Fed up medic :(

[sunshineroll]

Name change!

I applied for medicine aged 17 and now feel like I had no idea what I was signing up for. I am about to go into my 6th (and final) year and feel so disheartened by the whole thing. I feel like I've been working a full time job for the last 3 years at least but with no pay, no respect and no control over my own life and I'm already having sleepless nights about the prospect of working as a doctor before I've even qualified! In short:

-I'm quite an anxious person and don't handle stress well
-I'm quite sensitive and end up going home upset several times a week about things I've seen in the hospital
-I dislike the stress of the hospital environment and would have to work there for at least 5 years before moving into community
-I'm very concerned about working night shifts
-I feel like I have little say in where I will live and work - at this rate I will not be able to move in with my boyfriend for at least another 3 years
-I do not want to be taking exams for the rest of my life!

But most worryingly, the majority of doctors I meet are very disheartened and tell me to leave! I have friends who are already qualified who are all looking to get out ... they tell me they have no say in when they are working and regularly have to cancel plans (including holidays) due to last minute rota changes - one was not even allowed leave for her best friend's funeral.

Despite doing well in my exams, I just feel like medicine is a lifestyle I am not cut out for - ultimately I could handle the hours and stress if it was a job I truly enjoyed, but I just do not think this will be the case and am getting more and more worried about the future

so my questions are

• has anyone qualified in medicine and chosen not to practice? has anyone become a dr and then left?

-what job options are there for someone graduating in medicine who does not wish to work as a doctor?!

I'd be grateful for any advice (and even more grateful for anyone with some positive stories about how it isn't that bad!!)

Will not get it, sorry.

You are not alone. The numbers of juniors leaving after Foundation Years - effectively to have completed a degree - is high.

I really don't believe the 'all jobs are hard' thing. I see a lot of fairly broken people coming through medical training.

Some come back after a break and locumming/going to Oz - a lot don't.

GP is currently not a happy career. As a former trainee of mine put it 'No-one is doing full-time GP anymore'.

Mine eere supportive. Even if they weren't, it's my life and I have to live it in a way that works for me (and my husband and kids). It really isn't about them.

in fact lots of people seem keen to tell me that being a doctor is not that difficult at all, despite me seeing the contrary every day! hmm

No, being a doctor is hard. Responsibilities, hours, the state the NHS is in. Friends of mine have worked abroad - oz and NZ always want docs. Or you could try to get into a more ‘set hours’ speciality, but again that’s hard and years more training.

How about a bit of time out? Any chance you could have that gap year you’ve never had, or work abroad for a bit? I did that after finishing PhD/postdoctoral and it helped me. I felt really burned out.

I’d have a bit of time out, after you’ve finished your degree and then see what else is open to you. And there will be a lot.

I'll be entirely honest. The foundation years are tough, as you have already predicted. Very very common to take an F3 year (I took 3 years out!). Specialty training.. Some doctors find it less frustrating because they are finally IN the specialty, that's not to say it isn't still bloody hard. I took my time out because I couldn't face the hospital side of GP training. Having now done it, yes it sucked but I appreciate working as a GP much more now. And yes huge issues within GP at present. But ultimately if you want to end up in a certain specialty that badly you will do it and you will own it when you get there. In summary my advice would be to finish your degree and don't be afraid to take that time out either before f1 or post-f2. P.S. don't forget there are doctors who are happy in their jobs. Happy to be PM'd.

babelfish I certainly agree it’s hard! Unfortunately a lot of my friends work in other (equally demanding!) healthcare and public sector roles and get quite defensive when I mention how hard medicine is, as if I’m turning it into a competition - I’m most definitely not! But it does mean that I feel unable to discuss it with those around me

The gap year idea is a very good one and I have a few friends who have taken a year out after qualifying ... a lot of my friends took a gap year before medical school and I feel like they had a chance to grow in confidence, gain some life skills etc that I still have not had. However, although I know it’s my life, I can’t stop worrying about how my friends and family would react (particularly as the latter have given me a lot of financial support over the years!)

I’m a final year medical student too- already started as at a uni with a weird curriculum so our finals are just after Christmas. I have flashes of feeling like you are - especially the ‘didn’t know what I was getting into’ part, and I have much less excuse for that as I applied at 21 after doing a different degree first . But what is getting me through is I have a lot of friends, both from my undergraduate degree, and from my medicine course who’ve already graduated (I’ve had two years off for maternity leave through the course so most of my original cohort are FY2s now) who have felt like this in final year and gone on to make a go of it. One friend did his FY1 and Fy2, has now gone off to do a PhD and has made it clear he has no intention of returning to clinical medicine, but he’s glad he did foundation years. Almost everyone says it’s better than medical school, because at least you’re actually doing something, as opposed to hanging around trying to learn as much as you can while not getting in the way.

