Work experience is a way to get a feel for the type of job you want to do in the future and to find out if you really like it or not and if it suits you. Once you do work experience you don't think of the job you want to do the way you want to inside your head. It suddenly becomes real and it may or may not be the way you expect them to be.
I know in the future I want to be in a job where I can help others and medicine will let me do just that. This may have stemmed from the fact that both my parents were nurses and it I'm thankful that they are because they were able to help when my family became ill or in any emergencies.
Work experience for medicine is particularly hard to find because it deals with patients and there's no room for error. I wanted to get work experience for the summer so that it didn't clash with college time but we were also going to the Philippines for a short holiday and time was running out so I figured why not find some in the Philppines? Luckily I was able to find some but the process I had to go through was also time consuming. I went to the city mayor (Hon. Isidro L. Hemedes, Jr.) to explain and ask him for permission to get work experience which in the Philippines they call O.J.T. at the city hall.
I couldn't have done this though without the help of my grandad; because he was friends with the mayor, I got to meet the mayor.
They mayor wrote this letter for me to bring to Dr. Diamante. If I didn't have this letter I don't think I would have had the chance to fo work experience at City Health Office I.
I was only observing what the nurses and midwifes were doing and while I was there I got to see how they do blood tests on babies, how they organise admissions and consultations, fetal screening and immunisations. Everyday there were lots of people especially children because most of the mediciation was free and even more if you had Phil Health. To find out that medication was free was shocking to me because normally health check and medication wasn't free. I was glad to know that now the people that can't afford treatments now can but the downside is they only treat basic illnesses. If what the patient requires is beyond what they can offer then they will send them to another department who can help them or the hospital. All the midwifes I met were very friendly and they were happy to answer all my questions and I answered all of theirs. I got to know about their routines and schedules and how they felt about their job. One of the midwifes I talked to called Emily said that she preferred small organisations like this one and even more in the smaller branches where they help the poorer poeple rather than the hospital because of the tighter relationships held with the patients and because the stress levels were lower. She said jokingly that the hospitals were more toxic which I sort of understood because you have more of a responsibility to the many people you meet. She didn't put me off working in a hospital because everyone is different and have different likings and I haven't experienced it for myself. They on the other hand were very curious about the education here in the U.K. and also about the I.B because in the Philippines after you finish high school you then go on to college which is equivalent to university; after college they then find work.
It was a great work experience although it was a short one and I'm glad to have had the chance to do it.
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