My Job As A: Doctor

Piste · 12-01-2010 4:31pm

No negative marking in my college \o/

Narkius Maximus · 12-01-2010 5:05pm

Piste wrote: »

No negative marking in my college \o/

I will have to therefore sound like a grumpy auld man and say 'they don't make em like they used to in my day' and then crucify all those softies who didn't have negative marking with horrendous jobs on the wards!:D

tech77 · 20-01-2010 12:37am

Piste wrote: »

It's a big shock going from the leaving cert where you have to get ~90% in 6 subjects to get into medicine, to college where you're hoping you can scrape 50%

Sure is.
Having said that i do recall one "freak" :P who got an 80 or 90 in a physiology exam.
But yeah the 52, 53, 54 % thing is kinda disheartening.
It's just about being clever in the way you study tbh.

Narkius Maximus · 20-01-2010 12:11pm

tech77 wrote: »

Sure is.
Having said that i do recall one "freak" :P who got an 80 or 90 in a physiology exam.
But yeah the 52, 53, 54 % thing is kinda disheartening.
It's just about being clever in the way you study tbh.

Why is it disheartening? You'll have passed won't you, and so your summers are your own!

Acceptance is key in this game, you will never be the best, you will never be the greatest. That said you can always be good.

jumpguy · 20-01-2010 7:23pm

My parents are always saying "if you want to do medicine, apply to a nursing home and see what it's like". But I always say "I want to be a doctor, not a nurse!"

I say that washing down old people and changing their diapers isn't actually what doctors do in a hospital, but they reckon they're right and I'm wrong, and hence I'm not suited to medicine.

Is this true? Who's right, me or the parents?

Jessibelle · 20-01-2010 8:14pm

I'm applying to medicine this year and I'd see the volenteer work I've done as a fairly essential part of the decision. Doctors may not do the grunt work with the patients, but they do need an understanding of people and the way patients react in different situations (i.e ill, confused etc) and the way that they as doctors react in different situations. Whereas I do believe you pick up part of it during school, I also think a large part of it can't be taught, and helping out in volenteer situations lets you see before you're committed to a 5/6 year course that you can handle yourself in situations outside of your usual scope of experience.

D0nal · 28-01-2010 12:49am

I'm in Transition year and am strongly considering studying medicine in the future. Does anyone know how I can get work experience at the end of February that would give me a good insight into the job of a doctor?

Jessibelle · 28-01-2010 1:53am

D0nal wrote: »

I'm in Transition year and am strongly considering studying medicine in the future. Does anyone know how I can get work experience at the end of February that would give me a good insight into the job of a doctor?

Temple Street Hospital used to offer a shadowing programme, but I'm not 100% if it's still running. I last did it a few years ago, so it's well worth a try? Also, local GP's can be good sometimes for letting you sit in?

rose92 · 06-02-2010 1:00pm

hi!! i am also thinking of going for medicine and i was just wondering whether you are aware of the option in NUIG for doing a five year course instead of a siw year thus skipping the pre med year. i am not 100% sure whether it is available in other colleges but i dont think it is! this is available to anybody that gets and honour in at least two science subjects in the leaving cert and i was wondering whether anyone would recommend to skip the pre med year or not as i am very confused about what would be the best option!???

by the way i found many previous posts very helpful so thank you!

jumpguy · 06-02-2010 2:56pm

rose92 wrote: »

hi!! i am also thinking of going for medicine and i was just wondering whether you are aware of the option in NUIG for doing a five year course instead of a siw year thus skipping the pre med year. i am not 100% sure whether it is available in other colleges but i dont think it is! this is available to anybody that gets and honour in at least two science subjects in the leaving cert and i was wondering whether anyone would recommend to skip the pre med year or not as i am very confused about what would be the best option!???

by the way i found many previous posts very helpful so thank you!

Don't hold me to any of these, but I'm pretty sure:
UCC do only a 5 year med course.

NUIG do a 5 year course, but it's by selection only. So you can get offered it, but you'd want to be doing all the sciences for LC and do fairly well to have a good chance.

RCSI offer a 5 year course, but you must do chemistry and either physics or biology on top of it (so 2 sciences, but one must be chemistry). Otherwise, you need one science subject to do the 6 year course.

Trinity only offer the 5 year course, AFAIK

UCD do a 5 year course, but it's by selection only. As I said about NUIG, you'd want to be doing the sciences and do fairly well in 'em to get the 5 year one there.

sam34 · 08-02-2010 8:41pm

rose92 wrote: »

hi!! i am also thinking of going for medicine and i was just wondering whether you are aware of the option in NUIG for doing a five year course instead of a siw year thus skipping the pre med year. i am not 100% sure whether it is available in other colleges but i dont think it is! this is available to anybody that gets and honour in at least two science subjects in the leaving cert and i was wondering whether anyone would recommend to skip the pre med year or not as i am very confused about what would be the best option!???

by the way i found many previous posts very helpful so thank you!

the year i did my leaving, my college offered a 5 yr course if you got over 580 points and had a certain grade (cant remember what) in chem plus one other science subject

i and about 15 others joined the class as "direct entrants" (or "supermeds", as we became christened!)

it was hard for a number of reasons -

firstly, the class was already formed, and it was hard break into it and make friends. to this day, the people i am in contact with are those who also were direct entrants. i only have one friend who was in teh original class, and tbh we only became friends after graduating when we chose teh same specialty.

