Medicine as a mature student

itsoktobehappy

I am currently working full time in pr and am relatively well paid. However it has always been a desire of mine to study medicine. I got 515 pts in my leaving cert in 2006. Is it possible to do this? Is it a silly idea? Should I just stay working where I am? where is the best place for info? Thanks for any help. I am 25 by eh way.

Flange/Flanders

itsoktobehappy wrote: »

I am currently working full time in pr and am relatively well paid. However it has always been a desire of mine to study medicine. I got 515 pts in my leaving cert in 2006. Is it possible to do this? Is it a silly idea? Should I just stay working where I am? where is the best place for info? Thanks for any help. I am 25 by eh way.

It depends on how big your desire is. How good is your pay and do you enjoy the work? If you go into med, you will (eventually) be well paid but thats after years of studying and working really unsocial hours!

From my own experience I am leaving a well paying job for medicine as I hated the work, I always wanted to do medicine, I want to be in a job where Im helping people everyday and I know in 20 years Id totally look back and completely regret not doing med. I know what's in store for me, I know how much in debt I'll be (a lot!!) and I know how tough it'll be.

As regards routes, if you've a previous college qualification, there's 2 possible routes in Ireland you can go down, the graduate route and the mature entry route. For Grad, you have to do an exam called the GAMSAT, its held on 1 day in March (or in September in London) and its a really long day with 3 parts, look up the gamsat thread for more info. You also need a level 8 minimum 2.1 degree as well. Gradmed is then a 4 year course with fellow grads in either of UL, UCD, RCSO or UCC. Your gamsat score determines what college you get into.

For the mature entry route, you have to do the HPAT in January and then interviews and then you get into the undergrad course that leaving certs go straight into. Im not as familiar with this route. Think theres a HPAT thread on this forum.

If you havent done a previous degree, you could apply for the undergraduate course, you'll still have to do the hpat so. There's certain weightings then for the HPAT score and your leaving cert points.

For info, the gamsat or health sciences thread is the place to look, some terrific posts here. I also found doc2be.ie a great blog of 1 grad meds route to med school, from pre gamsat to currently going into 3rd years.

There are some big considerations for medicine however. Whichever route you go down, the fees are very high. Gradmed will cost you roughly 65k before living expenses, not sure what the fees are for the mature entry route. Some gradmeds struggled to get bank funding and I think some banks only give out the course fees now, no longer give out funding for living expenses.

Bear in mind that the studying doesnt finish after college, there's many years of training and very unsocial hours post college so you have to bear this in mind in terms of family and quality of life in the future. That said, anyone I hear of love their work and would change nothing.

Agnieszka_88

Thanks for the great post, Flange/Flanders!

I'm also thinking about doing gradmed, but I'm giving myself 2 years time first, to prepare for GAMSAT and, more importantly, to save some money. Money is the only thing that actually makes me doubt if I should actually go this route, especially now that you hear how many people struggle getting loans. It scares me that I might leave a well-paying job and throw everything on one card, just to find out that I won't get a loan. But I guess you have to take risks if you want to move forward.

LasTime

I guess it will be 2013 that you plan on entering so. How long does it take in total?? 8-9 years