it's that time of the year again - everyones' receiving their offers, working hard to attain their grades... but there's some that fall short. maybe it's your UCAT, maybe it's your interview performance - there's no time to dwell on that now, because the next application cycle is about to begin. if medical school is what your goal is, then you will need to take a gap year! and an excellent way to get work experience to plump up your application as well as earn some cash on the side is to get. a. job. this episode is all about jobs - both within the NHS and the private sector.

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transcript (auto-generated, will have inaccuracies)

Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of medic morning. I'm your host Fiona and today I'm going to be talking about Gap years and got beer jobs in general. So I have a job, right? I have a job. Working for a minute entry, you got company but also I have had so many jobs. I wanted to do. Like I wanted to be a swimming instructor. I want to do work at Starbucks. I wanted to do all these little things, but I know a lot of you are thinking of got peers, right? Because a lot of you might not have achieved your offers. You haven't received an offer yet, so you might be really considering a gap. You're seriously. So I'm just going to be talking about all the different options that you could choose from. And yeah, honestly a gap you're such an amazing way to save up and save your money because and you need you might not have enough time to work. So you're probably only going. Working on the weekend and even like some a lot of medical students are struggling to like balance that work and schooling. So I am really like terrify, I'm really terrified of starting medical school cuz I am just like there might be so much like school work that I'm not able to work on the weekend, and there's all that pressure on me right now, to make as much money as I can to suffice for the next 5 years. But honestly a guy. So amazing to really save up. So you have less pressure on yourself on first and second years. So like food, rents, all that stuff is covered well. So without further Ado, let's get started. So, the ideal job for people who don't already have an offer for medical school and are reapplying during their Gap year, is to find a job that is within the NHS or within like the medical field. So you can kind of incorporate that into your application. Do you want? Do you know what I mean? Like you can talk to your interviewer about your experience at a pharmacy or you can talk about your experience as a GP receptionist or something. So I'm just going to go through these jobs that are more cater towards Healthcare professions. So the first the first healthcare related job. I would really recommend is a healthcare assistant. Okay, so this is on the NHS website. Health care, assistance, help patients shower. They help people eat. They make the beds and use equipment to lift and move patients. They talk to patients and reassure them. They help patients use a toilet tidy. The wards and Tay, Patience temperatures and attend meeting with other Health Care Professionals. You will either work in an NHS or private hospital as well as the patient's home and a care home or hospice and you'll need to wear uniform, okay, so what the health care assistant role requires is just like gcses and good literacy and numeracy obviously this difference because I feel like right now there's like a lot of jobs but employees are getting like much pick here. So I think in terms of medical school applicants, you actually have a leg up because most medical school applicants are super rigorous and super diligent and academically inclined. So I feel like you to have a makeup because you have good gcses and that sense most applicants have good gcses and most applicants to have higher than The standard fours in GCSE, English and maths. But yeah, that's all that really is required for healthcare assistants. Most of these jobs are learn as you go, you know. So it's not like you need to attend a course or like an apprenticeship. By the way apprenticeship, you shouldn't take them because once you apply onto an apprenticeship that would be your further education or higher education. I don't remember. So you wouldn't be able to say medical school is your first first like degree because you're already on an apprenticeship. So make sure not to sign on to any like one year apprenticeship or any vocational courses. Make sure that you apply directly to the role to a job on the NHS website or whatever Europe flying from and yeah just like learn on the job and then get paid as well. So I think that's much better. So I'm volunteering in The next, the next job that you could get a copy of students is to be a phlebotomist. Now the bottom is collect blood samples from patients and send them off for analysis and testing, actually really wants to be a phlebotomist cuz I was like, oh my gosh, you like Junior, doctors, they have to undertake blood all the time. So I was like, why not? Like start. Now, you know, I get to have that experience under my arm and I also get to work as phlebotomist on the side on the weekend and I feel like it would be a good practice and good experience overall. And something good to talk about is that you get to that work on your manual dexterity and you really get to be Hands-On with a patient and experienced one aspect of being a doctor. Okay? So on the NHS website, it says that you can get this job through four ways. A college course, a college course is like