After an inital email from our Head of Futures Ms Day, I applied for an online work experience with NHS through Springpod about AHPs.

AHP stands for Allied Health Professionals. There were nine modules included in the course which took me one week to complete. Each module consisted of one/two activities that I had to complete by researching, submit it as PDF and wait for it to be approved.

I found the course very helpful and interesting in terms of easing my elimination process of what I want to do in the future. I was indecisive as to what healthcare professional I aspire to be as every time I researched careers, I would end up discovering new ones that I had never heard of before.

I learnt that there are 14 different AHPs of which a few are Physiotherapist, Podiatrist, Orthoptist and Paramedic. I encountered the six values of NHS: working together, respect and dignity, commitment to quality of care, compassion, improving lives and everyone counts. I did research on the role of each AHP and how they would affect a patient’s life. I learnt about how crucial it is to have excellent verbal and non-verbal communication skills, as having an inappropriate body language, tone or facial expression can leave a wrong impression on the patient and make them uncomfortable.

Out of the 14 AHP choices, I would like to take the career path of a Physiotherapist. This is because Physiotherapists deal with neurological, cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, which I have great interest in as my initial aim is to be a Neurologist and then Physiotherapist would be my backup plan. Physiotherapy appeals massively to me because movement is seen as central to the health and wellbeing of individuals, so Physio would maximise its healing potential by restoring movement.