well.

By the end of a great personal statement, the reader knows and deeply understands why you want to be a doctor because they went along the journey with you. They saw your first interaction with a patient and felt what you felt as you held your mother’s hand in the hospital. It makes complete sense that your path has led you here and that this is what you want to do.

Should You Worry About Being Cliche?

Many students worry that their personal statement is cliche because their experiences are common. Common and cliché are not the same thing. The basic facts of a story might be common, but once you add your unique reflection and your unique background, it moves beyond that. If you don’t add anything to make it specific to your story, then it will be cliché. As long as you focus on your story and how you got here, someone will be able to connect with your story and want to get to know you better.

Reflection is the Key

One of the biggest mistakes students make in both their personal statement and activity descriptions is focusing too much on the what and not enough on the why – why these experiences matter.

You can tell the most interesting story in the world, but if you don’t dig deeper and explain why these experiences affected you and made you want to be a physician, your story won’t have any lasting impact on the reader.

In order to help someone else understand why you want to be a doctor, you need to fully understand that yourself. This will help make sure that you’re making the right decision, and it will allow you to tell your story more clearly and with a greater impact on the reader.

Then, once you fully understand for yourself your why and all of your reasons, you can more easily express that to the reader. You should follow each anecdote and each experience with a reflection on why that particular experience was so meaningful to you. What impact did it have on your journey? How did it strengthen your desire to become a physician? What did you learn from it?

You don’t have space to answer all of these questions for every story, but they’re the questions you should ask yourself, and then focus on the most important takeaway when writing. You should focus on the lessons or experiences that strengthened your desire to be a physician. Resist the temptation to describe what you learned about being a physician or the temptation to lean into the generic.

A Strong Send-Off

Just like you want a strong hook at the start to pull the reader in, you also want a strong conclusion. When you’re writing an English paper, your conclusion is often a summary of everything you’ve said before. This is not true for the personal statement. Repeating yourself is a waste of the limited space you have and isn’t very interesting for the reader.

Instead, the conclusion is a great place to talk about what you hope to do as a physician. What kind of change do you want to make in the world? How will you make your school proud after you’ve received your diploma? Paint a picture of the kind of physician you want to be.

Editing the Personal Statement

Who should you ask.

The ideal person to edit your personal statement is someone with knowledge of the medical school application process and an understanding of what makes a good personal statement. A great first stop is your school’s pre-health advising office. Hopefully, your advisor will have enough experience to give you great feedback on your personal statement.

If you take time away from the personal statement between drafts, you will also be in a better place to evaluate your own work, and you might find the examples in The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Personal Statement helpful during this process.

If you ask someone in your life or a mentor to edit your personal statement, you can give them this review sheet to help guide their feedback. This is especially helpful if they’re not an expert on the medical school application process.

There are also lots of paid services out there. We also offer essay feedback services . Students who join Application Academy can submit their essays for feedback during class and get feedback from their fellow students and TAs.

Editing for Grammar

We recommend that in addition to using your word processor’s built-in spell check, you sign up for a free Grammarly * account. It will not only help with things like spelling and punctuation but will also help ensure your sentence structure is clear.

You can use Grammarly for your application essays, academic papers, and emails to professors asking for letters of recommendation. You should take care to make sure that your personal statement and other application essays are free of errors and typos.

A high amount of errors can be distracting to the reader and make it come across that you didn’t take enough time and care with your personal statement to proofread it thoroughly. Proofreading is a step in the editing process where it’s perfectly fine to have someone less knowledgeable about medical school applications look over your work since they’re not editing for content. If you know someone with really good attention to detail or who gets good grades on their own papers, ask them to look over it for you with an eye to grammatical errors and misspelled words.

What to Avoid In Your Personal Statement

While writing your personal statement, you should write your story authentically, and you should try to avoid anything that will make the admissions committee want to stop reading or view you in a negative light. Here are a few examples of things to avoid, and you can find more examples in The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement .

We all come away from our experiences with positive and negative things about them. However, you should avoid focusing on the negative aspects of your experiences when writing your medical school application.

People who are overly negative aren’t fun to be around and don’t make for very good classmates or community members. It’s easy to say no to a student who seems negative, as the admissions committee is building a community of students who will work closely together and rely on one another for the next four years.

It doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about a time when you had a negative experience or can’t be honest. You should instead focus on what you learned from the situation and what positive aspects you can take from it.

You should not use your personal statement as an opportunity to rehash your resume. That isn’t interesting to read and is a waste of the opportunity you’re given to let the admissions committee understand your journey. You’ve already shared your most important activities and experiences in your activity descriptions. Focusing on your resume also does not answer the question that the personal statement is asking you, which is: why do you want to be a physician?

You can talk about research as part of your personal statement, but you should not focus on it. It’s better to talk about it in your conclusion as part of what you want to do as a physician rather than the driving force behind why you want to be a physician.

When a student focuses on research in their personal statement, it calls into question whether they have enough clinical experience to drive their interest in medicine or if they are more interested in lab work than patient care. Even if you are applying to MD/Ph.D. or DO/Ph.D. programs, you are given multiple other opportunities to talk about your research experiences so far and your future interest in it.

Emotional Topics

With this, you need to think carefully about how you will handle it if the topic is brought up in an interview. Anything you put in your application is fair game to be asked about in an interview, and you should keep that in mind.

Our cofounder Rachel Grubbs likes to advise students to discuss “scars, not wounds.” If the emotional topic is something you’ve already processed, it will be easier to talk about calmly during an interview. Tearing up is okay and human, but you don’t want to get so emotional that you find it difficult to continue your interview.

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Medicine Personal Statement Examples

Last updated: 29/6/2023

• Is Medicine Right for Me?
• What do Doctors do?
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• BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT)
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Your UCAS personal statement is a chance to showcase the skills, attributes, and experiences which make you suited to studying medicine. This can be quite a daunting prospect, especially when you have to boil all that down to just 4,000 characters, or 47 lines. 

In this article, we will:

• Examine examples of strong and weak medicine personal statements (interested in dentistry? Check out dentistry personal statement examples )
• Help you learn what you should and shouldn't include in your medicine personal statement

Want to explore more examples? Our Personal Statement Course has over 100 personal statement examples to help you find your voice.

What you'll find in this article:

Personal statement example 1 – introduction

Personal statement example 2 – introduction, personal statement example 1 – main body, personal statement example 2 – main body, personal statement example 1 – conclusion, personal statement example 2 – conclusion, strong personal statement example, weak personal statement example, what should your personal statement include.

To get into medical school , your personal statement should:

• Demonstrate meaningful insight into the profession, in the form of work experience or independent research. This could be partly based on medical books or podcasts when medical work experience is not possible
• Reflect on your strengths, weaknesses, and experiences
• Mention your extracurricular activities
• Discuss your academic interests and achievements

'At the moment I am working towards A-Level Chemistry, Biology and Maths. I achieved my AS-Level in Spanish but decided to drop it to focus on my more medically relevant subjects. I’ve been dreaming of studying medicine since I was a young child, and this was only reinforced when I contracted measles during my primary school exams. This affected my performance, but I found that this motivated me rather than discouraged me. A particularly inspiring doctor was heavily involved in helping me deal with the pressure. I was inspired by her to become a doctor myself and help others in a similar way. I am particularly interested in science and as such the practical side of medicine interested me. I’ve always enjoyed chemistry and biology the most, and have best learned when trying to link the pure science I learn in school back to it's practical and useful real-world applications. This is what is particularly interesting about medicine to me - you can apply pure, evidence-based science in a clinical and practical setting to have an obvious positive effect. Inspired by this interest, I invested in a subscription to the New Scientist magazine. I’ve read about a huge number of fascinating discoveries and how they’ve been applied in medical settings.'

This introductory section has some promising features, but there are areas the author could improve:

• The introductory sentence doesn’t catch the reader’s attention or hold much relevance for a medical personal statement. This sentence would be better suited to a subsequent section on the author’s academic achievements, and it would need to be supplemented with a suitable explanation as to why the chosen subjects are relevant for medicine. 
• The author uses an anecdote to illustrate why they first developed an interest in medicine. This is a good idea, but the anecdote they've chosen is not the most suitable. It references ‘primary school exams’, which uses the cliché of wanting to do medicine from a young age. This is not only overused, but is also underdeveloped. 
• The applicant mentions feeling under pressure for these primary school exams. This won’t fill the reader with confidence that the author will be able to cope with the demands of medical school and a career as a doctor. 
• The introduction should open with the anecdote rather than academic achievements. A strong and memorable opening line will catch the admission tutor’s attention, and gives the student an opportunity to summarise why they want to study medicine.
• It is far too long. A good introduction should be around 4-6 lines.

There are some parts of the introduction that are more effective:

• The part discussing why they enjoy chemistry and biology is useful – it links their love for pure science back to the passion they mentioned earlier for helping people. This demonstrates the blend of empathy and interest in science that medical schools will be looking for. 
• The same part also introduces the candidate’s reading of medical literature, which they could choose to discuss in more depth later in the statement, or which might be something that interviewers could choose to examine in more detail.

'From a young age, my real fascination in life has been science - in particular, the incredible intricacy of the human body. My passion to discover more about its inner workings fuelled my motivation to study medicine, and the challenging yet rewarding nature of the job leaves me certain that I want to pursue it as a career. I think that my chosen A-Levels have only made me more determined to become a doctor, while simultaneously allowing me to develop and improve my skills. I have become a better problem-solver by studying physics and maths, while also learning the importance of accuracy and attention to detail. I’ve particularly enjoyed chemistry, which has again helped me improve my problem solving skills and my ability to think rationally and logically. Throughout my chemistry and biology A-Levels, I’ve been required to engage in practical work which has taught me how to design and construct an experiment. I’ve also become better at communicating with other members of my team, something I witnessed the importance of during my work experience in A&E. During recent months, I’ve started reading more medical publications such as the Lancet and the British Medical Journal. I’ve been particularly interested in how this evidence-based science can be applied to clinical practice to really make an impact on patients.'