a level 2 or level 3. And this is what you don't want to do, because you already have taken a levels. So this is like a college equivalent, which is not what you want to do an apprenticeship. I've already talked about not taking an apprenticeship because these are intermediate apprenticeship. So there would be different Pathways and they would find this out when you're applying to medical school and a lot of the time, it can mess with your application a little bit because then medical school with a first-degree. So yeah, make sure not to or look into it more carefully because I'm actually not quite sure. But yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't take an apprenticeship during my Gap year which would only just be one year. The next thing is that you could also apply directly to work as a phlebotomist. There are no set requirements although at least two gcses and a first aid certificates. So this is basically Eat like you just working learning on the job. Learning as you go you'll probably work under like a senior phlebotomist and you'll just watch learn to yourself. So yeah, there aren't any like a level requirements. It's mainly just GCSE is so I think that most medical applicants would have a leg up in that sense that you would have hired easier to use than the standard four and five. Okay. So the next job that I want to talk about is being a pharmacy assistant, okay? So Pharmacy assistance, help, Pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians order, prepare and dispense medicines. So you can either work in like a community for a clinic so Community. I think it's like those Tesco or as though or like like Lloyd's Pharmacy or something, but then Clinic is when you work like Ogp so yeah, I think I'm putting shit on my ass but I actually think that's true. There are no set entry requirements to be a pharmacy assistant that most employees will expect good literacy and numeracy and it skills. So it doesn't specify you having to have like a GCSE for an above and an English and math but it is implied in this website and Yeah, you could undertake further training to become a pharmacy technician, and yeah, I feel like I would be so interesting because you get to really understand the science behind medicines. You get to interact with patients, you get to really work with medicine firsthand and I feel like that would be a great first job for me. The next job is a GP receptionist. So actually I actually have a really funny story cuz I remember I was asking a few GPS. If I could Shadow them for a day and actually one of the GPS. Contacted was really rude about it. They were quite they were quite like, clothes off and uptight. I remember them. Emailing me going like, being a GP receptionist is really difficult and I feel like you're undermining like what actually takes like it takes a lot. A lot of training but I actually just wanted to shout out to the Jeep. So I was just very very confused but looking into it further you actually don't require much prior training. They don't have any High entry requirements, it's just good literacy and numeracy and it skills. So gcses just for for English and math above. And yeah again for all medical school African. I feel like that's quite a noble and like already sent the caliber of medical Africans are already so high. I think that this would be a good first job for a lot of you. So being a receptionist, you all know is just dealing with telephone query acting lighting with doctors and nurses, fighting medical records honestly, out of all the jobs, I mentioned so far like health, Assistant phlebotomist pharmacy assistant. I feel like I would hate JP receptionist the most honestly because the amount of shit that GP receptionist how to take out all the time. It's really really incredibly difficult especially since you're dealing with so many patient that I remember like just being at a GP and so many pieces of shouting at the receptionist and they just have to like take it and ask you to like lineup. And yeah, I like whenever the phone's open at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. a.m. and 2 p.m. it's just a hole wreck. So that's what I wouldn't want to be. But I do agree. Being a cheapy receptionist during your cat. Such and like invaluable experience because you really get to see the entire multidisciplinary team. So you get to see GPS, you get to see the nurses and Pharmacists and health care assistant. And you get to see a really wide variety of patients. You got to deal with my prescriptions and he can also talk about how you appreciate the admin and clerical work, which might be a bit more like mundane a bit more from monotonous. But you got to also appreciate that and talk about that in your interviews for your actual got here. Okay, so the next one I want to talk about is care home assistance. So Care Home assistant, you have to just work in the hospice you have to have a patient skills. People skills, you help vulnerable people manage their daily activities and live as independently as possible salary-wise. These are actually pretty much all the same like pretty similar in terms of salary. So 18,000 lb a year to maybe twenty-two thousand and obviously that can increase as you get more experience. But honestly, I think that the best weight I would have approached it is to choose a job that I could bring on to med school and it's like no come shift. So you can just like that's not enough, it's not on an annual salary. So it's just like, hourly check-in check-out and then you can pick what she asked you if you wanted to. And