Having done the six years you may as well at least get your registration before bailing!

I don’t really have any options except to go for it, as DH has been the sole earner for so long it wouldn’t really be fair of me to lose my nerve at this stage, but I do intend to do less than full time training. Is that an option for you? There are certain criteria you have to meet to qualify for it.

You have been very brave writing this message and even considering leaving medicine. There will be so many careers open to you.

1. Prestigious consulting/strategy firms (e.g. McKinsey and Co.) love medics and you can earn big money. Check their websites out

1. Pharmaceutical companies. Depending on where you are based, you have Pfizer HQ in Surrey, Roche around Hertfordshire, GSK around London, Novartis in Surrey, Otsuka in Buckinghamshire. There might be others too. They will really value your medicine background. Many different careers will be applicable. You can go into their commercial teams, development teams, R&D teams etc.

1. Clinical research organisation (CROs). This will be more research based. But another option.

1. Public health. You can specialise in this and work for local councils and CCGs. Work is interesting, but still within the realms of science/medicine.

1. NHS England/ Hospital Management/Policy etc. Lots and lots of opportunities here.

I'm sure there are so many more options. Good luck!

You have already done your family proud by doing well on your difficult degree and placements. This is YOUR life.

I have many family members in HCP and other “frontline” roles and seen this take a heavy toll. I chose to work in the public sector in a reasonably well paid office-based role, which has much better working conditions and is miles better for my health and wellbeing (I have a MH issue).

There are sooooooo many great career options open to you, in science or beyond!

Check out the resources in your university careers service.

There are also good books about career choices, eg What Colour is Your Parachute.

Science policy is interesting.

I left general medicine after it nearly broke me and started radiology. I love it. I trained less than full time for the majority and I felt that benefitted me. The exams were tough, but once you get a training number you are guaranteed a consultant job in almost any part of the country as there is a shortage. It's extremely varied. Some colleagues spend almost every clinical session with patients, others never see the outside of a patient as they just report cross sectional imaging. I have a fantastic bunch of colleagues who all look out for each other

Why does it matter how your friends react? I do understand you questioning this regarding your family if they have financially supported you but you need to do what’s right for you and there are still lots of non patient facing opportunities for those medically qualified.

Funnily out of most of the people I went through uni with only approx half are still registered (I have not maintained my registration, while I need the degree for the jobs I have done since leaving I don’t need to be registered). Around a third of people I met while training and working have left. I qualified in Oz, worked in NHS for a number of years (as conditions were better for those at my level at the time) then returned when the pendulum swung. I also keep up with old colleagues from NHS days and find the rate of attrition seems similar between the countries in my experience.

My family were happy when I left, my work was not a good fit after kids, doable until they were school age then not so much. DH used to work in a job with set hours that were covered by day care so he would drop off and pick up and I would be around when I was around, he had it covered. We pretty much swapped when I left and he changed to something he preferred that involved shifts. It worked much better for us while the kids were at school.

I have many friends and some family that didn’t leave. Not one would encourage their kids to go into medicine these days and quite a few are from families where medicine is multi-generational.

.

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Whoops sorry trying again !

I trained as a doctor and graduated ten years ago. I almost left my degree course numerous times, then started f1 and left part way through. For the last ten years I've worked firstly in pharma PR and then academia. I now have a PhD in a medicine - related subject and after a lot of uhmming and ahhing over my life am about to start public health training.

I didn't really know about public health when I graduated and wish I had as I could've done this sooner. I also felt like you re not wanting to spend a second longer in hospital medicine though. I carefully chose an F1 job where as few of the placements as possible were hardcore hospital. I started with a four month psych job as I thought if anything at all, I'd like to do psych. Unfortunately at the time (no idea about now...) I ended up in a severely under resourced service with demotivated and uninspired more senior trainees which made the career massively unappealing. They had to cover a very wide geographic area with very little support and were frequently exhausted and felt unsafe physically or mentally. I left after that attachment.

I have at times wished I'd completed f1 and registered with the Gmc as it would have opened more doors re jobs in pharma or insurance, which pay well. Ime these roles want some sort of clinical experience. I've been earning sub-£40k for the last 10 years which recently has become v noticeable as my friends and partner have worked their way to consultants / GPs. I have accepted this though as I still remember the crushing feeling of horror and don't think my MH could've taken any more clinical work.

As well as the salary, I've noticed that the training and career progression available to me have been very much poorer than that available to medics. I've had to build my own path which is of course very normal but the lifelong learning and training is an often unrecognised element of medicine.

