Studied medicine later in life / know someone has?

[DeLorean75]

Afternoon, and a virtual hug for everyone trying to sort their own and family's life out.

Would anyone on here have any personal experience of, or know anyone who has, started studying medicine later in life?

I would be very interested in having a conversation with someone in this category on the realities of funding and timelines for study / income generation.

Any contacts hugely appreciated.

Thanks

(just wrong side of 40)

[MC Bodge]

Your Life In My Hands book

[Drumroll]

I know a certain doctor (who frequents this forum) who has gone from medicine to engineering, later in life.

Edited by Drumroll on Tuesday 17th March 17:08

[Steve Campbell]

No experience of later life switch.....but I believe the minimum training period for a GP is ~9 years (4 Med School, 2 Foundation then 3 GP specific). I think it's more for other specialities.

[DeLorean75]

Drumroll said:

I know a certain doctor (who frequents this forum) who has gone from medicine to engineering, later in life.

Edited by Drumroll on Tuesday 17th March 17:08

Grateful for any introduction

[Drumroll]

I will PM him for you

[gangzoom]

DeLorean75 said:

I would be very interested in having a conversation with someone in this category on the realities of funding and timelines for study / income generation.

There a few steps and than there is your realistic expectation of what the job means.

1: Medical school entry is always competitive, you are looking at application to place ratio of 10:1. So for a start you need to have a very good CV/Academic records

2: Tuition fees, assuming you are going for graduate entry which would be £9k a year for 4 years. Undergraduate course is 5 years, option to make it 6 if you do a BSC. So are minimal you will leave with £36k in tuition fee debt excluding obviously living costs.

3: Work load, Medical school isn't hard, you don't need to be super intelligent but you have to put the work it. Some students do take on part time jobs, but overall it's a full time course, there is no way around it. If you don't put the time in you will fail. I do some of the assessments at the end of course and its barn door obvious the students who haven't done the work. Saying you needed to do an extra job on the side as an excuse will get you no where sadly.

4: Junior doctor hours, for the first few years out of medical school everyone does their time been the headless chicken on the wards. You get paid the least, but have to do all the manual work. Hours use to be long/crazy, I use to do 12hrs shifts for upto 10 days back to back, when you are 25 and single that's fine. Doing that when you are 45+ with family is impossible. Luckily that's changed, but most junior doctors still have to do 12hr night shifts.....

5: Pay. I've been working for 15+ years now, pretty high up on the hospital pay scale, my hourly pay rate is.......£45/hr!! You can look up junior doctor pay on the NHS website, but starting pay is £27k gross.

Add in pension deductions/student loans and your take home pay is under £1700/month. Don't forget if you make a mistake in the first few years out of medical school you can end up in court been found guilty of man slaughter!!

You can increase you pay by doing over time a and extra shifts. But as I've mentioned when you are 25 you can throw your entire life into work with little worry versus when you are 45+.

6: Career progression. Most doctors aim to be a hospital consultant/surgeon or GP. Hospital training takes longer, and if you want a good job in a good location you than need to do research/extra work. For example every consultant I work with in our hospital has a PhD or second degree, so you are looking at 10 years+ of training before getting a consultant job in a large hospital, which than pays you sub £40/hr starting salary.

GP tends to be more popular because of shorter training- 5 years and potential for higher earning IF you become a partner at a practice. But I know more stressed effected GPs than hospital doctors, and most work like mad to earn the pay.

So realistically if you are 40+ now, you will be 50+ before getting to a GP partner level or 55+ before getting to hospital consultant/surgeon level.

Its not impossible but you will need to be 100% dedicated and focused.

If you are really serious the first thing is to look at graduate entry requirements and be realistic about if you think you have a chance of getting in. I wouldn't put anyone off doing medicine, for me I cannot imagine doing anything else, but don't underestimate the commitment to the profession.

The mental relisiance needed is also something no one really tells you, I've gone from doing full blown CPR on a 27 year old who just collapsed in the street, having to than tell their wife they didn't make it, and than literally 10 second after walking away from delivering bad news to been told there is another cardiac arrest arriving and I need to get stuck in.

I've had people try to hit me, throw cigarettes at me, relatives accuse me of killing people, relatives completely breaking down in front of me after been told bad news, have my decisions cross examined word for word in court, all of this with no down time or anyone ever ask me , are you ok?? do you need time?? How are you feeling?? All this for £45/hr.

But despite all that I love me job, it becomes your life and pretty much takes priority over anything else, so much so weekends/holidays are sometime unwelcome interruptions.......I really mean that!!

Edited by gangzoom on Wednesday 18th March 06:47

[peterperkins]

Good post

[tapkaJohnD]

The doctor to engineer, t'was I.
But the post from Gangzoom has nearly said it all, I think. Medicine can be enormously rewarding, but sometimes terrifyingly demanding. You are unlikely to make your fortune, especially with the study debt today; GPs are retiring early because of the enormous pressure, and hospital doctors tear their hair about financial constraints over perfomance expectations.

Good luck, whatever you decide!
John

[drmike37]

Gangzoom, a lot of that post is pretty familiar... now add the fact that we are almost guaranteed to get Covid from work.
On the plus side, my job isn’t going anywhere at the moment. Can’t say that about anything private sector, unless you can make face masks and ventilators.

[MC Bodge]

It was suggested when I was at school that I became a doctor. I didn't, although I partly wish now that I had done. I really wouldn't want to start studying and training for it now in my 40s, though. 20 years too late.

[DeLorean75]

Drumroll said:

I will PM him for you

Thank you

[DeLorean75]

Thank you for these contributions and Gangzoom in particular - I'll have a good read of that.


I did sciences at a good uni - studied physiology with year1 medics and loved it - ultimately went in an earth sciences direction with geophyics post grad but got bit blindsided by the oil price crash late 90s and none of us were getting jobs in that sector.

Got sucked into the inevitable - finance world, mostly analytical and corporate finance work but it's nearly always been sharp-elbowed types in great abundance and the old [socratic and enquiring mind] me is dormant, possibly extinct.

All probably text book mid life crisis stuff but there's a point where you realise you are someone that needs fulfilment in your professional endeavours and having a side line as pole dancer or whatever isn't enough

Gangzoom if ok I'll DM you

[gangzoom]

DeLorean75 said:

Gangzoom if ok I'll DM you

More than happy for you to message.

I spent the day working out new ways to run out out patient appointments, tidying up/closing down some research stuff in preparation for the onslaught of COVID19 pattens, saw a few patients a couple ?COVID, and tomorrow we'll be firming up plans on how to manage excess patients when our current capacity fills up.

The work isn't easy, often challenging with no right/wrong answers, but it's never dull and I count my self really lucky to have a job that I love.