GAMSAT 2014?

markitzero

Cheers for the advice everybody, nevertheless I've taken the cautious route. I'm going to re-do the GAMSAT in September and March if needs be. It was unrealistic of me to start college and not have more savings as well as work lined up. It's an extra year but the difference of paying 400 quid a month on loans or 800 quid is too great.
I look forward to your blog updates!

lawlesp4

Hey everyone I registered for the GAMSAT in London at the end of July and I was considering booking my flights now before they go up too much in price. I know they say you should wait until 2 weeks before the exam, when they official send out our admission tickets with our test centre but is it relatively safe to say I will get London or should I hold off on booking my flights until last minute?

Academia

lawlesp4 wrote: »

Hey everyone I registered for the GAMSAT in London at the end of July and I was considering booking my flights now before they go up too much in price. I know they say you should wait until 2 weeks before the exam, when they official send out our admission tickets with our test centre but is it relatively safe to say I will get London or should I hold off on booking my flights until last minute?

The chances are that you'd get where you choose, but wait for your admission ticket to come through and book your flight at that time.

extinctspecies

Has everyone going in this september gotten their loans sorted? What other options are there for UCD GEM apart from the BOI loan?

HopefulGEM

extinctspecies wrote: »

Has everyone going in this september gotten their loans sorted? What other options are there for UCD GEM apart from the BOI loan?

Yeah I got mine approved from yesterday but I know a friend of mine still hasn't heard anything..

ldwyer5

Hey,
I currently have a 1st class BSc under my belt and doing an MSc in translational oncology to fill the year as I missed the Gamsats by a point this year for Ireland. Im sitting my UKCAT in october and BMAT in November and doing the GAMSAT again this year.

Besides that, I will be 23 when applying for graduate medicine for the year 2015. Does this mean I am eligible for Mature applications?

Secondly, What are the fee's like for the UK to study medicine? Is it similar to Ireland, and does Scotlands fees work in the same way for GEM?. I heard the NHS fund quite a large amount of fees if you are studying in the UK

If someone could kindly give me info to the above, It would be much appreciated!

jody24

Hey guys
Does any one remembers the question about a triangle chart that had percentages on all of its 3 sides and you had to add up the percentage from all 3 sides to makeup 100%? It's just annoying me , even now!!!

screweddoc

What about the MONEY???

I think it's important that everyone thinking of embarking in a career in medicine understands the financial situation.

After tax, the current take home pay of a doctor in Ireland is less than €2000 per month. You will be repaying €1300 per month on the loan you had to take to be in this profession.. That leaves you with €700 to live on per month. Lets say you don't want to live rough, you'll probably be paying about €600 for rent (you'd be unlikely to find anywhere cheaper than that in Dublin for instance). That leaves you with €100 per month to live on. €100 !!!!!!!!!!!! Last time I checked life is very expensive. For day to day things like eating, clothing yourself, transport, not to mention bills, a person could easily need up to €50 per day. But as a doctor, you'll have to stretch €100 over an entire month on all these things.

And you'll be doing this throughout your life as a doctor, for at least 10 to 12 years, before you become a consultant and get a slight pay rise.

So ask yourself this simple question: Can you live on €100 per month for the guts of the rest of your life. If you think you would find that difficult, you need to reconsider embarking on this career. If you still want to do it, you'll need to ask yourself if you'll be able to work part time in macdonalds after your 80 odd hours of doctor work, to fund your life.

Somalion

screweddoc wrote: »

What about the MONEY???

I think it's important that everyone thinking of embarking in a career in medicine understands the financial situation.

After tax, the current take home pay of a doctor in Ireland is less than €2000 per month. You will be repaying €1300 per month on the loan you had to take to be in this profession.. That leaves you with €700 to live on per month. Lets say you don't want to live rough, you'll probably be paying about €600 for rent (you'd be unlikely to find anywhere cheaper than that in Dublin for instance). That leaves you with €100 per month to live on. €100 !!!!!!!!!!!! Last time I checked life is very expensive. For day to day things like eating, clothing yourself, transport, not to mention bills, a person could easily need up to €50 per day. But as a doctor, you'll have to stretch €100 over an entire month on all these things.

And you'll be doing this throughout your life as a doctor, for at least 10 to 12 years, before you become a consultant and get a slight pay rise.

So ask yourself this simple question: Can you live on €100 per month for the guts of the rest of your life. If you think you would find that difficult, you need to reconsider embarking on this career. If you still want to do it, you'll need to ask yourself if you'll be able to work part time in macdonalds after your 80 odd hours of doctor work, to fund your life.