This introduction contains some useful reflection and demonstrates some insight, but is quite jumbled. The main areas of weakness are as follows:

• The content is good but much of it would be better suited to a later section and should be explored in more detail while being linked back to medicine (for example, the whole second half could be included in a longer segment on academia). 
• The applicant mentions that they improved their problem-solving skills. How did they do this? Why is this important in medicine? 
• They say that medicine is demanding but that this attracts them to the job. What experiences have they had to show the demanding nature of it? Why does this attract them to it? 
• The author also briefly mentions a stint of work experience in A&E, but the rushed nature of the introduction means that they can’t go into detail about the experience or reflect on what exactly they learned from it. 
• Similar to example 1, this introduction includes some clichés which detract from the author’s overall message. For example, that they have wanted to do medicine from a young age or that they love science (with no further explanation as to why). 
• It is far too long. Again, an introduction should be a succinct summary of why you're interested in medicine, and not a brief account of all of your experiences.

The stronger parts of this introduction include the following:

• The author does demonstrate that they can reflect on the skills they’ve improved through experience. For example, the analytical and problem-solving skills they gained from chemistry.
• The candidate shows an understanding of the link between evidence-based science and clinical application when discussing how they did further research around their physics course. This shows a good level of curiosity and insight.

'I first became interested in studying medicine when I carried out a work experience placement with my father an elderly care specialist. I really enjoyed the experience and it gave me a deeper insight into the challenges doctors face. I now believe that I better understand the resilience - both mental and physical - that doctors need to cope with the heavy workload and emotional challenges. A few months ago I was given the opportunity to attend work experience in St Mary’s hospital in Manchester where I visited and observed many different specialties and areas of the hospital like A&E and the labs and witnessed how doctors carried out their jobs. For the past year I’ve been doing some other volunteering work too, such as, taking meals around to patients on the ward, asking them about their experience in the hospital and just chatting with them about how they’re feeling. They’re often delighted to have someone to talk to especially during Covid when they weren’t allowed to receive visitors. I saw how my communication and empathy made a real impact on the mood of the lonelier patients. I spent a few days working in the same hospital, shadowing doctors and Allied Health professionals in the stroke ward. I became much more familiar with the process doctors used for treating stroke patients, and developed an understanding of the role that physiotherapists and occupational therapists have in their rehabilitation. On top of that I organised a placement with the emergency medicine doctors and spent time in the haemapheresis unit at St Mary’s.'

This example does contain some of the features we look for in a complete main body section but could definitely be improved: 

• The main issue with this is the list-like presentation, which goes hand-in-hand with a general lack of reflection or insight. Although it is good to discuss your work experience in your personal statement, it would be far better if the candidate focused on just one or two of the experiences mentioned, but went into far more detail about what they learned and the insight they gained. For example, after mentioning the role of Allied Health Professionals in the rehabilitation of stroke patients, they could go on to discuss how they came to appreciate the importance of these healthcare workers, and how the contribution of all these individuals within the multidisciplinary team is so important to achieving good outcomes.
• Statements like ‘I [...] witnessed how doctors carry out their jobs’ make it seem as if the candidate really wasn’t paying attention. They need to explain what they mean by this. Were they impressed by the doctors’ effective teamwork and communication skills, or perhaps by their positive attitude and morale? Did they seem well-trained and effective? What did they learn from this that might help them in the future?  ‍
• Similarly, the student simply states that they saw the effect of empathy on patients: ‘I saw how my communication and empathy made a real impact on the mood of the lonelier patients.’ This adopts a ‘telling’ approach, when the student needs to adopt a ‘showing’ approach. Simply telling us that they saw something does not adequately demonstrate an understanding of why those qualities are important, or what they actually mean. What does it mean to have empathy? What does that look like in real terms? How did they use it? What was the effect? Showing the tutor that you are empathetic is important, but simply saying it is disingenuous and shows a lack of understanding.
• The candidate spends a number of characters name-dropping the exact hospital they visited and its location, which isn’t the best use of valuable space, as it has no real impact on the message they’re trying to convey.
• Generally, it isn’t a good idea to talk about work experience with family members. Of course, this might be the reality, but try to have some other placements that you’ve organised yourself so that it doesn’t appear as if your family are doing all the hard work for you. At the very least, you could simply leave this information out.
• There are a few grammatical errors here, especially regarding the use of commas. It’s important to use a spell checker or to ask an English teacher to check your work for you before submitting your statement.

The better features of this example are:

• The candidate does show some insight into the role of a doctor when they talk about the resilience required by doctors to cope with the hard hours and challenging conditions. They just need to reflect in this way in other parts of the section, too.
• The author has clearly done a lot of work experience and is right to discuss this in their personal statement. Just remember that you don’t need to squeeze in every single little placement.

'I was pleased to be appointed as head boy in my last year of school, and as part of this role I headed up the school safety office. I carried out inspections of the dormitories, roll calls and helped in the running of school festivals and activity days. The office I was in charge of needed to ensure the safety of every student in the school and I helped plan and lead drills to prepare the students for storms, floods and fires. This role has made me a far better leader, and I also believe that I am now far more calm and logical when working under pressure or in uncertain situations. I’ve been an editor on the online school blog for over 2 years now and the experience has taught me how to work effectively in a team when under time pressure. In order to meet my deadlines I needed to remain motivated even when working independently, and I think that the diligence and work ethic I’ve developed as a result will be incredibly useful to me as a medical student. I took on the role of financial director for both the table tennis club and Model United Nations at my school. At first I struggled with the weight of responsibility as I was in charge of all of the clubs’ money and expenditures. However, I am now a far more organised individual as I came to appreciate the value of concise paperwork and of keeping a record of my actions. I not only manage the funds of the table tennis club but am also a regular member of it. I often play independently, and the lack of a specific coach means that I have to identify my own strengths and weaknesses. I am now far better at being honest about my weaknesses and then devising strategies for working on them. The sport has also allowed me to demonstrate my ability to work well in a team, but also to get my head down and work independently when necessary.'

This example is generally well written and showcases some of the features of a good main body section. However, there are some areas that can be improved:

• This section would benefit from the ‘show, don’t tell’ approach. Instead of explaining specific situations or events through which the candidate demonstrated certain attributes, they simply state them and then link them vaguely to a more general role or activity.
• The bigger problem, however, is that the author mentions a wide range of skills but falls short in linking these back to medicine.  ‍ For example, after reflecting on their role in the school safety office and the leadership skills they developed as a result, the author could talk about the senior role that doctors have within the multidisciplinary team and the importance of good leadership in a medical setting.  Similarly, the author mentions their ability to work independently but should really round this off by describing how this would benefit them in medical school, as the ability to progress your learning independently is crucial to success there. The student mentions an understanding of and proficiency with paperwork and recording their actions. Doctors must constantly do this when writing notes for each patient, so the candidate should really try to mention this in their statement to explain why their skills would be useful. The mention of teamwork could be followed by an explanation of why it is important in a medical setting and how the applicant witnessed this during their medical work experience. Finally, when the student talks about being able to identify and work on their weaknesses, they could use this as an opportunity to demonstrate further insight into the medical profession by discussing the importance of revalidation and audit in the modern NHS, or talking about how important it is for doctors to be able to work on their areas of weakness. 

Better aspects of this example:

• The applicant doesn’t simply list the activities they have been a part of, but also explains what they learned from these and the skills and attributes they developed as a result. This reflective ability is exactly what assessors will be looking for.
• The tone of the section is appropriate. The applicant doesn’t appear arrogant or over-confident, but at the same time, they manage to paint themselves in a good light, highlighting their range of skills relevant to medicine.
• This example uses the character count effectively. Unlike the earlier examples, almost all of the sentences serve a purpose and are succinct.
• They demonstrate a wide range of skills, most of which are very relevant to medicine.

' I am a resilient and empathetic individual and I think that I have the qualities to thrive despite the social and academic challenges of university. Through my work experience I’ve gained an insight into the difficulties doctors face but this has not dampened my enthusiasm. My placements and voluntary work have only strengthened my commitment and dedication to studying medicine.'

The effectiveness of a conclusion depends on the rest of the statement before it, so it is hard to judge how good a conclusion is without seeing what the candidate has mentioned in the rest of their statement. Assuming this follows on logically from the statement, however, we can say that this conclusion is generally good for the following reasons:

• It is brief, to the point, and highlights that the student holds some of the skills doctors need (this would of course need to be backed up with examples in the rest of the statement). 
• The author doesn’t introduce any new ideas here, as that would be inappropriate, but rather reiterates their determination, which is exactly what admissions tutors want to see. 
• The author demonstrates a balanced understanding of the demands of a medical career, illustrating this is a decision they have made rationally while considering the implications of their choice. 

As is always the case, this conclusion could still be improved:

• The mention of the social challenges of university is a bit too honest, even though these exist for everyone. Mentioning them could give the impression that the student struggles socially (which is not something they would want to highlight), or that they intend to dive into the social side of university at the expense of their studies. 
• If the candidate really insists on mentioning the social side, they should at least do this after discussing academics, and they should do it in the body of the statement, where they have space to explain what exactly they mean.
• The student describes themselves as empathetic. This should be avoided, as it should be evident from the statement itself.

'Over the years I have built up a large and extensive set of medical work experiences and volunteering opportunities. These have allowed me to demonstrate my ability to communicate effectively and work in a team, and they will allow me to become a more diligent student and effective doctor. I think that this, alongside my ability and strength of character mean that I should be considered for this course. I am excited to get started and begin to put my skills to good use.'

