What Careers are there?

There are lots of different roles within the medical industry. These links are great for researching the different roles:

• I See The Difference - Allied to Healthcare Professions

• Step into the NHS

• Health Careers

Work Experience

Work Experience is important for most healthcare careers - not only does it give you an understanding of the roles you are looking at but is also helps you to develop the important transferable skills these careers need. Valuable work experience could be in hospitals, any care setting, or within schools.

Check out this guide about finding Healthcare Work Experience.

You could also explore our local guide to Work Experience / Voluntary Opportunities for prospective Medics / Dentists

**IMPORTANT UPDATE**

The Medical Schools Council has produced revised guidelines for Work Experience during lockdown

This might not apply to all medical schools or healthcare courses, so it is still worth checking with each university.

Cardiff University have pulled together this fantastic resource containing more alternatives to work experience.

We have also pulled together this document of some good alternatives to help support your applications.

Struggling to find Work Experience, check out our live guides to some alternatives

Admissions Tests

BMAT, UCAT, or both? The big question! For medicine and most dentistry courses, you will need to sit either the BMAT or the UCAT.

The majority of medical schools use the UCAT. The UCAT helps medical schools to select applicants with the most appropriate mental abilities, attitudes and professional behaviours required for new doctors and dentists to be successful in their clinical careers. It is used in collaboration with other admissions processes such as the UCAS application and academic qualifications. It is also your opportunity to stand out from other applicants and demonstrate your aptitude for a demanding programme of study. Applicants register and sit the UCAT before the UCAS application is submitted. Registration typically opens in May and closes in September, with testing taking place from July to October.

Find out more about the UCAT and register for it here. We have also been sent this overview of the UCAT 2021.

The BMAT is used by some medical schools. It gives you a chance to stand out from the crowd and show your potential to succeed on medical and health-related courses. It tests your ability to apply scientific and mathematical knowledge, as well as problem solving, critical thinking and written communication skills that are essential to university-level study. You will need to register in college in September for the BMAT and it is sat after your UCAS form is submitted (normally end of October/start of November), with the scores being sent directly to the medical schools you have applied to. Find out more about the BMAT here.

Interviews

Preparing for interviews is really important - knowing what to expect can help to reduce your nerves! Your interview could take one of several different forms:

• 1:1 interview with a faculty/department member

• An interview with an interview panel, made up of several members of the faculty/department

• Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) - this is where you have a room of interview stations and you rotate through each station having a mini interview at each. One station might focus on a scenario, another might be a skill, while a third could be asking standard interview questions.

You might also have a groupwork or scenario as part of your interview. This is to see how you work in a team and approach a problem.

The Careers Team will offer Mock Interviews for all students applying to Healthcare courses, but you might want to do some individual prep.