After grad entry - what next?

hughesga

Hi,

I'm a final year mechanical engineering student strongly considering pursuing a career in medicine through graduate entry.

I understand that it takes 4 years to become a qualified doctor in the graduate entry courses in Ireland. I was wondering how it works after you graduate after four years. Do you have to pursue further study to specialise? Does it cost much? Are you paid while you study? I'm wondering this because the amount of money to borrow for the four years is already very large and I'm not sure I could afford to study for longer than four years.

Thanks in advance

First Aid Ireland

hughesga wrote: »

Hi,

I'm a final year mechanical engineering student strongly considering pursuing a career in medicine through graduate entry.

I understand that it takes 4 years to become a qualified doctor in the graduate entry courses in Ireland. I was wondering how it works after you graduate after four years. Do you have to pursue further study to specialise? Does it cost much? Are you paid while you study? I'm wondering this because the amount of money to borrow for the four years is already very large and I'm not sure I could afford to study for longer than four years.

Thanks in advance

Costs afterwards will be:

Registration: A few hundred euro.

Medical insurance: 60ish euro

Membership exams: thousands euro over time depending on how many exams your specialty requires and how many attempts it takes you.

Emigration: The pretty much mandatory expense of relocating and getting registered in another country if you're going to complete specialist training in most specialties.

Courses like ACLS/PALS and ATLS if required: These range from 200 to about 900 euro. Your department might give you some of the money back

Membership fees for the royal colleges: Depends on which royal college you're affiliated with. I think the surgeons pay a good few thousand.

For your first few years after qualification you'll spend a significant amount of time studying, but this will be self directed mostly.

hughesga

Thanks for all the advice so far. Its really helpful.

So say if I manage to graduate after four years and I realise that I'm in loads of debt (€50,000+), could I decide to not specialise and work as a doctor for a number of years until thats paid off and then specialize afterwards?

First Aid Ireland

hughesga wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice so far. Its really helpful.

So say if I manage to graduate after four years and I realise that I'm in loads of debt (€50,000+), could I decide to not specialise and work as a doctor for a number of years until thats paid off and then specialize afterwards?

You'll be getting paid while you specialise.

Abby19

Once you have your medical degree, be it undergraduate (5/6 years) or postgraduate (4 years), you can either emigrate and go through the training schemes there, or go through the Irish system. You'd start off with your intern year, which is basically a pre-reg year, and after that you are 'qualified' and are registered.

If you do plan on going abroad straight after graduation check out the system in wherever you plan to go, and if you plan on coming back to Ireland, check and see how transferable their qualifications are. Also there has been some mutterings about making a couple of years in Irish hospitals mandatory seeing as the cost of Med School is so high. This may not apply to the Postgrad route, though your fees are subsidised anyway. So this may be in place by the time you get through. There are loans for the various Postgrad courses up to €100k, check out the various other threads below.

Then depending on whether you want to go down the medical or surgical route you do 2-3 years as an SHO (Senior House Officer), and you can sit the membership exams for the Colleges of Physicians or Surgeons. You are then a registrar, and can work as that.

Then if you have figured out what you want to specialise in you can apply for the SpR schemes in your chosen field (specialist registrar). These are competitive, and a lot of people do research or masters after completing their SHO training to increase their chances. SpR duration varies (3-5 years I think), and again there are membership exams.

Once you have finished all that, you can start applying for any available consultant posts that come up.

For more details for the various training schemes check out the various colleges websites (of physicians or surgeons, not universities).

For some specialities it does appear that time abroad at some stage will help you in career progression. If you think about it Ireland has ~4.5m people, a smallish city compared to say London, so chances of seeing rare conditions are correspondingly less. But not always essential.

If you decide to go the GP route, that is 4 years after your intern year, 2 in hospitals and 2 in GP practice, and again membership exams.

From your time as an intern on you are paid for the hours that you work, though that may vary based on your hospital (google some of the recent articles on intern and NCHD pay for more info).

There is also info here http://www.imo.ie

Good luck with whatever you decide.

lonelywanderer

Great post Abby