This is a reasonably strong conclusion. It provides a to-the-point summary of why the author believes they should be selected to study medicine and shows their excitement for starting this journey. However, there are some parts of this example that could be improved: 

• The author mentions 'ability' and 'strength of character.' These are nebulous terms and not specific to medicine or a medical degree in any way.
• The mention of a 'large and extensive range of medical work experiences' indicates overconfidence. Medical applicants are not expected to have any medical ability or any 'large and extensive range' of medical experience, nor is it probable that this candidate actually does (otherwise they wouldn’t need to go to medical school in the first place). Rather, medical students need a suitable set of skills and attributes in order to make the most of their medical education and become an effective doctor.
• On a similar note, the applicant says that their range of medical work experience will make them a better student and doctor, but this is only true if they can reflect on their experience and learn from it. Impassively watching an operation or clinic without properly engaging with it won’t make you a better doctor in the future.

We’ll now go on to look at an example of a strong personal statement. No personal statement is perfect, but this example demonstrates a good level of reflection, engagement and suitability to study medicine (we know this because the writer of this statement went on to receive four offers). 

It goes without saying that plagiarism of any of these examples is a bad idea. They are known to medical schools and will be flagged up when run through plagiarism detection software. 

Use these as examples of ways you could structure your own statement, how to reflect on experiences, and how to link them back to medicine and demonstrate suitable insight and motivation. 

'It is the coupling of patient-centred care with evidence-based science that draws me to medicine. The depth of medical science enthrals me, but seeing complex pathology affecting a real person is what drives home my captivation. As a doctor, you are not only there for people during their most vulnerable moments but are empowered by science to offer them help, and this capacity for doing good alongside the prospect of lifelong learning intrigues me. In recent years I have stayed busy academically - despite my medical focus I have kept a range of interests, studying Spanish and German to grow my social and cultural awareness and playing the violin and drums in groups to improve my confidence when working in teams and performing. This is similar to the team-working environment that dominates in medical settings, and I have found that my awareness of other cultures is a great help when interacting with the hugely diverse range of patients I meet during my volunteering work. The independent projects I am undertaking for my A-levels teach me how to rigorously construct and perform experiments, process data and present findings, developing my written communication. My work experience showed me the importance of these skills when making patients’ notes, and of course, medical academia must be concisely written and well constructed and communicated. Maths teaches me to problem-solve and recognise patterns, vital skills in diagnosis. Over the past two years, I have actively sought out and planned work experience and volunteering opportunities. My time last year in Critical Care showed me the importance of communication in healthcare to ensure patients understand their diagnosis and feel comfortable making decisions. I saw the value of empathy and patience when a doctor talked to a patient refusing to take her insulin and suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis. They tried to understand her position and remain compassionate despite her refusal. My experience deepened my insight into the realities of a medical career, as we were at the hospital for more than ten hours a day with breaks and lunches cut short by bleeps or calls from the ward. This helped me understand the physical resilience required by staff as I also came to appreciate the immense emotional burden they often had to bear. Despite this, the brilliant staff remained motivated and compassionate which I found inspirational. The Brighton and Sussex Medical School work experience and Observe GP courses I completed put emphasis on the value of holistic, patient-centred care, introducing me to specialities I had not previously considered such as geriatrics and oncology. Inspired by my experience I explored a variety of specialisms, reading memoirs (Do no harm) and textbooks (Oxford handbook of clinical medicine) alike. I investigated medical politics with my English persuasive piece, discussing the ethics behind the junior doctor strikes of 2016. I have been volunteering in a hospital ward since January, which helps improve my confidence and communication skills when talking to patients and relatives. I showed my ability to deal with unexpected situations when I found a patient smoking whilst on oxygen, and acted quickly to tell nurses. Over lockdown I felt privileged offering lonely patients some tea and a chat and seeing their mood change - it taught me that medicine is about treating patients as individuals, not a diagnosis. My work on the hospital door taught me to stay calm and interact assuredly with visitors, vital skills in public-service jobs like medicine. I coach tennis at a local club, planning and running sessions for younger children. I am responsible for players' safety and must manage risk while showing leadership qualities by making the sessions fun and inclusive. As a player, I am part of the self-run performance team, which forces me to better my ability without coaching. This means developing self-reflection and insight into my weaknesses, which I know to be integral skills for medics. One of the doctors I shadowed during my work experience was just starting her revalidation process and I saw the importance of self-awareness and honest reflection in meeting her targets and becoming a better doctor. I achieved my Gold Duke of Edinburgh certificate of achievement (and the Bronze and Silver awards), exhibiting my commitment and ability to self-reflect and improve. On our Silver expedition, we experienced severe rain, showing resilience by continuing when our kit was wet from day one. My diligence and academic ability will allow me to thrive in medical school, and I have the prerequisite qualities to become a compassionate and effective doctor. Despite the obstacles, I am determined to earn the privilege of being able to improve peoples' health. This is something that excites me and a career I would happily dedicate my life to.'

Strong personal statement example analysis

Introduction.

This statement is a good example of how a personal statement should be constructed and presented. The introduction is short and to the point, only dealing with the candidate’s motivations to study medicine while also demonstrating an insight into what the career involves. 

They demonstrate their insight briefly by mentioning that medicine involves lifelong learning. This is often seen as one of the challenges associated with the career but here they present it as an advantage which makes them seem more suited to the career. It also show they're a curious and interested individual who enjoys learning. 

The introduction's final sentence offers an opportunity for interviewers to probe the candidate further, to explore their curiosity, and ask them to explain what exactly attracts them to lifelong learning. An astute candidate would recognise this and try to think of a suitable answer in advance.

Paragraph 2 

The second paragraph opens the body of the statement by exploring the author’s academic interests. As with some of the previous example body paragraphs, the writer shows their reflective ability by explaining what each of their subjects taught them, and the skills they developed and demonstrated as a result. They improve upon this further by linking these skills back to medicine and explaining why they are important for doctors. 

This paragraph demonstrates the author’s work-life balance by showing their varied interests in languages and music, all without wasting characters by saying this directly. They also mention the diverse range of patients they encountered during their volunteering, which again implies an empathetic and conscientious nature while showing an insight into a medical career (particularly regarding the vast diversity of the patient cohort treated by the NHS). 

Their explanation of the relevance of maths could be more detailed, but again this could be something the applicant is hoping to be questioned on at interview. The candidate comes across as thoughtful and multi-talented, with the ability to reflect on their decisions and experiences, and with a suitable insight into how their strengths would play well into a medical career. 

In this particular paragraph, there isn’t much explanation as to how they drew their inferences about what a medical career entails from their volunteering and work experience (and what exactly these entailed), but these are explored in more detail later in the statement.

P aragraphs 3 and 4 

The next two paragraphs discuss the candidate’s work experience, beginning with a single work experience placement in detail. This is a better approach than the large lists of placements seen in the previous example body paragraphs. The author talks about a specific scenario and shows that they paid attention during their shadowing while also illustrating their ability to reflect on these experiences and the precise skills involved. 

The skills they mention here – communication, empathy, resilience – are skills that they specifically talk about developing and demonstrating through their activities in other parts of the statement. This shows that they have taken their learning and used it to inform the focus of their personal development. They also not only state that these skills are important for medics, but also explain why this is. For example, they explain that communication is important in helping patients relax and engage with their healthcare, and that resilience is required to deal with the antisocial hours.

In this section, the applicant briefly mentions a specific medical condition. This shows that they were engaging with the science during their placement and also provides interviewers with an opportunity to test the applicant’s scientific knowledge. Knowing this, the candidate would likely research diabetic ketoacidosis in order to be able to impress the panel. 

The author mentions some other virtual work experience opportunities they’ve been involved with and sets themselves up to discuss what these placements taught them. They then go on to explain the actions they took as a result of this, showing that they really engaged with the virtual placements and could identify what they learned and their areas of weakness. This is linked well to further reading and research they carried out, which illustrates their curiosity and engagement with medical science and literature. 

The reference to the junior doctor strikes at the end shows that they have engaged with medical news as well as the ethical side of medicine, which is something that many medical schools place a lot of emphasis on at interviews. Ideally, this section would explain how exactly they explored these different specialties and illustrate what they learned and how they developed their learning from the books mentioned.

Paragraphs 5 and 6 

These paragraphs discuss the applicant’s hospital volunteering and other extracurricular activities. The applicant doesn’t just state that they’ve volunteered in a hospital but goes into depth about the precise skills they developed as a result. They include an anecdote to illustrate their ability to react quickly and calmly in emergency situations, which is a great way to show that they’ve been paying attention (though this should really be backed up with an explanation as to why this is important in medicine). 

The candidate also shows their patient-centred approach when discussing how they cared for demoralised patients (again illustrating empathy and compassion). This style of healthcare is something that the modern NHS is really trying to promote, so showing an awareness of this and an aptitude for applying it practically will really impress your assessors. 

The author demonstrates another core attribute for medical students when talking about how their work on the front door of the hospital improved their confidence in communication, and they once more link this back to medicine. This last section could benefit from further explanation regarding the nature of their work on the hospital door and exactly how they developed these skills. 

In the second of these sections, the candidate simultaneously reflects on the skills they learnt from their tennis and explains how these apply to medicine, showing insight into the profession by mentioning and showing awareness of the process of revalidation. This will show assessors that the candidate paid attention during their work experience, reflected on what they learned, and then identified a way they could work on these skills in their own life.

The author name-checks the Duke of Edinburgh Award but then goes on to explain how exactly this helped them grow as a person. They link back to resilience, a skill they mentioned in an earlier section as being important for medics.

The conclusion is succinct and direct. Although clichéd in parts, it does a good job of summarising the points the candidate has made throughout the statement. They demonstrate confidence and dedication, not by introducing any confusing new information, but rather by remaking and reinforcing some of the author’s original claims from the introduction.

The following example illustrates how not to approach your personal statement. Now that you’ve read through the analysis of previous example passages and a complete example statement, try going through this statement yourself to identify the main recurring weaknesses and points for improvement. We’ve pointed out a few of the main ones at the end. You can even redraft it as a practice exercise.

