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Pre-Nursing Work Experience
Our pre-nursing work experience placements offer students the opportunity to shadow nurses and other healthcare professionals in a real-life hospital environment. As a specialist company, our entire programme is designed to make that experience as rewarding and enjoyable as possible – and to give you a unique, personal insight into what a career in nursing is really like.
Placements are ideal for students aged 16 and above who have a keen interest in pursuing a career as a nurse, or for those already in the first two years of nursing school. Practical nursing work experience can be hugely valuable on increasingly competitive nursing school applications and in university interviews. It can also be an important insight into what's to come, adding relevance to your theoretical training.
Good supervision is essential, and in each department you will be assigned a specific registered nurse or other suitable professional as your personal mentor. Typical working hours are from 8:30am to 1:30pm, Monday to Friday, and three afternoons a week you’ll attend our bespoke clinical teaching sessions, held exclusively for Gap Medics students by specialist nurses and doctors to help you understand and interpret what you see on the wards, in clinics and in theatre. There’s usually the opportunity to spend your other afternoons back on the wards, on call or keep them free to explore the local area if you prefer.
Most students join us for two weeks, but our nursing placements are available from one week to a month or more. As long as we have space on the programme, you can start and finish whenever you want, 52 weeks of the year. If you’re looking for a general overview of nursing, we would normally recommend one week per department, typically choosing from paediatrics, general medicine, obstetrics, gynaecology and surgery. However, we’re more than happy to tailor your nursing placement if you already have specific departmental preferences.
Undertaking hospital work experience abroad not only allows you to experience the effect of local conditions (such as malaria) on the work of nurses, it helps you to appreciate the diversity in healthcare provision around the world and see first hand the ethical dilemmas nurses in these countries face on a daily basis. It also – of course – turns a couple of weeks’ work experience into the adventure of a lifetime!
Weekends are free time, and students usually make the most of this to go travelling with fellow students from the Gap Medics house: Wildlife safaris in Africa, Caribbean beaches, diving in Thailand or camel trekking in India… the choice is yours.
Supporting our hospitals
As part of our detailed partnership agreements, we pay our partner hospitals for each student placement to ensure everyone benefits from the programme and staff remain motivated. On average, around 10% of the total you pay goes directly to the hospital.
Gap Medics Houses
Living in one of our super-sociable houses is a huge part of the Gap Medics experience
Placements
"As a nursing student, Gap Medics provided me the opportunity to see a side of health care that I would never be able to experience back home and made me even more excited to begin my nursing career!
It was a chance to see very 'raw' medicine and nursing care and, though often challenging and confronting, it was the most amazing two weeks I could have asked for."