Is it possible to append Media's file browser to a certain node type?
It appeared I had been using the wrong form element. My custom form was created as below:

function mymodule_file_upload_form($form, &amp;$form_state) {
  $form['file'] = array(
    '#type' =&gt; 'media',
    '#title' =&gt; t('Choose an image'),
    '#description' =&gt; t('Choose an image'),
    '#tree' =&gt; TRUE,
    '#input' =&gt; TRUE,
    '#media_options' =&gt; array(
      'global' =&gt; array(
        'file_extensions' =&gt; 'gif jpg jpeg png',
        'file_directory' =&gt; 'conferences',
        'types' =&gt; array(
          'image',
        ),
        'schemes' =&gt; array(
          'private' =&gt; 'private',
        ),
        'enabledPlugins' =&gt; array(
          'upload',
          'media_default--media_browser_my_files',
        ),
      ),
    ),
  );

  return $form;
}


And then with some javascript I manged to get the fid of the file

$("form").on("change", "input.upload", function() {
  var val = $(this).val();
  $.ajax({
    url: Drupal.settings.basePath + 'draw/file/' + val,
    success: function(data) {
      src = data
    }
  });
});


That path was registered in hook_menu() to return the path of the private file as per:

function mymodule_menu() {
  $items['draw/file/%file'] = array(
    'page callback' =&gt; 'mymodule_page_file',
    'page arguments' =&gt; array(2),
    'access arguments' =&gt; 'view own private files',
  );
  return $items;
}


function mymodule_page_file($file) {
  global $user;
  if($user-&gt;uid == $file-&gt;uid) {
    echo file_create_url($file-&gt;uri); // Use echo to prevent theme to appear.
  }
}