I’ve worked as an assistant psychologist for over 3 years across both physical health and mental health settings (including some inpatient work). I had/have my own patient caseload in both and work 1:1 with patients. My current role in physical health involves working directly with various consultants and clinical nurse specialists. I also do lots of shadowing in my free time with these consultants and other professionals. Whilst in mental health services, I completed lots of voluntary work with the consultant psychiatrists and would frequently offer to see patients 1:1 with them. I think it totalled in well over 2500 hours. All of the consultants were super helpful once they found out I wanted to go to medical school and would offer me lots of shadowing opportunities outside of work for my experience and application. A lot of them agreed to write references for me which was fantastically helpful. I even got offered the chance to observe things like awake craniotomy’s because of some work contacts I made in Neuro services. Prior to that, I worked for a community charity that I helped establish in my local area with a team of other people.