Our Medical Education team recently ran their So You Want to be a Doctor event - the first since 2020. The event aims to inform and educate current A-Level students who are interested in applying to medical school.

40 students from colleges and schools across Calderdale and Kirklees attended. Locum Consultant in General Medicine, Dr Joseph Quinn, hosted the event which saw various guest speakers including clinicians and students from CHFT to give the students an overview of various speciality areas and their own career journeys. Dr Christopher Mannion, from the admission team at the University of Leeds also attended to speak about life at university and information and tips on applying to medical school.

Interactive workshops took place in the afternoon including an edible moulage challenge, called - ‘So do you still want to be a Doctor’. This mixed Halloween with I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and required six volunteers to eat edible bodily fluids to try and guess what the real ingredients were. This was a fun round up to the day, with several students commenting on the feedback survey that they “really enjoyed the surprise at the end.” 

Feedback overall from the students was incredibly positive, with one student getting in touch to share the following:

"I wanted to thank you and everyone at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust for organising the event yesterday. It was an incredibly inspiring and insightful experience.

"I especially appreciated hearing from the doctors and medical students about their journeys and participating in the practical workshops — they gave me a clearer understanding of the realities of medicine and strengthened my motivation to pursue this career.

"Thank you again for the opportunity and for all the effort that went into making the day so engaging and well-organised."