then, a lot of people in med can be real intellectual snobs and v competitive, and there was a huge amount of resentment towards us from some people in the original class.

the other hard thing is that college requires an adjustment, in terms of your social life, the way you study, where you live etc, and pre-med was traditionally a relatively easy year, whereby you could make this adjuctment. if you skip it, you will be thrust straight into the difficult years.

having said all that, while it was hard at the time, im now delighted that i did it. its a year less as a student, you get working earlier, earning earlier, and are younger while doing the insane hours.

all in all, i'd recommend it, but just be aware that its not a walk in the park

(oh, anpother advantage is that your proud parents get to boast that their kid was so clever they skipped a year of med school!:p)

theginsandwich · 12-03-2010 6:00pm

Hi!!
I've been thinking of doing medicine by the graduate entry route. The only issue I have concerns doctors and work life balance. In short, do doctors have lives outside their work? I know that some specialties are more "life-friendly" than others, but overall is your social life impaired by your career choice, and if so, to what degree?

sam34 · 13-03-2010 10:40am

theginsandwich wrote: »

Hi!!
I've been thinking of doing medicine by the graduate entry route. The only issue I have concerns doctors and work life balance. In short, do doctors have lives outside their work? I know that some specialties are more "life-friendly" than others, but overall is your social life impaired by your career choice, and if so, to what degree?

hiya

yep, its affected in two ways

a) the hours you do

b) the rotational training schemes

a)hours

this may be about to change with the working time directive
but up to now, as a junior doc, you would be doing probably 10 hour days, more in some services, and anything from 1 in 4 to 1 in 9 on call - that means one overnight every 4/5/6 nights plus one weekend every 4 weekends or whatever

the overnights are eg usual days work, plus that night, plus the following days work as normal

that gets tiring pretty quickly

you will come home wrecked, and not fit to do much

plus, it obviously eats into your free time

b) the rotational jobs- this is the biggest issue, imo

on training schemes, you will move jobs every 6 months

sometimes this means within a hospital, or within a city, but it can mean moving counties

this is very disruptive to your life

in the past three years, i have lived in 4 counties, at different corners of teh country

its hard to put down roots, make friends, sustain a relationship

as you get more senior, it does get better

oh yeah, the post grad exams you have to do require a lot of study and hard work, all of which will have to be done in your free time

i dont mean to sound all doom and gloom, but truth be told i have looked at friends who did dentistry and envied them their social lives and freedom, but having said that, knowing what i know now, i would still choose med all over again

EducationFinder · 03-04-2010 11:02pm

I need to get 500 points To get into medicine in ireland But how many points do i need in England?

Chuchoter · 07-11-2010 12:49am

Just wondering, in terms of emigrating (thinking way into the future here) where do people go? If I wanted to go to France for instance, how good would my French have to be? Would you have to take a special course that taught you medical terms in French? My conversational French is actually very good, its my best subject, but that could be largely irrelevant in terms of working.

ballsymchugh · 07-11-2010 1:16am

sam34 wrote: »

biochem is a f*cking nightmare. jesus, i still shudder when i think about it.

if it's any consolation, i failed my christmas,easter and summer biochem exams in first year, and the summer ones in second year, so spent both summers repeating.

once i got to the clinical years i never looked back, and never got less than honours in any further college exam, and i passed all my royal college membership exams at first attempt. in fact, the only thing i have failed since biochem has been my driving test!

i dont want to brag by saying that, but i want you to know that failing these christmas exams, while it is a b*tch, it is not insurmountable and it doesnt really matter in the big scheme of things. it does not reflect on your ultimate competence as a doctor.

so, chin up!

ha! i failed every single MCQ i ever did in college, and somehow managed to pull through in the summer. biochem was the bain of my life too. and that was only for dentistry. thank Christ we weren't semesterised those days though. but the driving test. that took me 7 gos...:(

Mr.Fun · 13-12-2010 10:36pm

I believe it would be a rewarding job.Both the job itself and the excellent salary.You can hardly say that about every job.

Would most agree?

spurious · 14-12-2010 6:54pm

I'd hate to work as a doctor, I don't care how much they'd pay me. Dealing with misery and illness and infection and poverty day after day. I applaud anyone who can do it, but I know it would never be for me.

bythewoods · 14-12-2010 11:30pm

crayolastereo wrote: »

Just wondering, in terms of emigrating (thinking way into the future here) where do people go? If I wanted to go to France for instance, how good would my French have to be? Would you have to take a special course that taught you medical terms in French? My conversational French is actually very good, its my best subject, but that could be largely irrelevant in terms of working.

Probably an bit irrelevant but...
In Trinity there's an Erasmus programme for 3rd meds to go to France for a year, in a med school in Tours. Also, in first year, you have to do an elective, and one of those can be french (or a variety of other languages.)
So, if you're a big frenchie, there's something to think about.

Not entirely sure where people tend to go- all over the place I guess. A medical degree's a bit of a ticket around the world in a way.

Sid_Justice · 14-12-2010 11:37pm

is it bad that from the first paragraph i knew which boardise wrote that?

theowen · 26-12-2010 6:18pm

I was wondering, when I'm finished my degree, and internship, what else could you do with a medical degree besides being a doctor? This is out of curiosity really:rolleyes:

spagboll · 24-03-2011 1:12am

many thanks for taking the time to do this, a late thank you I know

eVeNtInE wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

ucd is about 1 in 10 offers per application, similar to the hpat, and getting tighter every year

My Job As A: Doctor

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