' ‍ The combination of science with empathy and compassion is what attracts me most to a career in medicine. However, I wanted to ensure that the career was right for me so I attended a Medic Insight course in my local hospital. I enjoyed the course and it gave me new insight - the lectures and accounts from medical students and doctors helped me realise that medicine was the career for me. I was also introduced to the concept of the diagnostic puzzle which now particularly interests me. This is the challenge doctors face when trying to make a diagnosis, as they have to avoid differential diagnoses and use their skills and past experiences to come to a decision and produce the right prognosis. In order to gain further insight into both the positives and downsides of being a doctor, I organised some work experience in my local GP’s surgery. I managed to see consultations for chest pain, headaches, contraception and some chronic conditions which was very interesting. I also sat in on and observed the asthma clinic, which proved to be a very educational experience. During my experience, I tried to chat to as many doctors as possible about their jobs and what they enjoyed. I recently took up some work volunteering in a local elderly care home. Many of the residents had quite complex needs making it arduous work, but I learned a lot about caring for different people and some appropriate techniques for making them feel comfortable and at home. I became a better communicator as a result of my experience Nevertheless I really enjoyed my time there and I found it fulfilling when the patients managed to have fun or see their family. I appreciated how doctors often have high job satisfaction, as when I managed to facilitate a resident to do something not otherwise available to them I felt like I was making a real difference. My academic interests have also been very useful in developing skills that will be crucial as a doctor. I chose to study Physics and business at a-level and these have helped me develop more of an interest in scientific research and understanding; I’ve also become a more logical thinker as a result of the challenging questions we receive in physics exams. I know how important communication is as a doctor so I chose to study Mandarin, a language I know to be spoken widely around the globe. I was the lead violin in my school orchestra and also took part in the wind band, showing that I was willing to throw myself into school life. I really enjoyed our school’s concert, in which I had to perform a solo and demonstrate that I could stay calm under pressure and cope with great responsibility and i think that I’m now a better leader. This skill has also been improved in roles within my school on the pupil council and as form captain, which have improved my self-confidence. I needed to work hard in order to achieve my bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh awards, and have dedicated much of my time outside school to this endeavour over the past few years. I endured weekly sessions of Taekwondo, worked voluntarily in the charity shop Barnardo’s and took part in violin lessons.  As I’ve demonstrated throughout this statement I have an affinity for music, and so at university I plan to get involved with orchestras and bands. I also want to widen my horizons and discover new interests and hobbies, while trying to make new friends and cultivate a good work-life balance. I’m also keen to hike in the university’s surrounding territories. If I were allowed to study medicine, it would not only allow me to achieve one of my life goals, but to prove to you that I can become an effective, and successful doctor. I am absolutely dedicated to the study of medicine and know that I have the prerequisite skils and qualities to thrive in medical school and become a credit to your institution.”

Weak personal statement example analysis

• This personal statement does have some promising features, but overall it isn’t well structured and lacks appropriate reflection and insight. You can see this by comparing it to the strong example above. The author in this weak example very rarely describes what exactly they learned or gained from an experience and rarely links this back to medicine. 
• It reads quite like a list, with the candidate reeling off the experiences they’ve had or activities they’ve taken part in, without going into any real depth. They also use some vocabulary that implies that they really weren’t enjoying these experiences, such as when they speak of ‘enduring’ their time doing taekwondo, or of caring for residents being ‘arduous’ work. You don’t have to enjoy every activity you take part in, but implying that caring for people (a huge part of the job you are applying for and claiming to enjoy) is something you consider a chore isn’t a great start. This statement also has some questionable grammar and punctuation errors, which raises a red flag. Don’t forget to proofread your statement carefully before you submit it.
• The candidate often starts off their sections in a promising way. For example, by stating that they started volunteering in a local GP practice to gain more insight into the profession, but they rarely actually follow through on this. You never find out what insight the candidate actually gained or how they used this to inform their decision to apply for medicine. 
• Such lack of explanation and specificity is a theme throughout the statement. In the introduction, they say that personal accounts and lectures confirmed their wish to become a doctor, but they don’t actually explain how or why. They mention that their school subjects have helped them think more logically or improved their communication skills (which is good), but then they never go on to explain why this is relevant to medicine. They talk about leadership and self-confidence but again don’t link this back to the importance of self-confidence and the prominence of leadership in a medical setting.

To create an effective medicine personal statement, you need to provide plenty of detail. This includes concrete experiences demonstrating qualities that make a good doctor. If you can do this authentically, humbly and without selling yourself short, your personal statement will be in very good shape.

‍ ‍ If you're looking for more inspiration to craft a compelling medicine personal statement, check out our Personal Statement Online Course . It has over 100 personal statement examples, in-depth tutorials, and guidance from admissions experts, to help you create a ready-to-submit personal statement in just three days.

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Writing about your work experience in your personal statement—case examples

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• Peer review
• Alison Walker , associate editor BMJ

All applicants need to write about their work experience in their personal statement to demonstrate why they are a good candidate not only for a place at medical school but also as a future doctor. How have successful medical students done this? I asked four students at different medical schools to tell me how they got their work experience, what they did, and, most importantly, how they put into words what they learnt from it all.

My main work experience placement during sixth form was volunteering at a care home for elderly people for almost a year. The application process was straightforward: I called the care home, was sent an application pack in the post, and was then interviewed by the manager a few weeks later. The placement involved visiting once a week for a few hours to provide company for some of the residents. Although this was not work experience in a hospital, I was able to reflect on how it highlighted the difficulties of being a doctor in my personal statement. I wrote:

“I have experienced both sadness and frustration with regards to a resident who suffers from Alzheimer’s, because she learns to trust me, only to forget who I am later on. Despite this I visit her regularly because a few kind words on my part, grants her a sense of security. This, amongst other experiences, has allowed me to begin to appreciate the intensity of the emotional stress doctors face daily.”

Out of all the work experience I did (including shadowing consultants at various hospitals) I now know that it was volunteering at the care home that most accurately reflected what it is like to look after people who are sick.

I emailed as many consultants as I could, starting by looking at departments that interested me in the hospitals near to where I lived. In my email I was very concise, explaining a little about myself and how even spending one day with them would be invaluable for my application to medical school. Surprisingly, most of my hospital experience came from these emails. I received a lot more “no” than “yes” responses to my emails, but be persistent and don’t give up easily.

Make sure you take notes during your work experience. Write down your thoughts, feelings, and anxieties. What went through your head when you witnessed your first ward round, or a patient cried in a consultation? Beyond how you feel at the time, also think about the science behind whatever you see. Pay attention to the aspects of your experience that told you something interesting and intriguing about being a doctor, caring for a patient, or even how complicated the National Health Service can seem to be.

When you come to write about your work experience in your personal statement, make sure whatever you say is unique to what you’ve seen, how you felt, and what that means to you as a prospective medical student. For example, one sentence from my personal statement stated:

“While on an intensive care unit of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, I witnessed how complex ethical issues, like withdrawal of treatment and whether or not to resuscitate, were a part of the daily challenges faced by healthcare professionals in their care of every patient.”

In this example I thought about what I had seen in a way that looked at medicine as a whole and not just as a specific event that I had observed while on the wards. Translating your experience into a personal statement can’t be done overnight, but with time it is more than possible.

Sending many emails and calling around helped hugely—you just need to put yourself out there. The places I contacted were keener to help me if I explained (on the phone or by email) exactly what I wanted to gain from the work experience. Teachers are sometimes able to help, but ultimately it is down to you to put in the time to search online and make telephone calls and send emails.

What I realised from my work experience was that medicine wasn’t the glamorous and easy job that so many medical dramas make it out to be. I saw many negative aspects, including the long hours (one surgeon said he hadn’t seen his children in weeks, even though he lived with them) and the need to make emotionally demanding decisions.

Here are some of the ways I reflected on the variety of my work experience:

“To gain more patient contact, I volunteered in a nursing home, feeding patients and assisting in moving and handling. It was here that I discerned the lesser-known aspects of healthcare: paperwork, understaffing, and even violence towards healthcare staff.

I have been fortunate to shadow many doctors on the wards and in theatre, observing mastectomy, coronary artery bypass surgery, and seton placement. I saw how the multidisciplinary team works together in a demanding hospital environment. The doctors’ focus on patient centered care hugely impressed me; the duty of a doctor to respect patients’ decisions (providing the patient has capacity and has made an informed decision) reminds me that doctors, aside from being highly competent, must also recognise patients’ moral values.

To learn about other aspects of healthcare, I spent two weeks at a pharmacy where I learnt about confidentiality. I also volunteered at a dental clinic, practising manual dexterity in aspiration.”

One thing I’ve found from running access to medicine and outreach events at my university is that admissions tutors are only interested in what you’ve learnt from your work experience. It is notoriously difficult to gain work experience involving patients, and it isn’t a prerequisite at all. What is more important is explaining how your work experience makes you a better candidate, especially when you’ve shown how you’ve taken on board the things you’ve learnt.

For my work experience I spent one week at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) in London, one week in a general practice surgery, as well as lots of voluntary bits such as helping in care homes and at a school for children with learning disabilities.

I got most of the voluntary work experience through my school, but I also emailed organisations myself to gain as much experience as I could. I am lucky enough to have a family friend who is a general practitioner and who let me attend the practice for a week, and for the RNOH placement I applied via an application form which is freely available on its website. Here’s how I wrote about it:

“My work experience at a local GP surgery demonstrated to me the resilience and stamina that a doctor requires, as I was able to shadow a doctor treating a range of patients on home visits, telephone surgeries, and walk in clinics.

It is fascinating to me that the job of an orthopaedic surgeon can be to essentially break a patient’s bones in order to improve them. Only in medicine am I able to find an array of diverse cases that never fail to intrigue me. Whilst shadowing a registrar at an orthopaedic hospital I was able to follow a patient from clinic to theatre who suffered from severe arthritis.

