Lapsed med student dillema

panda100

I was wondering If the boards medics could help me with my dilemma as its very difficult to get impartial,honest advice from friends and family.

So basically, I studied medicine in UCD, but dropped out before finishing my final year. I took one year out and had to repeat a year during my time in UCD and I really struggled throughout the course.I had lots of part time jobs in college and got involved in lots of extracurricular activities both inside and outside UCD and kinda forgot my medical studies. I decided last Summer that I had enough as I hated having to go into the hospitals each day, and so decided to leave.

So I've been working for the last year in a job helping students with disabilities. A job which I've really enjoyed. However,this job doesnt pay great and finishes in May. I have been looking for other jobs but there isnt much out there. I got an interview for one job and they kept on asking why Id dropped out of my course. Obviously that doesnt look great to a potential employer as I didnt get the job!

So basically my family has been urging me to go back and finish the course.
I have been to see a lot of career advisers in the last few weeks and all have told me to go back and finish my medical degree. They tell me that once you have a medicine degree the world is your oyster and a lot of doors will be opened to you. However I dont really believe this!I dont want to do my intern year, so will I be able to get a job with just a medical degree?

All the jobs I am looking towards want a degree in social science or related disciplines. I have been told that medicine is such a broad subject that it covers a lot of disciplines?
Most jobs want years of experience and not education and so will I be better working for two years, rather than spending another year getting my degree with no full time job experience at the end of it.

So I guess my question is it easy to get jobs with a medicine degree?
My brother and sister, both who are doctors, have told me of friends who are working in the UN, Amnesty International ,journalism and law, all these exciting disciplines, as they are crying out for people with medical knowledge. However, I think they are just telling me this to just try and get me to finish my degree.

I guess I just want to ask, do people think it is worth going back and getting the degree even though it will mean heartache,blood, sweat and tears from me, as my brain has just frozen when it comes to aneurysms and the likes. I would have to do psych,paeds, obs (yuck!), med and surgery. Will a medicine degree really open doors for me or am I better off just getting out now and building up work experience?

Any advice would be really helpful as I just cant decide and am being pushed in all directions by friends and family!

2Scoops

In my opinion, a medical degree will help you get a job; most people, rightly or wrongly, are quite impressed by a medical degree. The alternative is having just your LC and some work experience and that's not even worth considering - finish your degree.

tallaght01

Panda, I'm pretty sick of the mentalness of clinical medicine, too, as I've told you before. Plus I find it much less satisfying than I used to.

In about a month, I start my public health SpR training and masters degree.

My aim is to go into a career involving international health planning.

Since deciding on this route, I've met a LOT of people involved in international health. Some have medical degrees, others don't.

A lot have really important jobs, and have kind of just climbed up the ladder. The UN is especially well known for this kind of thing. The problem is getting your foot in the door.

Going to, say, amnesty with a medical degree and telling them you've applied for their junior internship post because you want to do something on a larger scale than the "individualised" medicine we normally practise is completely reasonable.

Organisations like that are very unlikely to care about whether or not you've done you're internship.

I spoke to a GP recently who did a little bit of overseas work, and he's constantly contacted by overseas agencies to help write reports, consult on overseas health issues.

He reckons careers are there for the taking. I hope he's right :P

EDIT: in summary, I think you should finish your degree !

Prime Mover

If you only have a year to go you might as well finish it. You obviously have a good leaving cert but if you don't finish you won't be able to tick the "3rd level degree" box on employer forms which will filter you out of a lot of jobs. Doing another degree will take minimum 3 years anyway.

Come to think of it, there might be an option to get some sort of Bachelor of Medical Science degree after your pre-clinicals? I am not sure.

I agree with 2Scoops and Tallaght though, finish it.

Svalbard

I'm afraid I must agree with the other posters. Having a degree, any degree, is better than none. And a medical degree does have that extra kudos. One more year, in the grand scheme of things, is not that long and it will open up many more opportunities.
Opting for the 'university of life' might seem romantic, but from an employers perspective you just have your leaving cert, no 3rd level qualification. Someone with a cert would probably get the job ahead of you. And as you pointed out, dropping out of college doesn't look great to perspective employers (unfair, but true). I'm sure its already occured to you that the jobs market is not exactly crying out for another unqualified, inexperienced person at the moment.

I was in medical school and hated it most of the time. The clicky mentality, the smugness and oneupmanship. And I found the biological sciences dreadfully boring. Every year I felt like dropping out but I suppose I was afraid of the great unknown. Much to my surprise, I actually really like the job. You really do get to help people. Sure its busy and pressured, the hours are long, but I get an undeniable buzz out of it I never expected. You say you have worked with people with disabilites and enjoyed this - perhaps you are drawn to hands-on work, to interacting with people. You get none of this in med school, but plenty on the job.

Even if you really cant bear the thought of internship, please strongly consider finishing your degree. Yes, it would be a tough year, probably the toughest so far, but at the end you would have that piece of paper that, for good or bad, is important and does unlock doors, not just to a career in medicine. Perhaps the doctors in your family could put you in touch with a medic who has gone down an alternative career path, to give you some ideas.

DrIndy

i think if you leave medicine after passing the pre-clinical years but not completing the clinical years, you are entitled to a BSc in Medical Science (correct me if it does not apply in UCD).

