It’s become expected that MPharm students gain experience during their studies, typically working as part of a pharmacy team in community or secondary care. I pursued a different type of experience, and have worked as a healthcare assistant in an acute hospital NHS trust for nearly three years. While I started in orthopaedics – looking after patients with broken hips – I have since moved to urgent and emergency care.

Most of my work now takes place in A&E and its attached services, such as the minor injury unit. Working with patients and other members of the team has made me a better trainee healthcare professional, and helped me secure pre-registration training where a conventional placement may not have, by fostering confidence in inter-professional and independent working. Furthermore, it helped me re-evaluate where pharmacists could work in future, including at the interface between presentation and admission to secondary care.

When working a six-hour shift in A&E ‘majors’, I may be personally responsible for the care and monitoring of 15 patients (and their families), assisting nurses and doctors perform their duties, and training other healthcare assistants who are new to the department. Being able to prioritise responsibilities and maintain flexibility to respond to new situations rapidly was a challenge, but has helped me during my MPharm studies – especially in my final year, where aspects of managerial responsibility are incorporated into clinical teaching.

Furthermore, practical demonstration of concepts not usually covered in the degree helped inform my practice. A couple of weeks ago, I was chaperoning a patient to Ambulatory Emergency Care (AEC) – a part of A&E for acutely unwell but mobile patients – when he collapsed with chest pain. When he arrived, the patient refused consent to be admitted to A&E (AEC no longer being appropriate given his collapse).

Liaising with the site practitioner and the patient, I learned about the barriers to engaging with urgent care services, such as patients being "talked over like a piece of meat". In addition, I saw how informed patient consent is a part of care, which many healthcare professionals feel uncomfortable engaging with. Healthcare can still appear paternalistic to decision makers and service users, and only by actively engaging with this can we change that perception.

Personally, the greatest challenge was seeing how acute health services work with patients who present with poor mental health. In a typical shift, I will see at least one presentation with intentional overdose or acute psychiatric crisis. In these cases, I chaperone patients to prevent further attempts to injure themselves, and am able to work under nurse supervision to estimate foreseeable adverse effects and likely treatment.

In one case, I assisted with triage, care in the resuscitation suite, and subsequent relocation of a patient to critical care facilities – after they consumed two months’ supply of promethazine following discharge from psychiatric care.

While being emotionally challenging, my experiences have informed my choice of pre-registration training and driven my post-registration interests. Namely, I want to construct a role working at the interface between psychiatric and non-psychiatric care settings, optimising therapy to reduce length of admission, and improving quality of life following presentation in acute care.

Michael Champion is in the final year of his MPharm degree. You can tweet him @MJChampion293