This led me to volunteer on a weekly basis for a year at Meadow Wood School for children with physical and neurological impairments; developing the compassion and knowledge to help them cope with their disabilities.”

I gained a lot of insight into the day to day life of doctors in hospital and a general practice environment. However, my most valuable experience was in the voluntary sector as it taught me communication skills that were invaluable. Overall, I think the amount of experience and what it was really doesn’t matter—it’s how you weave it into your personal statement and how you present it that does.

Originally published as: Student BMJ 2015;23:h3359

Competing interests: None declared.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; not externally peer reviewed.

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Writing the Personal Statement for Health Professions Applications

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The personal statement gives you the opportunity to present a compelling snapshot of who you are and perhaps why you want to be a doctor. Use your personal statement to say what others can’t. The personal statement can be a tricky genre to master. On the one hand, you want to give the admissions committee a sense of your personality and who you are. On the other hand, you must sound focused and professional, which sounds like it might impede your ability to capture your personality.

But this does not have to be the case. What you need to do is figure out how to say what drives you to want to become a healthcare professional in as specific a way as possible. The more specific you can be, the more the admissions committee will feel as if they have a sense of who you are.

You don’t need gimmicks, jokes, artificial drama, or hyperbole to express who you are or why you would make a good medical student or doctor. All you need are carefully selected details that you can craft into a unique and compelling story that conveys a sense of purpose and motivation.

What Makes a Good Personal Statement?

• There is no exact template for an effective personal statement. Often, however, strong personal statements combine a concise description of a personal experience with reflection on how this experience either led the writer to pursue medicine or indicates the writer’s character or commitment.
• Good personal statements often have a strong sense of narrative. This does not mean that they read like short stories, though they can relate a few scenes or anecdotes from your life. They have a strong sense of narrative, rather, in how they convey the writer’s sense of dedication to medicine. Strong personal statements often give readers an idea of how applicants see their experiences as leading to the decision to pursue medicine.

How to Get Started

The personal statement is an exercise in self-reflection. Questions to consider:

• Who are you?  I am driven to… I have learned to… I believe…
• What are your most passionate interests or concerns?  What problem(s) most occupy your thinking and your efforts?
• How did you develop those interests?  (Not just the story, but what drives you.)
• What errors or regrets have taught you something important about yourself?
• When does time disappear for you?  What does this tell you about your passions, your values?
• What ideas, books, courses, events have had a profound impact on you?  How so?
• To what extent do your current commitments reflect your most strongly held values?
• When have you changed?  Consider yourself before and after; what does this change mean?
• How do your interests and who you are relate to your goals in medical school and as a doctor?

Start a “shoebox”; a place to keep random notes for your personal statement; be ready to write at any time. Review these items occasionally; let them tell you more about what you want your personal statement to say. Start writing drafts, experiments; you will know when a paragraph begins to gel.

A Suggested Writing Process

Everyone writes differently, so these are potential strategies rather than rules.

• Make a list of some of your most defining experiences – extracurricular activities, specific classes, volunteer work, research, hobbies, etc. Try not to include overly personal experiences (breakups, trouble with parents, illnesses in the family, and so on). It’s difficult to write about such things without being sentimental or cliché. You want experiences in which you did something and had to make a choice.
• From this list, try to select an experience that particularly demonstrates your intellectual curiosity, your dedication to service, your composure under pressure, your leadership ability, or any other personal trait that you think is particularly relevant to your case that you would make a good doctor or medical student.
• Start writing a draft based on this experience. You want to be specific, but don’t get bogged down with an abundance of anecdotes or minutiae. Try to use your draft to craft a succinct story that demonstrates your character and your motivations.
• Set the draft aside for some time (a number of days or weeks), and then revisit it with fresh eyes. Be as honest with yourself as you can be: What works in this draft? What doesn’t work? What sounds cliché or unspecific? Would a reader who doesn’t know me at all get a sense of my personal character and dedication?
• Revise, revise, revise: tighten the structure, add new things to make your point clearer, take away sentences or sections that now seem unnecessary, use the active voice as much as possible, and anything else that needs to be done. If what you have just doesn’t seem to be coming together, do not be afraid to start over.
• Solicit feedback from a couple of trusted readers and revise again based on the suggestions that you find most useful. Don’t solicit feedback from too many people though – too many responses can be overwhelming.
• Edit your work for grammatical mistakes, typos, clumsy repetitions, and so on. Make your prose impeccable before you submit your statement. Asking help from other readers can be especially helpful with editing, as sometimes it gets difficult to read your work with fresh eyes.

Things to Do

• Use the experience that you describe to tell a story of personal progress, particularly progress towards your commitment to medicine.
• Write with active verbs as much as possible.
• Strive for concision.
• Sound humble but also confident.

Things Not to Do – Common Pitfalls

• Don’t talk in hyperbolic terms about how passionate you are. Everyone applying to medical school can say they are passionate. Instead, show your readers something you have done that indicates your passion.
• Don’t adopt an overly confessional or sentimental tone. You need to sound professional.
• Don’t treat the personal statement like a piece of creative writing.
• Don’t put your resume in narrative form.
• Don’t use jargon, abbreviations, slang, etc.
• Don’t use too many qualifiers: very, quite, rather, really, interesting…
• Don’t write in overly flowery language that you would normally never use.
• Don’t include famous quotations. If you must quote, use something that shows significant knowledge.
• Don’t write about yourself in an overly glorifying or overly self-effacing manner.

What to Remember

• They are read by non-specialists, so write for an intelligent non-medical audience.
• Actions sometimes speaks louder than words so give examples of experiences rather than describing them.
• All information must be accurate – don’t pad, but don’t be falsely modest either.
• The personal statement, in part, serves as a test of your communication skills.  How well you write it is as important as the content.

Writing Resources

• AAMC: 7 Tips for Writing your AMCAS Personal Statement
• Graduate Admission Essays: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why , Donald Asher, Ten Speed Press
• On Writing Well , William Zinsser
• Elements of Style , Strunk and White, Macmillan
• Article :  2 Med School Essays that Admissions Officers Loved
• Guidance for Writing Personal Statements, Work & Activities Section, Secondary Applications

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Medical Work Experience: The Definitive Guide

Home » Application Guide » Medical Work Experience: The Definitive Guide

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If you are hoping to apply for medical school, work experience forms an important part of your journey and application. Medical work experience is generally considered to be work experience in a GP or hospital setting, however there are other options available to you.

This is a guide to medical work experience including how to get it and how to learn from it, which is vital if you are to make the most of your experience.

If you’re looking for some specific information, check out the Table Of Contents below and click what you’re most interested in.

Why is medical work experience important?

Medical work experience is important for many reasons.

You get first-hand experience of what working in medicine is like, which can be quite hard to fully comprehend without doing some kind of work experience. Doing work experience gives you a valuable opportunity to ask medical staff questions about what their job involves day to day, what the best bits are and about some of the challenges.

It is vital to have some medical work experience to write about in your Personal Statement (if you’re struggling with your statement, 6med can help you out) . Most medical schools like to see some kind of medical work experience or experience in a people-focused setting, but most do not have specific requirements.

It is worth checking the specific medical school degree pages or on UCAS to ensure you meet any requirements in terms of work experience.

Work experience is a great way to show that you understand the realities of being a doctor and gives you a chance to show admissions tutors a glimpse of your reflective skills in your Personal Statement.

By simply having work experience in your Personal Statement, this will show a commitment to the course and let you show your knowledge of the profession.

Medical work experience will give you a more in-depth knowledge that will be beneficial at interviews.

If you have written about work experience in your Personal Statement, interviewers may ask about this, but it can also be good to work anecdotes or reflections from your work experience into other answers. Here you can demonstrate that you have a rich understanding about the role of a doctor and the qualities needed.

It is not just useful for questions about your work experience and the role of a doctor, but the wider lessons you learn from work experience will give more depth and show an understanding in other answers you give, and enable you to talk about the clinical side of medicine with more confidence.

Back up your work experience with a solid Medicine Application.

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Types of medical work experience

There are different types of medical work experience that you can get . Here is a run down of the different types of work experience you might consider.

Hospital work experience

Work experience in a hospital will likely allow you to observe multiple things. You may get to shadow different healthcare professionals, from doctors to nurses to pharmacists. Observing the multi-disciplinary team is a unique experience that you will be unlikely to see in any other setting, with so many healthcare professionals working together. This is a great opportunity to observe the teamwork and communication that is so vital in medicine.

With hospital-based work experience, you may see a variety of patients with a variety of different medical problems. Try to use the opportunity to go with a junior doctor when they talk to the patient, to gain an understanding of what it is like from their perspective. Observing junior doctors is a great opportunity to see what kind of role you will fill upon completion of medical school.

GP Work experience

Doing work experience at a general practice will give you an insight into the busy work life of a GP and the opportunity to learn how a general practice is run.

Getting to observe a GP in clinics is an amazing opportunity, as you will likely have only seen a GP as a patient before. The variety of patients with a wide variety of medical problems each only have the same length consultation during which the GP must learn about the problem and decide on a course of action.

Watch for how the GP manages the patient’s ideas, concerns and expectations whilst also gather all the information they need for a plan of action, all in 10 minutes! You will see many important characteristics of a doctor whilst shadowing a GP.

Work experience in a general practice may not involve solely observing a GP. You might get the chance to help the receptionists or learn about the role of the nurses or practice manager. Use this opportunity to learn about all of the roles in a general practice and how they come together to deliver a great service for patients.

Care Home Work experience

Local care homes can be a great choice for gaining work experience. This will give you a unique insight into healthcare in a specific environment. Often you will gain experience in a volunteer role and have the opportunity to talk to residents and get an understanding of what they need from a care and medical perspective.

Other Work experience

There are other types of work experience that you might be able to acquire that have transferable skills and help you build qualities that are important for going into the medical field.

