Make your work experience count.

Before an activity, choose something you want to understand: how a team communicates, how someone explains uncertainty, or how a professional balances several demands. A question gives your observation a purpose.

Use the experience to explore whether the profession suits you. Notice routine work, practical constraints and difficult moments as well as memorable consultations.

Try this: Write two questions before your next activity, then revisit them afterwards.

Hospital shadowing is one option, but caring and service activities can also develop insight. Consider community volunteering, care settings, paid work with people, conversations with professionals and virtual experience.

The Medical Schools Council describes several ways to gain relevant experience. Check each course's requirements, and follow the placement provider's age limits, safeguarding and supervision arrangements.

• Choose something you can attend reliably and contribute to appropriately.
• Ask a clear, polite question when contacting an organisation; explain your availability and interests.
• If one route is unavailable, explore other ways to learn rather than waiting indefinitely for a hospital placement.

• Communication: how did someone check understanding or adapt their language?
• Teamwork: what did different members contribute, and how did they share information?
• Dignity: how were privacy, preferences and comfort respected?
• Uncertainty: what happened when an answer was not immediately available?
• Responsibility: what were you allowed to do, and when did you need supervision?

Try this: Choose one moment and describe the behaviour that made it effective.

Use four short headings: situation, observation, learning, next action. Record your own contribution separately from what you watched someone else do.

Do not keep names, dates of birth, photographs or other identifying patient information. A meaningful reflection does not need a detailed clinical story.

Use an experience that answers the question actually asked. Give brief context, explain your role, and spend most of the answer on learning and reflection. A STARR structure can help organise a genuine personal example without turning it into a memorised script.

Prepare several examples so one anecdote does not have to answer every question. Be ready to discuss what did not go well, what you would change, and the limits of what you observed.

Try this: Practise a 90-second reflection, then answer a follow-up asking what you would do differently.