CityWise, Age UK and Wythenshawe hospital
During my second and third year of studying at Manchester, I volunteered for an orgranisation called CityWise, a mentoring charity who are primarily based in Manchester but also have an office in Glasgow. They are a wonderful charity who work with local schools and families to help young people achieve the best they can. I was involved with a project at a local secondary school in Manchester, Trinity High School, which was quite close to the University and to the CityWise Manchester Office. This meant the majority of CityWise mentors and volunteers were students, as it was very easy to recruit student volunteers. The chief executive of CityWise, Luke Wilkinson, was my project leader and every week we would go into the school and run a programme, which was designed to enrich the school curriculum and further develop pupils in the local school that had been selected by their teachers who they thought would benefit the most.
The first few weeks we didn't really have a specific mentee, as all the mentors just chose at random a mentee and got to know them for that week. Over the next few weeks, the mentee we got to know best would be assigned to us and we would mentor them for the rest of the year. The CityWise secondary school programme focusses on developing character in young people, learning skills and techniques that enable them to have a growth mindset and overcome challenges. The main qualities that we helped develop in our young people were resilience, self-control, good judgement and fairness. The first hour of each session was one-to-one mentoring with activites to develop these skills, whilst the second hour was more fun and games with the whole group. Being a reliable, positive mentor was important for them to be able to build a stable relationship with you over the course of the year.
I was extremely proud of the young person who I had to mentor, watching them grow as an individual week after week, developing their character and facing new challenges. I often thought of how useful it would have been to have a mentor myself at that age and what I would like in a mentor even now - then tried to apply this my mentoring. Towards the end of the term, it was clear to them that their mentors would only be their for a short length of time and I was just as sad to leave my mentee as they were to not have me turn up anymore. However, the idea was that our mentoring and the principles of CityWise, would leave a lasting impact on them. In the last session, all the mentors gave a farewell speech to their mentee and handed them a certificate. I was proud but sad at the same time, knowing that this would be the last time I would see my mentee, but happy knowing that I had helped and they had developed tremendously over the course of the year.
I also raised money for CityWise by running the Manchester 10k - this was an awesome way to keep me fit for a year and raise money for a cause I deeply cared about! CityWise has changed a lot since I volunteered for them, including forming a society in Manchester Students Union, but they still send me monthly emails so I can keep up with their amazing work. I stopped volunteering for CityWise in my final year because of other commitments, but was grateful for my time there and I would have volunteered again had I got accepted to Manchester medical school. If you are studying in Manchester or want to come here to study - do look out for CityWise and I would urge you to volunteer for them! If not, there are many charities and other organisations who do similar work throughout the country, so I am sure you can get involved in mentoring wherever you choose to study!
Another extremely rewarding experience for me was volunteering for Age UK Manchester. During my final year of university and during my master's degree, I volunteered at an Age UK day centre in Gorton, Manchester. The day centre was run by Age UK support workers and a centre manager, offering a ring and ride service for elderly people in the local community and sometimes, further. There were around 20-30 elderly visitors, who could be there from one day a week up to five days a week depending on their needs. The day centre essentially offered a day care service, including breakfast, lunch and refreshments, a range of activities and other services too. More than anything though, it was a place for elderly people to meet up and socialise, often providing a break for their carers or families.
My volunteering basically consisted of helping the support workers in any way possible, mostly in the form of sitting and talking to the elderly clients, playing games with them and bringing them refreshments. It was a true learning experience for me, because I had never done anything like this before and hadn't really had much interaction with elderly people. It was wonderful to hear all their stories and get to know them - many of them had led interesting lives and certainly had a lot more life experience than me! From stories about 1940s and 1950s Britain, including the war, to the swinging 60s and later half of the 20th century. Most of the ladies and gentleman were from the local area and had seen Manchester change a lot over the years. However many were also from elsewhere or were well travelled and had interesting tales from abroad too. The mix of people and the friendliness of them regardless of their physical or mental health made it such a worthwhile experience and I always felt like I was getting something back in return by spending time with them. The staff too, were all wonderful people who I could see genuinely enjoyed looking after the elderly and giving back to their local community.