People-focused experience is important and can be utilised on your Personal Statement and at interview to show that you have developed skills vital for medicine.

Volunteering is a valuable experience even if you have medical work experience too, as it requires lots of the qualities you will need to go into medicine. You get real hands on experience, as well as the opportunity to develop skills that are essential for a career in medicine such as teamwork, initiative and organisation.

Many universities are now placing equal emphasis on work experience and volunteering so try to do some at some point. This is not the case for all medical schools however, so be sure to check each one carefully to ensure you meet the requirements.

Some examples of places you could look for volunteering are:

As a St John’s cadet (under 18s only), you will get to provide first aid at events and develop your communication, teamwork and leadership skills. This is great hands on experience helping members of the public in a first aid capacity, and a real insight into part of what medicine involves.

This will give you the opportunity to directly interact with patients and see the palliative side to medicine. Hospices are unique places where the care of patients holistically is emphasised; you will be able to observe and help out with the incredible care they give.

Local charities are always looking for help at their shops. You will be able to learn more about how charities work and interact with the public in the people-facing role.

This is a great chance to work with children in a caring environment. You will be able to build lots of the qualities you need for medicine.

This is a less common choice for volunteering but incredibly rewarding. Working with children with additional needs or disabilities is a unique opportunity to give back and develop important skills. It is a chance to work with a group of people you are unlikely to otherwise work with.

Some hospital trusts take volunteers. This will give you experience on wards, just in a different capacity. Volunteering in a hospital can give you otherwise rare patient contact, which can teach you a lot. You will also be able to observe the healthcare staff for a different perspective which can be just as valuable. Some examples of volunteering tasks you may be asked to do are talking to lonely patients on the wards or making tea and coffee for patients.

How to get work experience

You can find work experience in a number of ways, and the steps you might take for different types of work experience vary. Here is a step by step approach to finding work experience.

Two steps that you should take first for all types of work experience are:

• Ask the people you know. If you have medical staff in your network of family and friends, you are at an advantage. Knowing someone who works in the NHS personally who is willing to let you shadow them is often your best option.
• Try asking your school. Some schools have a great alumni network who offer to take students for work experience. Don’t worry if your school doesn’t have this, your teachers may know people personally who would be willing to let you shadow them, or know people who have recently graduated university who went to your school.

Do not rely on someone in your network offering you work experience.

Don’t stop at these 2 steps; they should be concurrent with you being proactive and trying to find work experience outside of your network. Here are specific steps for finding work experience for each of the types discussed above.

Not sure where to start with your Medical School application?

How To Get Hospital Work Experience

• Find a list of all of the hospitals near you and check out their work experience page. This is usually pretty easy to find by putting the name of the hospital or trust and work experience into Google. It is important that you know how the hospital allocates work experience. Some have a centralised process where you apply for work experience and if successful, get put on a week-long course or something similar. Other hospitals do not have this and it is up to you to contact departments or doctors directly.
• Contact the education department if your local trust has one, most do. They will be able to signpost you and advise you on how to obtain work experience if their online page does not do so already.
• Apply via the centralised process. Sometimes this requires you to go to school in a specific catchment area so be sure to check the requirements before you apply.
• Contact departments directly. This could be via phone or email, whatever you can find online. Don’t just contact one and wait for them to get back to you as this may take a while, especially as you will get more rejections than successes. With this approach, be sure to check the age requirements as some departments such as paediatrics, often have an age limit of 18.
• Contact doctors or nurses directly. Often you will be able to find an email address or contact number for the lead consultant or nurse in charge online. Make sure to be polite, introduce yourself and be clear on what you are looking for.

How To Get GP Work Experience

• Email or call local general practices – not your own though as they will not accept you for confidentiality reasons!
• Look for general practices further afield as they are more likely to take you if you are unlikely to know any of their patient population. Even considering looking in a different town or city.
• If you have a good relationship with your GP, it may be worth asking them if they know any other doctors that might accept you for work experience.

How To Get Care Home Work Experience

• Email or phone local care homes in your area. They are often more than happy to take on volunteers!
• If you know anyone who works in a care home it is worth asking if you can observe them.

Other Related Work Experience

How you acquire other related work experience depends on what you have in mind. If you have something specific you want to do such as volunteering at a special school or local hospice, try to find an email or phone number on their website and contact them. You will be more likely to be accepted for volunteering than work experience so be sure to know you can make the commitment and be clear about how much time you are willing to volunteer in your first email or phone call.

If you are unsure, check out the volunteering page for your area for opportunities (usually one for your county or borough), volunteering matters or do-it.org .

If you are interested in becoming a St John’s cadet, check out their website here . To find volunteering in your local hospital trust, try to find their volunteer page online as there is usually a portal which you can apply through. Hospitals often require long-term commitment such as 6 months or more so be sure you can meet the minimum time requirement before applying.

What to do when you are on work experience?

Work experience can be daunting, especially if you are going to a new place and don’t know the person who has agreed for you to shadow them!

It is important to conduct yourself professionally as if you were going to work.

Leave extra time to ensure you arrive on time and wear professional clothes. Something that you might wear to sixth form or college if you are required to wear smart clothes. Be sure that you can be ‘bare below the elbows’, so if you wear a shirt or long-sleeved top make sure you can roll it up if need be. This also means no jewellery or watches on your hands or arms.

For guys you probably want to wear a shirt (no tie) and smart trousers.

For girls you probably want to wear something smart such as smart trousers or skirt and a blouse or top. Blazers are not necessary, and you would likely take one off anyway.

Make sure to thank the person who you are shadowing upon meeting with them and you can offer to help if they have any small tasks for you. Use the opportunity to ask questions, although you need to wait for an appropriate time if they are in the middle of something.

It might be worth noting down any questions you have and ask next time they have a break or a few minutes when not with patients.

Feel free to take notes on work experience, and this includes about patients. However, you must maintain confidentiality so do not write down any identifiable information about the patient such as date of birth or name. You can write patient A, 63M and things about their condition or treatment but nothing that someone reading your notes could use to identify the patient with.

It is also important that you do not discuss the specifics of patients outside of your work experience, again, being careful to not include any identifiable information.

Make the most of all of the opportunities you are given on work experience. Take the chance to observe different healthcare professionals and procedures, take the chance to go with the doctor to talk to the patient.

Engage and ask questions, as most people will be more than happy to answer. This doesn’t just have to be about the patients and things you see. You can ask broader questions about being a doctor such as about the work life balance, or the most challenging part of the role is. You could even ask about the variety in the career and how being a doctor is changing over the coming years.

This is a golden opportunity if you get to ask a doctor questions so use it! If your work experience is many days long, at the end of each day come up with at least 3 questions to ask the following day, to increase your understanding of the role and the NHS.

If there is something you would like to see or learn about, ask. Most people are more than happy to accommodate you and help you gain a real insight into the profession you are going into.

How To Reflect On Work Experience?

Work experience can be difficult to get, and medical schools are aware of this. Try not to worry too much about what exactly you will be doing and the length of work experience you manage to acquire.

The most important thing is to reflect on your work experience.

Medical schools are looking to see what you have learned from your experience. This isn’t the steps in a cardiac surgery you observed, but the wider lessons you have taken away about the role of a doctor, the qualities needed and the NHS.

Reflection is about reviewing, analysing and evaluating experiences. You need to think about what you have observed and draw learning points from this. Your reflection can include what you saw or did, but this should be primarily to give context to your learning points. Including interesting cases is useful to include in your notes however, for your Personal Statement (remember to keep all patient information anonymous).

It is important to remember what you did in order to reflect on it! Take a small notebook with you on work experience and take quick notes as you go along, noting down key things you saw or thoughts you had that you want to develop later.

Don’t worry if you are too busy taking the experience in and asking questions to take notes. Just be sure to write everything down in your breaks or at the end of the day. Reflection is great for revisiting your experiences and considering your behaviours and thoughts again.

Some important things to consider when reflecting on your medical work experience are the qualities and skills are needed to be a good doctor and the challenges of the role. You might also want to start thinking about how you are suited to the role and if there are other experiences that have shown you that you possess some of these qualities.

There is no right or wrong way to reflect as it is a very personal exercise.

Learn how to demonstrate your reflections to Admissions Tutors effectively in our One-Day Personal Statement Crash Course . 

Everyone has their own style, but a good place to start with reflection are these 3 easy steps:

• What did you observe/do?
• What did you learn from this?
• Specific to applying to medicine – how does this relate to you, your future career, or knowledge of the role of the doctor or the NHS

My Own Personal Experience

“I was fortunate to spend 4 days shadowing an anaesthetist in theatres. I was very unsure what to expect and as no one in my family or friend network is a doctor and I wasn’t sure quite what the job of a doctor entailed either.

Asking lots and lots of questions really helped me to make the most of the experience and gain a really good understanding of different options within medicine and I also learned a fair bit about anesthetics that I still carry with me today!

This experience was not only great for me personally but to include in my Personal Statement some reflection on my time in theatres. Watching the incredible communication and teamwork of the surgical teams whose members had met just minutes prior was amazing and really showed me how vital these two skills are in medicine.

I also learned about working in the NHS – how it is like a machine and if one part has an issue, that impacts the rest of the chain. A lack of bed space meaning an operation could not go ahead gave context to the news stories and showed some of the challenges of the system, despite all of the staff trying their best.

A very different experience which allowed me to build upon my own skills was volunteering at a special school for two years, which looking back now, laid the foundations for my interest in paediatrics.

I felt completely out of place during my first few weeks in a class of completely non-verbal children. I was troubled that I did not know what they wanted and did not know what to do when they became upset.

Throughout the first year, my non-verbal communication skills improved massively, and the experience made me a more open person, working with children who have additional needs. As well as improving my communication skills, organisational skills and teamwork, it has made me more patient, kinder and more open to people who would be considered different by societies standards.”