Appendix I – NCHDs basic salary and allowances as of 1 January 2010 Intern 1 €30,257 Senior House Officer 1 €38,839 2 €40,998 3 €44,224 4 €46,334 5 €50,578 6 €52,687 7 €54,746 Registrar 1 €50,578 2 €52,687 3 €54,746 4 €56,260 5 €58,279 6 €60,305 Senior Registrar 1 €65,347 2 €67,392 3 €69,440 4 €71,621 5 €74,139 6 €76,762 7 €79,468 Specialist Registrar 1 €60,404 2 €61,855 3 €63,953 4 €66,840 5 €69,915 6 €72,995 7 €76,062 Living out allowance €55.08 per week Sunday / Public Holidays Single time extra for each hour worked NCHDs (A&E) Shift premium of T+1/6th where continuous rotating shift over a 24 hour, 7 day week cycle applies Overtime Rates Day Overtime Payment Rate Monday – Saturday All overtime hours T + 1/2 Sunday All overtime hours T x 2 Public Holidays All overtime hours T x 2 On off-site call rates Monday – Sunday Half of all hours, up to a maximum of 10 hours spent on call – T + ¼ Balance of Hours ½ 1/2 T Additional payments are made to NCHDs who are rostered for on-call off site on Sunday for the first eight hours as follows: On call and frequently called upon 0.75 T On call from home and infrequently called upon 0.6 T

Apologies to all for the format butI've no clue where you wind up getting that 2k a month figure "throughout your life" stuff.

screweddoc

Somalion wrote: »

Appendix I – NCHDs basic salary and allowances as of 1 January 2010 Intern 1 €30,257 Senior House Officer 1 €38,839 2 €40,998 3 €44,224 4 €46,334 5 €50,578 6 €52,687 7 €54,746 Registrar 1 €50,578 2 €52,687 3 €54,746 4 €56,260 5 €58,279 6 €60,305 Senior Registrar 1 €65,347 2 €67,392 3 €69,440 4 €71,621 5 €74,139 6 €76,762 7 €79,468 Specialist Registrar 1 €60,404 2 €61,855 3 €63,953 4 €66,840 5 €69,915 6 €72,995 7 €76,062 Living out allowance €55.08 per week Sunday / Public Holidays Single time extra for each hour worked NCHDs (A&E) Shift premium of T+1/6th where continuous rotating shift over a 24 hour, 7 day week cycle applies Overtime Rates Day Overtime Payment Rate Monday – Saturday All overtime hours T + 1/2 Sunday All overtime hours T x 2 Public Holidays All overtime hours T x 2 On off-site call rates Monday – Sunday Half of all hours, up to a maximum of 10 hours spent on call – T + ¼ Balance of Hours ½ 1/2 T Additional payments are made to NCHDs who are rostered for on-call off site on Sunday for the first eight hours as follows: On call and frequently called upon 0.75 T On call from home and infrequently called upon 0.6 T

Apologies to all for the format butI've no clue where you wind up getting that 2k a month figure "throughout your life" stuff.

I'm afraid these figures are before tax. After all taxes, you'd be lucky to go home with half of what is quoted here. So as a 7th year Specialist Reg, which most people would take 10 to 12 years to get to after medical school. Thats 10 to 12 years of doing nothing but working every waking hour. And when not working, studying or doing research. And then at that stage, when your in your 40s (if you started early enough) your take home salary might be 38k.That's €3166 per month. after your loan, thats €1066. after rent, that's €400. Hopefully at this stage in your life, being in your mid 40s, you haven't decided to incur any extra expenses such as buying a cheap car, or had a meal out, or bought any new clothes, because you'll still be living on €400 per month for EVERYTHING ELSE!

Somalion

screweddoc wrote: »

I'm afraid these figures are before tax. After all taxes, you'd be lucky to go home with half of what is quoted here. So as a 7th year Specialist Reg, which most people would take 10 to 12 years to get to after medical school. Thats 10 to 12 years of doing nothing but working every waking hour. And when not working, studying or doing research. And then at that stage, when your in your 40s (if you started early enough) your take home salary might be 38k.That's €3166 per month. after your loan, thats €1066. after rent, that's €400. Hopefully at this stage in your life, being in your mid 40s, you haven't decided to incur any extra expenses such as buying a cheap car, or had a meal out, or bought any new clothes, because you'll still be living on €400 per month for EVERYTHING ELSE!

