Amelia’s Work Experience report
It is said that we will spend approximately one third of our lives working, and I am sure most of us have spent untold hours imagining what that future career might be, and how we will get there. In my case, I have always been committed to the sciences but exactly how to translate interest into a career isn’t straightforward. My primary passion is medicine but, even then, dozens of careers come to mind, not just being a doctor. So, to aid my search for clarity on what HSC subjects, university courses or ultimate career paths I should follow, I looked to work experience.
A common concern with finding work experience is that you must know someone in the workplace, but that is not true. While it may be a little more difficult to find someone who is willing, it’s certainly not impossible. Over the past year, I have self-negotiated three work experience placements, each giving me exposure to different potential career paths, and each in turn helping refine my career planning.
First, I spent a week last year at the Charles Perkins Institute at the University of Sydney, working with a senior research fellow and Head of Clinical Resources to explore various areas of medical research. From that, I confirmed my interest medical research and, more specifically, cardiology, but found that I desired more patient focused work.
Later that year, I was able to explore cardiology in a hospital context and spent a week in the Cardiac Care Unit of the Prince of Wales Hospital. In addition to attending patient rounds with doctors from the Eastern Heart Clinic, I spent numerous hours in the Cardiac Catheterisation Lab and with the Cardiothoracic Surgery team. There I confirmed my preference for patient facing hospital-based medicine, but also discovered a strong interest in surgery. I got to develop my skills in patient interaction and observe many very interesting procedures, including open heart surgery!
More recently, I got to spend a week seeing a very different kind of hospital medicine at Orange Base Hospital. This hospital is one of only two major hospitals to service the entire Central West of NSW, an area the size of the United Kingdom. Living in a village of 760 people 6 hours away from Sydney, I spent my time between the oncology and rural emergency departments.
In oncology, I got to see both the short- and long-term management of patients with conditions such as acute and chronic Leukemias, lung cancer, and brain cancer. Each day I was in the hospital for early morning clinics, seeing the personal realities of the patients, and through that, the less glamourous side of being a doctor.
In rural emergency, patients would come from up to 14 hours away to seek emergency medical care, a sad reality for the nearly 40% of NSW residents living in rural areas. The emergency department was extremely fast paced and hectic, with patients coming in with a wide range of injuries and illnesses. I got to speak to patients, take histories, and work with the specialist medical teams as they would diagnose, treat, and manage the patients who came in.
My experience in both departments cemented not only my desire to pursue medicine but also to commit to service these understaffed and underequipped hospitals in regional and rural Australia.
I am also very excited to have been selected for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s Women in STEM program, during which I will spend a week at the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights. A once in a lifetime experience, I am greatly looking forward to!
Work experience may not be mandatory, but I cannot stress more highly the value of putting the time and effort into doing it. If nothing else, it has helped me to feel confident, assured, and engaged, as I head into senior high school, that the subject and university choices I am making are the right ones to put me on the path to my career goals.
If you decide to do work experience, it may feel difficult to know where to start but you don’t have to do it all by yourself. You have the backing of the career advisor, Ms Salisbury, and the school. I have been very fortunate to get these opportunities, but it wasn’t without time, effort, paperwork, and plenty of rejections.
1: Decide your area of interest and make a long list of organisations that could provide the type of experience you are after. You may send 30 requests and get only one positive response, so be prepared for rejections, but you only need one to say yes. Once you have created a list, have a chat to Ms Salisbury who can help you formulate your approach.
2: Be prepared to jump plenty of hoops. Many organisations will require lots of paperwork, but again this is where Ms Salisbury can be of help. Remember that the school is here to support you, and the outcome is very much so worth the effort.
3: Don’t be embarrassed to use personal connections or networks. My Cardiology placement came from a connection I made when I introduced myself to the director of the Cardiac Care Unit at a UNSW lecture, where he was on a discussion panel. It was worth it!
Good luck!
Amelia Khoury