Work experience top tips

All of this information can seem quite a lot to take in! Here are my top 3 tips for each stage of your work experience journey.

Finding Work Experience

• Ask everyone you know. Asking doesn’t hurt and you never know who your family and friend network may know.
• Be persistent! You are likely to get lots of rejections and this can feel disheartening but keep calling/ emailing people – it will be worth it when you find work experience!
• Don’t be afraid to explore different options. Everyone wants GP or hospital work experience but sometimes this just isn’t possible. Explore your other options such as care homes and other volunteering opportunities as well as continuing to try to get NHS work experience.

Making the most of work experience

• Prepare beforehand. Get organised so that you know where you need to go and if you need to take any paperwork, so that you don’t have to stress when you arrive and can make the most of the experience!
• Ask questions to further your understanding – at least 3 a day!
• Get involved. If you are given an opportunity to do or see something say yes! It can be easy to feel afraid and like you don’t know anything relevant but really take in the experience and make the most of opportunities.

Reflecting on work experience

• Keep a diary of what you have done.
• Focus on your learning points from your experience and try to link these to your application to medicine. For example, you may have learned the importance of communication from your work experience so try to think how experiences in your life have helped you improve your communication.
• Reflect soon after the time. Try to reflect at the end of each day as this is when your memory will be freshest. Coming back to reflect a few months later will be much more difficult.

A small after note in the COVID-19 pandemic

It would be remiss not to mention the current circumstances; organising and carrying out work experience will undoubtedly be more difficult this year. Work experience that you had organised is looking unlikely to go ahead in the summer holidays and you may not be able to do any before UCAS applications have to be in. There are a couple of things that you can still do and reflect on as an alternative to the usual medical work experience you might have hoped to do.

Online Courses

• Brighton and Sussex medical school have launched a free online work experience course with different modules to teach you about the role of a doctor and the NHS. Access the course for free here .
• The Royal College of General Practitioners has made a free and interactive online video platform for exploring the role of GPs and the wider primary care team. To get access you need to fill in this short survey to get an email with a link to the platform.

Volunteering

This may not be an option for everyone but if you are interested and feel it is suitable for you and your circumstances, there are opportunities to volunteer in the COVID-19 pandemic. Many hospitals are recruiting volunteers from the general public to do tasks such as video chat lonely patients or picking up medications for the wards. Check out your local hospital or trust for more information.

Other volunteering such as joining a local group that delivers food and medicines to vulnerable people may be an option for you. There are lots of ways you can volunteer in the pandemic and even if it is not directly related to medicine, you can still use this in your application and get experience of being in a caring role.

Continue to develop your knowledge of the role of a doctor and the NHS

Medical schools this year will be appreciative that you may have not done work experience before the pandemic hit. But you can still continue to develop your knowledge in this area.

This could be by talking to any healthcare staff you know about working in the NHS and about their role, or by reading books written by UK doctors about their time in the NHS or by watching YouTube videos.

Anything that allows you to get an insight into the profession is useful as you will still need to demonstrate an understanding of the role of the doctor, with or without work experience.

Medical Work Experience Closing Notes

Finding, doing and reflecting on work experience can all seem quite a lot if you are just at the start of your journey!

Break the process down into manageable chunks and tackle each bit one at a time. Work experience is an amazing opportunity for you to not only improve your medical school application, but also experience for yourself what working as a doctor involves.

This article was written with significant contribution from Safiya Zaloum.

Hardeep Lotay

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Interview Questions: Work Experience

Talking about your work experience can feel like a broken record. You have made sure you have done plenty of it, written about it in your personal statement, but now we want you to talk about it in your interview. It may seem laborious but it’s important to capitalise off your experiences and demonstrate what you have learnt to the examiner in your interview. 

What should you talk about when asked about your work experience?

1. what you saw.

When we say “what you saw” we mean what skills did you see the doctors on your work experience demonstrate? Try to pick a specific example when you saw the doctor demonstrate the skill e.g whilst breaking bad news. If you kept a work experience diary now is the time to go back through what you wrote down to find these examples.

2. What you learnt

What did the experience teach you? Was it insightful and why was it so? 

3. What skills did you identify

What essential skills did this experience demonstrate? It could be teamwork, communication, leadership, work-ethic, competency… the list is endless, but what skills have you identified from your work experience.

4. Why is this skill so important for a doctor?

Once you have identified the skills demonstrated tell the examiner why they are so important. How did the doctor’s actions benefit the patient? Did the doctor have a positive impact? Were the doctor’s actions something you would like to replicate as a doctor? Don’t be afraid to highlight how things can go wrong or if there was a skill the doctor didn’t demonstrate adequately. An example being ineffective communication could lead to awful situations for patients, one example being the Bawa-Garba case – read more about the Bawa-Garba case here!

Once you have thought about each of these points you can start to formulate your answers. If you are doing an MMI interview you are in the lucky position of being able to use just a few experiences to demonstrate multiple skills, as each interviewer with each question will be brand new and won’t know your previous answers. If you are doing a panel interview, you won’t be able to do this. However, you can make reference to your previous answers, which the examiners will remember from the earlier answers you gave. Below is an example of how you can use the same example to discuss your work experience in our model answers. 

Kickstart your Interview Prep

Model Answers:

Tell me about what you learnt on your work experience.

During my work experience I was able to shadow a foundation doctor in a busy A&E department. There is one particular patients care which stood out to me, it was an elderly gentleman who had severe chest pain and shortness of breath. I observed the way that each member of the team worked so well together to treat the patient effectively and efficiently. Both the doctor and the nurses attending the patient knew the roles that each other were doing and communicated well with each other so that they didn’t get in each others way with their tasks. I found this insightful as to how it is essential to work together as an effective team, not just for a good working environment with colleagues, but also for efficient treatment of patients. 

Another thing I learnt from my work experience was how having a good work-ethic is essential, not just as a doctor but as a medical student too. During my week-long placement across various wards in my local hospital I was speaking to an A&E consultant about the difficulties of the job, so that I had a realistic understanding of the career and all that it entails. The consultant told me about the long hours, the lengthy training involved at medical school and throughout your career with the constant desire to learn. He also spoke at length about the issues that impact him personally, such as staff shortages in the NHS and how this means he often works overtime. What inspired me was how none of this was off-putting to neither myself or the consultant. He was so passionate about training the next generation of doctors and healthcare professionals as well as loving his job. This illustrated to me that although there are many struggles as a doctor that you may face, that requires your hard work and determination to succeed. Something that I feel, along with my passion for medicine will enable me to succeed at both medical school and as a future doctor. 

• Use the same examples – not within the same answer, but you can use the same work experience to demonstrate several skills. This was partially demonstrated above where the same experience was used to demonstrate 2 seperate skills. 
• Don’t forget to be precise – Tell the examiner enough detail for them to fully understand what you saw and what you learnt from that experience. Be careful not to carry on too much and use all your time at the station on 1 example though!
• Use 2-3 examples – In around 5 minutes you have time to discuss a few examples in enough detail. It is essential not to just list your experiences, as this won’t show that insight and reflection that the examiner is looking for.  

Frequently Asked Question

→what is the best way to answer questions about work experience in an interview.

The best way to answer questions about work experience in an interview is to provide specific examples of your accomplishments and contributions in previous jobs. Be prepared to discuss how you’ve demonstrated skills like leadership, problem-solving, and teamwork, and how those skills have contributed to your success.

→What should I highlight about my work experience when interviewing for a new job?

When interviewing for a new job, you should highlight your accomplishments and contributions in your previous roles, as well as any specific skills or experiences that are relevant to the new job. Emphasize how your past experience has prepared you for the challenges of the new position and how you can add value to the company.

→How do I explain gaps in my work experience during an interview?

When explaining gaps in your work experience during an interview, it’s important to be honest and direct. Explain why you left your previous job, what you did during the gap, and how you stayed productive during that time. If possible, highlight any relevant skills or experiences you gained during the gap that could benefit the new employer.

→How do I talk about my work experience without sounding arrogant?

To talk about your work experience without sounding arrogant, focus on the specific contributions you made to your previous employers, rather than just listing your accomplishments. Be humble and grateful for the opportunities you’ve had, and be sure to give credit to others who helped you along the way. Show how you’ve learned from your experiences and are excited to bring that knowledge to the new role.

→How do I showcase my soft skills during an interview when discussing work experience?

To showcase your soft skills during an interview when discussing work experience, provide specific examples of how you’ve demonstrated those skills in previous jobs. For example, describe a time when you effectively communicated with a difficult colleague or demonstrated leadership during a crisis. Emphasize how those skills have helped you achieve success in your previous roles and how you can apply them to the new job.

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Home › University › How To Write A Personal Statement? 10 Tips + Student Questions Answered › How To Write About Work Experience In Your Personal Statement

How To Write About Work Experience In Your Personal Statement

• Published October 25, 2021

Table of Contents

We get it – you’re dying to include your work experience in your personal statement, but how do you write about work experience in your personal statement ? Work experience is an essential component of your personal statement . It shows that you are passionate and knowledgeable about your chosen course. Some courses require prior work experience before you can apply.

So if you’re looking for a way to showcase your work experience, this blog post is just what you need. Learn how to write about work experience effectively in your statement to help you stand out from the crowd and get into the university of your dreams.

Check The Course Requirements For Work Experience

Some courses require you to have work experience before applying (e.g. medical courses.) You may need to complete a certain number of working hours before you’re eligible. It’s best to check out the course requirements before writing your work experience personal statement. If you’re thinking of applying to medicine then check out our medical personal statement advice , likewise with our how to write a law personal statement .

With that said, other courses don’t require work experience. But it does elevate your personal statement if you have relevant work experiences to share.

Examples Of Work Experience

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to writing your work experience personal statement is determining whether an activity counts as “work experience” or not. Here are examples of work experience you may need to include:

• Extracurricular Activities

These are activities that are not included within your formal curriculum. Being a member of the sports team, debate club, Red Cross, or theatre group are good examples.