They are before tax yes but a) tax rates are at 20% for the first 32,800 and 41 (now 40% in the budget) so, using your registrar example: 32800 at 20% is 6560 in tax, the remaining tax on the higher money will be 17304.8. In total then that's 23864 in tax, ignoring the fact that I've left out tax credits or overtime considerations, leaving a net of 52197. These figures are rough but lucky to take home half of what is quoted here is plain wrong by my calculations.

Now for point b) you say that someone will be in their mid 40s at that stage, take away the 10-12 years means you're saying that Grad Med Students are coming out of college in the region of 32 years of age or so which is wrong again. Plenty start the course when they are 21-25 and will finish it when they are 25-29. So there's a chance that, if the 12 years is applied, the later starters will just be reaching 41 or so when they are at that level.

beardedmaster

screweddoc wrote: »

You will be repaying €1300 per month on the loan you had to take to be in this profession.

I don't know what loan you're talking about. If you took out a loan for €100,000 (which you can't anymore, btw), you would be paying back €1,178.17 a month - which is admittedly, a lot. But if you just took a loan for fees, which the banks now are only providing (let's call it €60,000), then that's €706,90 a month. Again, it's obviously not a small amount of money, but almost half what you have said.

A huge amount of current GEMs enter the course straight after their undergrad, or after one year, so the age range of graduates, as Somalion said, is much lower than you give.

Elle66

Any one else bricking ot for the 17th//8th or just me?

loopylulu

Me also. It feels like my life is on hold until the results come out. I really want to know if I should start studying for Gamsat next March or not!
CAO opens tomorrow and the RCSI GEM open day is on Saturday but I don't think I can enjoy it while waiting on the bloody results!

Elle66

I feel very much in limbo- if Ive passed, I need to start preparing for the interviews, if not, I need to start getting ready for march. Its just all this hanging about waiting for the results week Monday I'm hoping!!

loopylulu

Are you applying for the UK?

Elle66

Yes- swansea, nottingham & cardiff. So fingers crossed & roll on 2 weeks yesterday!!

loopylulu

I actually feel sick thinking it could be less than 2 weeks!

Elle66

Yes its been keeping me awake many a night already so things are not going to get any better hitting the7day count down!! If I dont pass Ill be devistated, but Ill get over it after a few days & get on with revising for march... Its just all this hanging about & not knowing... :S

Elle66

Does anyone have an incling as to which day the results are out next week? Each extra day feels like a month!!

Mccloskc

Elle66 wrote: »

Does anyone have an incling as to which day the results are out next week? Each extra day feels like a month!!

Fri 21st most likely

Elle66

It was Tuesday nov 19th last year. I'm on the quiet hoping its Monday the 17th or Tue the 18th this year... Wish they'd give an actual date not just "end of november"- to think we've paid around £250 for the priviledge, think they could give a specific day... Ah well. Best of luck all xx

Bloomberg

Yeah I don't know but them saying the end of the month almost sounds like it could be the following week like 24th ish.. I'm
Not hoping for much as it was just a taster for me and I plan on putting the time in and kicking its ass in the march sitting! So regardless I'll be happy. However for those of you that it means so much too, I hope you finally get to follow your dream!!! good luck!

Elle66

Bloomberg wrote: »

Yeah I don't know but them saying the end of the month almost sounds like it could be the following week like 24th ish.. I'm
Not hoping for much as it was just a taster for me and I plan on putting the time in and kicking its ass in the march sitting! So regardless I'll be happy. However for those of you that it means so much too, I hope you finally get to follow your dream!!! good luck!

No it'll defo be sometime next week nit the following. Its just that every extra day feels like a week so if they can released mon/tue, all the better.

Mccloskc

How does everyone feel they did?

loopylulu

Every email that comes through on my phone I jump just in case its Acer. Woke up this morning in a panic thinking I'd missed the results. Now I'm trying to decide what to do if when they come through, do I log in on my phone or do I wait until I'm in work and can go cry in the bathroom in peace...

loopylulu

oh foroggt to say I saw someone posted on PagingDR, listing the results date versus exam date for the past few years. If his dates are correct and Acer follow the same patern then my money is on the 18th..

Mccloskc

loopylulu wrote: »

Every email that comes through on my phone I jump just in case its Acer. Woke up this morning in a panic thinking I'd missed the results. Now I'm trying to decide what to do if when they come through, do I log in on my phone or do I wait until I'm in work and can go cry in the bathroom in peace...

So you're not feeling confident?

loopylulu

that would be a no..

Mccloskc

loopylulu wrote: »

that would be a no..

I've heard lots of people on this that really surprised themselves. This is my second time sitting it.