A typical day spent at the Gorton Day Centre would firstly involve a morning run to pick up clients, starting at around 9am. Once most had arrived, breakfast was served to the elderly and I would normally help bring them food and serve them drinks. After breakfast, there would usually be some morning activities, which could range from looking at the newspaper to playing bingo. I would usually sit with them and help them join in with activities or sometimes form a team, going up against other support workers and their teams. I tried to mix up who I sat with every day, just so that I could meet as many of them as possible. Lunch would be served at around 12 noon and most days I would go to another Age UK centre with one of the staff to help collect their meals - some days lunch would be served from a local cafe which was very nice for them. In the afternoon, more games might be played, including chair exercises, board games and one that I got really involved with, quizzes! Sometimes there would be a singer invited in who would perform for most of the afternoon and take requests from the clients. This was always a great afternoon for them because hearing the songs they listened to when they were younger and singing along really had a positive impact on them. I enjoyed the music too, even if the songs were a bit before my time! From around 3pm, the same ride service would take the elderly visitors back home or relatives would come and collect them.
The day centre does really valuable work and I thoroughly enjoyed volunteering there. Not only was it a way of relieving pressure on carers or families, but it was just as important for the elderly to socialise with each other. Loneliness after all, is such a huge problem across the country and Age UK estimate there may be as many as 1.4 million lonely older people in the UK. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this figure is likely to be even higher now as lockdowns will have exacerbated the number of older people being isolated from the outside world. I haven't spoken with anyone from Age UK since the beginning of the pandemic, when they were asking for people to help deliver care packages to the older people. They have since moved however, closing their old Gorton day centre and re-opening in Brunswick Village, as part of a new Manchester City Council Housing Scheme. I am truly happy for them because they will be able to provide a much better service in a newer centre. It is also much closer to Manchester city centre, so I am hopeful it will increase awareness of the charity. It is also closer to Manchester University - perhaps an opportunity for more students to get involved with voluntary work.
Another place I volunteered at was an Age UK charity shop, also in Gorton. Whilst a different experience to helping older people, it was still rewarding because it is through shops like this and other fundraising that day centres like Gorton (and now Brunswick Village) are able to remain open. I would volunteer here every Saturday for about 6 hours and spend time sorting thorugh stock, pricing or on the till. I got to talk to many people in the local community and see a range of items that are brought into charity shops. Whilst Age UK is a national charity, each individual branch still relies strongly on public donations. Volunteers are integral to the running of Age UK and I would urge anyone to get involved, no matter how little time you can give up. Volunteering for my local Age UK when I begin at St. George's is definitely something I will pursue.
During my Master's degree I had the opportunity to shadow doctors at Wythenshawe hospital in South Manchester. I had wanted to gain some experience of what it was like to work in the NHS before applying for medicine and I happened to stumble across this opportunity through contacting an academic in Manchester. The focus of my course was fungal infections and Wythenshawe hospital is home to the National Aspergillosis Centre, a leading clinic both worldwide and in the UK for the treatment of infections caused by Aspergillus species. A particular inspiration of mine is Professor David Denning, a world-renowned clinician and specialist in medical mycology, who was also director of the National Aspergillosis Centre until last year. I emailed him and he put me into contact with another academic, Dr Riina Richardson, a consultant medical mycologist. She was kind of enough to arrange a meeting with me to discuss applying to medicine, where she put me into contact with a clinical education fellow of infectious diseases.
I arranged around 14 hours of work experience shadowing doctors at the National Aspergillosis Centre, over a period of a week. One doctor I shadowed was a clinical fellow of infectious diseases and I observed him and the infectious diseases consultant as they did ward rounds. This involved going round to other wards in the hospital and assessing patients who had been admitted to the infectious diseases service and had stayed for monitoring or treatment. It also involved support for transplant patients, cystic fibrosis patients, patients with bone and joint infection, as well as those undergoing cancer therapies or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. I learnt a lot about working as a team within the NHS from shadowing ward rounds, as the clinical fellow and consultant had to liase with other doctors and nurses on various wards. It was also interesting to observe empathy with patients, as often you will have to understand how they feel or might feel before talking to them.
I also sat in on two clinics - a general infectious diseases clinic and a chronic pulmonary aspergillosis clinic. They were both valuable experiences because it was more like a GP surgery within a hopsital except looking at very specialist medical conditions and I got to experience how a doctor interacts with a patient in a clinical setting. I noticed the way in which doctors spoke to patients was very reassuring and constantly making sure they understood the information presented to them. They made it easy for the patient to understand, although not too simple, explaining any medical terminology they may be unsure of. They were not afraid to ask consultants for help either, if they wanted a second opinion - again highlighting the importance of teamwork. Doctor-patient confidentiality and patient safety were at the centre of everything they did and they always made it seem like they had all the time in the world for the patient - never was the patient rushed.
This work experience though only short, was extremely enjoyable and useful. It further cemented the fact I wanted to do medicine despite being on a pathway to scientific research up to this point and also gave me insight into the medical specialty of infectious diseases at an early stage.
Posted by Nathan