There are many, many career options out there related to medicine, but not as a doctor - but you are blinded into one from day one because that is what you are doing and all you are aiming for with everyone else - i did not particularily like the clincal years either - walking like a set of ducklings behind a consultant, the oneupmanship of deliberately studying a tiny rare factoid to impress some senior (in fact as a doctor now teaching students, i knock that stuff hard on the head when i see it - and remind the students to keep the big picture).

i discovered my love for clincal medicine in final year, lost all of it as an intern and slowly relearned it again - being a clinician is what i want to be - stuck in the midst of organised chaos and uncertainty that exists in A&E. Me and Tallaght01 have had long chats about it and it is a case of horses for courses and there are many many options out there bar the only one.

I know a lecturer who bailed on internship half-way through and joined the French Foreign Legion as a footsoldier! He now lectures in one of the preclinical sciences.....

Finish the degree.

Traumadoc

Most docs I know have had their crisis moments in Medicine, some have left, and gone onto other careers. Others have left and come back to clinical medicine . Finish your degree and decide after but have something to fall back on.

panda100

Prime Mover wrote: »

Come to think of it, there might be an option to get some sort of Bachelor of Medical Science degree after your pre-clinicals? I am not sure.
.

Yep this is the last year in fact UCD is offering the batchelor of medical science degree for those who drop out. There is a guy in 3rd year dropping out too and getting it, yet I completed up to fifth year. I have a good year and a half on the wards,along with my clinical skills, public health,legal med, opthamology, ENT,gp etc. I feel like I have done way and above a batchelor of medical science degree which is basically a degree in physiology, anatomy and biochemistry.
Also to get my batchelor of med science I would have to spend two months in the conway institute doing a research project and at the end of it im not even garunteed an honours. I think I would rather 5 years of medicine on my cv rather than a pass batchelor of medical science degree. So I decided not to go down this route.


Thanks everyone for the advice,I think I know what my decision should be.
I guess Its just the whole hospital vibe Im dreading. I hate having to bow to the consultants like their God, having a strained lunch/tea break everyday with the team while they all try and outdo themselves impressing the consultant. I just feel like I can never relax and be myself when Im in this environment.But it is good to know others went through the same thing

tallaght01

panda100 wrote: »

Its just the whole hospital vibe Im dreading. I hate having to bow to the consultants like their God, having a strained lunch/tea break everyday with the team while they all try and outdo themselves impressing the consultant. I just feel like I can never relax and be myself when Im in this environment.But it is good to know others went through the same thing

Honestly, a lot of people go in with this attitude, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

My experience is that medics are your average cross section of middle class society.

A few are tools. A few are legends. most sit somewhere in between.

My experince is that most people are nice to you, if you give them a bit of chat, and do some prep work so they're not wasting their time.

If I was on a firm i didn't like, I'd have lunch in the ibrary while studying.

Svalbard

panda100 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the advice,I think I know what my decision should be.
I guess Its just the whole hospital vibe Im dreading. I hate having to bow to the consultants like their God, having a strained lunch/tea break everyday with the team while they all try and outdo themselves impressing the consultant. I just feel like I can never relax and be myself when Im in this environment.But it is good to know others went through the same thing

I used to feel exactly the same as you in medical school. I actively avoided lectures, tutorials and my class because of it. In the end this was only a disservice to myself.
When I started my intern year I began to see things differently. My peers and seniors who I had theretofore assumed were all the same (i.e. a*s-lickers) turned out to be pretty cool people for the most part. I'm not saying the culture you describe doesn't exist or that some docs aren't total knobs, but it really is a case of perception.
Tallaght used the phrase self-fulfilling prophecy, and i would second that - if you expect the atmosphere you described, you'll probably find it or convince yourself you have. Keep an open mind.

If you do find the 'culture' a bit much at times, distance yourself from it, but don't damage your own opportunites to learn (I'm speaking from experience here, I'm afraid!). Because behind all the pomp and crap, clinical medicine is actually very interesting and rewarding.
That said, final med tends to bring these elements to the fore, especially when everyone is clamouring for attention in tutorials coming up to the exams. But, this too will pass. Hold tough!

And besides, medicine needs more people like you and less d**kheads!

tech77

Svalbard wrote: »

I used to feel exactly the same as you in medical school. I actively avoided lectures, tutorials and my class because of it. In the end this was only a disservice to myself.
When I started my intern year I began to see things differently. My peers and seniors who I had theretofore assumed were all the same (i.e. a*s-lickers) turned out to be pretty cool people for the most part. I'm not saying the culture you describe doesn't exist or that some docs aren't total knobs, but it really is a case of perception.
Tallaght used the phrase self-fulfilling prophecy, and i would second that - if you expect the atmosphere you described, you'll probably find it or convince yourself you have. Keep an open mind.

If you do find the 'culture' a bit much at times, distance yourself from it, but don't damage your own opportunites to learn (I'm speaking from experience here, I'm afraid!). Because behind all the pomp and crap, clinical medicine is actually very interesting and rewarding.
That said, final med tends to bring these elements to the fore, especially when everyone is clamouring for attention in tutorials coming up to the exams. But, this too will pass. Hold tough!

And besides, medicine needs more people like you and less d**kheads!

I'm loving this thread-
final med ultracompetitiveness -ah good times (not).


Good decision, Panda.