I think that's the way I would have gone it at it is to choose one that I can take on to medical school and also continue pursuing while I'm studying on the weekends as well. So yeah, care home assistance. There are no entry requirements again. So all of these have in common is that they don't really require any high level of gcses are, definitely not as difficult as medical school where you require like, sevens and nines for GCSE maths and English. These really only require a good level, so good meaning / 4, / 5 for GCSE English and math. I love the time they do require qualifications but again, if you apply directly to the company then I think that would be okay because they definitely take each person holistically. So they would see that you're on a guy. And you're trying to find a job that you can also get experience from for your application. So, yeah, those are the requirements for a care home, assistance. Now, I'm going to the career I actually personally wanted to do and I'll explain why. I'm so I remember, I really wants to work at Starbucks just because you get like a pretty coffee or something. But actually, the salary for Starbucks is actually not that bad. It's I think 12 times an hour for 450 1414, finding our house who really wants to be a swimming instructor. So if you're good at swimming, if you can swim. All you need to do is take a course, that's 200 lb I think, but swimming instructors are actually paid quite highly on average there. Paid 14 lb per hour, but a lot of places pay 18 to 20 pounds an hour. So if you can swim and you don't mind working with children working with adults, then that's definitely a job that you can take as well. I also wanted to be a ballet. But I think that required a lot more training for like 3 years of training so that was definitely not something that I wants to do Jeremih singular got. But yes, currently I work at met entry so I just work like wherever they want me on the social media side as well as making sure that their videos and met entries interface is going smoothly. And yeah, that's basically all I have today. Some further words of advice is that I really, really highly discourage you from pursuing one of those overseas work. So we've all heard a lot about going overseas working as an au pair, prepare to babysit children in exchange for housing and In exchange for like food and rent and stuff. But I really highly discouraged that because again there's a lot of Visa work involved and a lot of time working like, I don't know, I think there was like farming in exchange for like one night stay in Australia. I feel like a lot of the time that's just a lot of time wasted and I feel like I'm working oversees, a lot of the time you are bound to your Visa contract and that is personally, not something that I would want to do. I'm also in terms of volunteering of overseas like paying 2,000 lb or 3,000 lb just to go to South Africa or go to Australia, or Indonesia to help children and help animals. That's definitely, not something that you should do as well because there are a lot of Ethical and Welfare issues involved in that especially when working with children as an under qualified that. Student. So that is definitely something that you should consider before taking these volunteering and work opportunities overseas. I don't have a huge amount of knowledge on overseas jobs, but think about it this way. Working overseas requires a visa application. You also require flight ticket, and a lot of the time. You also have to pay for your own accommodation, your own rent and your own food and a lot of other factors as well, like, flu jobs and different things that are required when you're working overseas. Like insurance as well. I think medical insurance is not covered a lot of time. So before you work overseas, just make sure to put these factors into consideration, so you don't waste a lot of your time and you don't waste a lot of your own money and make sure that you are actually benefiting from it financially. Instead of instead of just paying a shitload of money under the premise that you are working. So yeah, I love the time. I feel like it's you don't like to be gained as much financially from it if you work overseas, because there are so many different things you have to pay for yourself. And I love the time, your salary doesn't even cover that. So, yeah, I personally wouldn't, but if financial gain is not something that you're worried about, then by all means, go to it, but I'm just putting this out there. So a lot of people can Kind of learn and do your own research as well. So yeah, that's all I have for today. I hope you enjoy this episode and I hope you found it useful. Their mind, that these are all my own opinions and I found all of this research on the NHS Government website. So if you have any questions, just make sure to check the website and do your own research into it. And honestly at the end of the day, finding a job is not that difficult. I feel like even though the job market is so saturated, a lot of time. These opportunities are just right under your nose. So all you do is go find it, approach hospitals, and approach, small clinics and ask if they need a helping hand. So it's really about Connections, and finding local opportunities, and your own area. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this episode, make sure to give a rating on Spotify, Apple podcast wherever you listening it from. And also, make sure to follow me on Instagram at medic mornings and met by few. And yeah, thank you so much and see you next time. Bye bye.