• Formal Work Placements

Formal work placements are exposures to real-world experience. These are often required as part of your curriculum.

• Volunteer Work

There are tons of volunteer work you could’ve participated in. Maybe you helped out at animal shelters, environmental conservation activities, or feeding programs.

• Part-Time Jobs

Part-time jobs are significant for your work experience personal statement. Working as a customer service agent, freelance writer, or salesperson at a local store demonstrates a sense of responsibility on your part. Mention what’s relevant to the course you’re applying for! Competitions. Look out for competitions in areas that interest you, for example, design, writing, maths, or business.

• Personal Projects

Your personal projects reflect what you love doing. That’s why there’s a high probability they’re related to the course you’re applying for.

If you love coding, you may have built websites. Love writing? Maybe you’ve set up your own blog! Write them down in your work experience personal statement.

• Leadership Positions

If you occupied leadership positions in your organisations relevant to your chosen course, mention them! Universities are on the lookout for motivated individuals willing to take responsibility.

The list of work experiences to include in your personal statement hopefully helps, but make sure to check out our what not to put in a personal statement .

Writing down your leadership positions can take your work experience personal statement up a higher notch.

State Your Work Experience

You now have a solid idea of relevant work experience you need to include in your personal statement. But how will you present it? Here are questions to eliminate writer’s block:

Make good use of these starters to kick off your writing. Brainstorm all relevant details of your work experience. We’ll sort them out later. And, if you’re wondering how to start a personal statement then wonder no more!

Discuss What You Learned, And Why It’s Essential

After stating the facts about your work experience, it’s time to get to the heart of the matter. You are writing your work experience personal statement not to brag about your achievements, but showing why you’re serious about your course .

That’s why discussing what you learned is essential. Beyond your role, share what insights you’ve gained that helped shape your character.

If you’re not sure how to start, let these questions unknot your ideas:

• How did this position impact you?
• What are the primary skills you’ve gained that are relevant to your course?
• How does this experience influence your decisions in pursuing your study goals?
• How does this experience relate to your general ability to succeed in your course?
• What are the major lessons you’ve learned that are helping you grow as an individual person ?
• What is your biggest takeaway from this position?
• Are there significant interactions that impacted your desire to take the course?

After answering these questions, craft a powerful paragraph that demonstrates how deep your understanding is.

The more interesting facts you share about yourself, the better. Bring your work experience personal statement to life with vivid details that convey essential ideas about who you are.

Ideas For Essential Skills

You may be unaware of skills you possess that are relevant and essential for your course. To make sure you won’t forget to mention them, here are skill ideas common across fields:

• The ability to communicate to higher-ups, colleagues, and clients
• Perseverance amidst challenges
• A sense of duty and obligation
• Eagerness to serve the community, especially the marginalised
• Critical thinking skills to overcome setbacks
• Initiative to work independently
• Knows how to work in a team setting
• Shows energy and enthusiasm to
• Motivation to work hard and do well

These are some of the common skills valuable across several fields of study. Among these, which describes you most? Go ahead and write about it!

Demonstrate Understanding Of The Course You’re Applying For

Your work experience should deepen your understanding of the course you’re applying for. Dig deeper and reflect on these points:

• How is your course making a positive change in the world? If you’re eyeing health-related courses, explain how health workers significantly impact people’s lives. Do you want to apply for education-related courses? Relay a story of how significant educators in your life changed you for the better.
• Mention the gaps and problems you see in the field. Do you see a severe lack of health facilities? Perhaps you’ve witnessed the challenges teachers and professors experience in the education system.
• What do you plan to do about it? Demonstrate that you’re applying for your chosen course because you want to help solve the problems that you see. Convince the admissions board that you’re the person for the course by writing about your desire to be an agent of change!

Reach Out To People Who’ve Been Where You Want To Be

To enhance your work experience personal statement, reach out to people who’ve been where you want to be. University students and practising staff are the perfect individuals you can approach.

Set appointments with them and ask them about their experience. What is it like to be in their position? What are the challenges that they see? What are they doing to improve their field of study?

Best of all, solicit advice on how to write your work experience personal statement. What skills do the admissions boards search for?

Then go back to your personal statement and write about your new connections. Mention how their insights and advice shed greater light on how your work experience will help you succeed in your course.

Do this, and you’re guaranteed to show a richer work experience personal statement.

Read Up On The Current Situation Of Your Chosen Field

Soak up knowledge on the current challenges and breakthroughs of your chosen field. Read journal articles, news websites, and featured stories. You can also visit blogs written by practitioners or university students.

Make sure to cite authoritative sources and figures when discussing the status quo. Then weave the information back to your work experience.

Do you have similar experiences with the figures you’ve mentioned? Have they discussed situations you experienced yourself? How are you making a difference in the field? Will your perspective matter?

What a perfect way to build credibility for your work experience personal statement!

Check Out Work Experience Personal Statement Examples

You now have a rich draft of your work experience personal statement. But you’re unsure of how to word and structure it.

Why not check out work experience personal statement examples on the web? Examine how they presented their experiences and insights. Make sure to read as many examples as you can.

Choose your top 3 favourites and save them in your documents. If you’re short of ideas, go back to them. Don’t forget to highlight paragraphs, sentences, and words that inspire you.

Be Authentic And Vulnerable 

Don’t be afraid of being vulnerable in your work experience personal statement. The admissions board needs to know if you are genuinely passionate about this course or not, so don’t hold back!

But remember to stay authentic. Don’t overdramatise mundane events. State events as they happened, and share your realisations as they are. Authenticity is a precious factor!

Action The Above To ‘Work’ On Your Personal Statement

With the suggestions mentioned above, you’ll be able to craft a more compelling and impactful work experience personal statement. Understand that this is YOUR story. Don’t copy others’ work experience personal statements.

Make your own angle and spin, and rest assured that the admissions board will want to read about YOU in your chosen course!

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Impressing: Personal Statement

Personal statement, personal statements usually fall into 3 categories:.

• The top 5% are works of writing wonder which is appreciated by all who read them but add only a little to your interview chances.
• The middle 85% are not necessarily memorable but they are well written and get a sense of you across; these may not add a whole lot to your interview chances but they don’t detract and they will hopefully create a memorable image that will be yours for the season.
• The bottom 10% are poorly written with grammatical mistakes, spelling errors, a lack of organization, or some combination of the three; these will truly hurt your chances for an interview – some committees have a zero-tolerance policy for spelling or grammar errors.

Those who write papers in the bottom 10% are often the ones who are shooting for the top 5%; we, therefore, recommend that your goal should be the middle 85%. The goal of your statement should be to explain why you want to go into emergency medicine and why you think emergency medicine is the right specialty for you.

Overarching theme

Look over your CV and think about the experiences before and during medical school that might inform what kind of emergency physician you will become. Often there is a common thread that holds together even the most disparate of experiences – this common thread is usually one of your core values as a person. This may be a good theme to weave throughout and hold together your personal statement.

Experiences to highlight

Use your experiences to give programs an idea of who you are. Be specific – talking about the aspects of care that you like in emergency medicine is good but it’s even better when programs can see how your personal experiences reinforce aspects of emergency medicine that resonate with you as a person. It’s OK to include patient vignettes and talk about your accomplishments, but be sure to relate them back to yourself. How did the experience impact you? What did you learn about yourself? How will the experience make you a better family physician? What about the experience demonstrates your commitment to the discipline of emergency medicine, your ability to work with others, and your ability to work with patients? Often choosing one experience and telling the story is a good way to open your statement, develop your theme, and make it memorable.

Commitment to specialty

Talk about why you are choosing emergency medicine. What experiences convince you that this is the right field for you?

Strengths that you bring

What do you bring to a program? What are you naturally good at? What specific skills do you have that will serve you well in residency? Give examples.

Future plans/what you are looking for in a residency program

At the end of this long road of school and training, what kind of work do you see yourself doing? This is not necessary but if you do have a sense then you should bring it up – it will help paint a better picture of you and give you something to discuss during the interviews.

Organizing your statement

There are many ways to organize your statement to get these points across. One common way of organizing the personal statement is a three to five-paragraph form reminiscent of those essays you had to write in high school. To use this approach the first paragraph tells a story to open the theme, the middle paragraph(s) fleshes out other experiences that highlight the theme and discuss your commitment to emergency medicine and what you have to bring to it, and the third paragraph reviews your strengths and future plans/training desires. However, this is a personal statement and you are free to write and organize it as you desire.

• Write in complete sentences.
• Have transitions between paragraphs
• Use the active voice.
• Make your writing interesting – use a thesaurus and vary sentence length.
• Have at least two other people (one who knows you well and one who knows the process of applying to EM residency well) read your personal statement and give feedback.
• Give yourself plenty of time to work on your statement and revise it based on feedback.
• Rehash your CV or write an autobiography.
• Discuss research or experiences that you can’t expand significantly on in an interview.
• Be overly creative ‐‐ no poems or dioramas.
• Use abbreviations – spell things out.
• Say “emergency room” or “emergency room doctor” – use the emergency department and emergency physician
• Start every sentence with “I”.
• Make it longer than one page, in single‐spaced, 12-point font.
• Have ANY spelling or grammatical errors.
• Write a statement that could be used for several different specialties (i.e. one that talks about wanting a primary care career but not specifically emergency medicine). If you are still deciding on a specialty and applying to different fields, write two different statements.
• End your essay speaking to the reader (e.g., thanking them for their time).
• Be arrogant or overly self‐deprecating.
• Focus on lifestyle issues or what you will do with all your free time as an EP.
• Focus on your being an adrenalin junkie.
• Use hackneyed stories of growth, travel, or adventure unless it really is personal and you can express that.

Adapted with permission from the copyrighted career advising resources developed by Amanda Kost, MD, and the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine