Sixth formers get Taste of Medicine

Thursday 21 June 2018

Seven sixth formers from local schools have spent this week getting a first-hand taste of what it is like to work in the world of medicine, thanks to a course organised by the MSG.

The Medical Specialist Group has organised its 'Taste of Medicine' course for the last nine years with the support of HSC, and it has given students who have expressed an interest in pursuing the career to get experience of being inside a hospital.

The week long course has explained the medical school admissions process to the students, with simulated interviews, lectures, patient appointments and ward-rounds all open to them. They even had the opportunity to observe procedures in the operating theatre.

"We've been getting a taste of medicine with the MSG. We have been put in a different departments throughout the week to experience all the different parts of the hospital," Katie Halliday, 17 from the Ladies' College Sixth Form, said.

"I am really keen on studying medicine, so this has enabled me to see what is is really like - and if anything, it has made me even more keen."

Katie said she had seen a number of "cool things" throughout her time, which included seeing a baby born while shadowing. 

The Taste of Medicine initiative was launched by the MSG in 2009, as it was felt that the Bailiwick’s prospective medical students were at a disadvantage compared to their UK counterparts.

Dr Claire Betteridge helped to coordinate the event during the week, as the organiser, Dr Nick Watson, was away.

She said recruitment had been an issue for medicine in Guernsey because of the consultant requirement for employment: "if we can get people who are interested in going away and studying for their qualifications to then want to come back to the island and work, it can only be a positive thing for the island.

"This whole thing lets them know whether they want to do medicine as a full time career, because it is not easy to get a lot of experience inside a hospital unless you are a particularly sickly person. People can be quite critical of doctors, so we just want to make sure people going into medicine really know what they are getting into, because five or six years doing a degree is a lot of commitment." 

Dr Betteridge added that many of the doctors who had volunteered to be shadowed and take part in the course really enjoyed the experience of teaching.

"All of the doctors over here have come from their countries where they have had to be consultants in the past, so they have done teaching previously. For many of us it is a nice opportunity to go back to it."

Pictured: L-R Katie Halliday, Dr Claire Betteridge, Emily Vhadra