My advice would be - def finish your degree. It will allow you to basically walk into some jobs. Accept however that those jobs will not have excellent pay (unless you go into the city!).

-If you start f1, tell a kind senior person (if you can find one!) that you're struggling and thinking of leaving. There is a lot of support re mental health now and I wish I'd told my supervisors earlier as I only told them when I quit, and I think they would've helped me try to stick out f1 if they'd known.

• choose any f1 role carefully so that you're in a place you want to be / on rotations that give you the best chance of not hating them. I was lucky though in that I did well academically and psych jobs are not popular so I had some control over where I worked.

• have a look at public health training. You can do this as a non medic (ie without completing f1 or f2) and still have the career progression and largely the salary you could've had as a medic.

Haven't RTFT but can't you use the qualifications to move into a more research based role? Working for a pharmaceutical company? Something like that. Heard that there's big money to be made working in Bioinformatics, if data's your thing. I'm sure there are lots of options.

I don't blame you tbh. I'm a nurse and am frequently appalled at what the docs go through. They're worn out. Even at Reg level they have an absolutely shit time and have to work at different hospitals in different cities for further training and can't settle down anywhere.

Yesterday a Reg burst into tears on my shoulder in an office cos the Consultant was bullying them. It was so sad.

I have never ever ever wanted to be a doctor. I don't even want my kids to be doctors. It's a brutal way of making a living.

Moving to Oz is often suggested as the panacea for disaffected UK medics - it really isn’t. It’s pretty much same shit different country. I’m Australian and have worked in both systems. Oz is also under-resourced and overly bureaucratic, perhaps not quite to the same extent but well on the way.

Medical publishing and teaching (med students) are other options, but would prob require F1 at least.

Acquaintance did an intercalated BSc in nutrition. After gaining MBBS about 6 years ago she branched out in her own business as a nutritionist - I think using her credentials as a qualified medic helped to rapidly build up clientele
Google her website 'the food effect' - she is very friendly and if you get in touch may even be able to share some personal advice/experience.

Moving to Oz is often suggested as the panacea for disaffected UK medics - it really isn’t. It’s pretty much same shit different country. I’m Australian and have worked in both systems. Oz is also under-resourced and overly bureaucratic, perhaps not quite to the same extent but well on the way.

Exactly, not quite as bad as current NHS yet but it will happen and will not be long. It’s still shit.

The main reason I left (after 20 years) was it had all become a huge tragedy waiting to happen. And when it does happen the system certainly won’t take the blame for its shortcomings, much easier to persecute the individual, take no responsibility and pretend all is good. Didn’t happen to me but I saw it with others, fantastic Dr’s who became tragic victims of the system along with patients. I realised it was only good luck it wasn’t me and the way everything was going it was only a matter of time. You can’t rip the guts out of a system and expect it to work.

I had dinner with a friend the other day who works in ICU. They are coming up to 25 years soon and have come to despise the job they once loved. They are retiring at the end of the year, their DH (not medical) will keep working and they are financially secure enough to just leave without worrying about other work. They can decide what, if and when they want to do something else st leisure. They said if they were not in that situation they would consider taking their life. It’s become that bad.

I am not a doctor but I am a university lecturer. There are a lot of academics who are former doctors. In quite a variety of areas from medical research to health economics. You often get paid more in a research career if you have a medical degree.

I really hope you can stick out our and finish your degree. Then take some time to think about what you really enjoy. Maybe even try a few internships to give you a good idea of what some of the careers you like the sound of would actually be like. Have you ever done Myers Briggs? If not, perhaps do that to get an insight into your preferences. I wish you lots of luck whatever you decide!

I was a worrier and it's a tough trait in clinical practice. I work as a health writer now and also do some health education media work. However, I did train in GP, so not sure if that's made it easier.

Friends moved into the City, medical protection and pharma. Definitely finish your degree though ( and pre reg if you can manage it.)

If you do decide to stay in medicine, consider specialty doctor as a career (and therefore consider a specialty that has that as an option). You don’t have to do a lot of training first-a couple of years in relevant specialty training I think. You don’t have the same responsibilities as a consultant, and there is back up and support from the consultants you work with. It’s much more flexible I find in terms of working 9-5 and no nights/ taking own holidays etc. Also working part time is easier. You can always go back into training if you want, but you can take your own time to gain experience or other qualifications or special interests. You sound like you’d make a good doctor if you wanted to. You obviously have the knowledge/ability and also recognise your own weaknesses, can be honest about what you’re unsure of etc, these are good traits for a doctor. But hospital medicine isn’t for everyone. Good luck whatever you decide.