DH considering becoming a doctor

[pinkgingham]

Posting here in case anyone has experience/advice they can share.

DH is 37 and in a fairly good career type role but it doesn't motivate him (it could uncharitably be called a bullshit job).

He wanted to study medicine at uni but instead did politics (got some dodgy career advice at school and was the first in his family to go uni).

He's wanted to retrain for many years but it didn't make sense whilst we were trying to buy a house, have kids etc.

He's now considering it properly for the first time. Unfortunately he has had to spend a lot of time in hospital recently due to serious illness in his family and it's really brought home to him that what the medical staff do is so meaningful, which is a direct contrast to his job (in his view).

We've worked out that we could afford to live on my salary for a few years if needed whilst he was studying, I appreciate that the hours are crazy and sometimes unpredictable and that it would put a lot more of the childcare burden on me. I still think it's worth it though as he has a lot of years left to work and you only get one life and it's a long time to waste in a job you think is meaningless. He would love to do it but is always more cautious than me.

Is this totally mad? Do people actually do this at 37? What do we need to consider?

Another Dr here. Agree with others - many, many years of very hard graft followed by an employer who doesn't give a shit, as long as you turn up to your shift. Sorry.
Uni is the easy bit
The NHS is completely falling apart.

If he really wants to do something medical, I'd do Physician Associate training.

I think go for it. He likely won’t get in but if he doesn’t try he’d always regret it. If he waits for a dream to wither and die rather than go out with a bang I think he would regret it to the end of his days

My ex bosses neighbour trained as an engineer, doctor and pilot during his working life. I was in awe if him!

I'd say what's he waiting for? Though my friend who's a GP does tell me it's a very difficult job. I get it is, noone comes in to tell you good news. She told me that she makes sure due has her nails done every few weeks - her DH doesn't get it - but when she's seen a patient and it was a difficult consult, she looks at her nails and says, 'Well at least my nails look lovely' before deciding calls in her next patient. She said the criticism is hard to deal with eg ref misdiagnosis or missing something too. But I doubt she'd give it up now and she's saved so many lives.

I know several people who did this, they’re all good doctors.

I know someone who did this after her first degree. She was ten years younger than your dh and no family or anything.

She found she wasn't eligible for a second loan, and nor were any of her peers who were also mature students.

The universities she applied to didn't accept a levels. She went and did some a levels but it was a waste of time sadly. She then worked in care homes to get hands on experience. This really helped at interview as she stood out beside school leavers with great grades but no experience of the less glamorous side of medicine.

After the pointless a levels, she sat the GAMSAT. This is an extremely challenging exam. She failed twice and then passed. Think she had to do a special course to help her pass which she paid for privately. I honestly think her dad helped her at interview by pulling strings, but she did get in to a good uni, studied medicine and passed. She is now finished her training and is going into a specialism. But she is 35 now and can't really afford to buy a house yet, which isn't unusual for her age group tbh, but with her being a doctor you'd like to think she could get out of renting fairly soon, but it doesn't look that way yet.

I know someone else who considered this at about 40yo. She was single, owned her home, no dcs and a decent job. She was strongly advised by a doctor in her family not to do it, but I can't remember why. I do think he said something about her age and being a junior doctor. Not that it isn't doable. People do it! But it may not be what you'd choose to do, as it isn't pleasant and it can be an adjustment when you are used to a less full on work lifestyle.

@Loopytiles

Without a LOT of money it’d be a huge sacrifice for the rest of the family, for many years, to facilitate one person’s wishes.

This. And because it's a lot of money and a huge sacrifice you and the family are going to make for many years, I would talk with a solicitor how to protect you supporting him financially to facilitate his wishes.

Marriage is a contract most of all. Make sure supporting him financially in his wish to become a doctor doesn't end up with you holding the short stick if there is a divorce if a few years time.

Does he realise how absolutely utterly shite thr pay and conditions are? Avoid avoid avoid. Find meaning elsewhere

@spotcheck

got some dodgy career advice at school and was the first in his family to go uni

Jesus..... everyone likes to blame someone for the decisions they didn't make.

Dodgy careers advice "managing down" expectations of young working class and minority kids is responsible for significant under achievement.

OP states her DH was the first in his family to go to university. I don't find it remotely surprising that the source he would trust might have been inadequate.

What does he do currently? NHS operational management might be a more realistic option eg in an acute trust. Contrary to the popular narrative there are many, many managers who passionately care about the NHS and delivery of service for patients. He would still work really closely with clinicians and be absolutely at the coal face, but potentially a bit more stability for your family and not quite such crazy hours as he works his way up. The NHS management grad scheme might be worth looking at. Within 10 years (or even a bit less) he could be at band 9, which is £90k-£105k.

I don't know if advising a working class child to study politics is managing down expectations... all the politics students at my uni were posh as fuck! All with fingerless gloves, fidel castro beards, rollies and a trust fund

I have no advice about the course but I just wanted to say that I hope he does go back and train in the field of medicine, not necessarily even a doctor but something he loves, and I hope he succeeds.
More power to you both!

Yes why not. Medicine is very competitive though I see from spending time in Uni groups as my son is going this year. But nothing ventured nothing gained etc

He's now considering it properly for the first time. Unfortunately he has had to spend a lot of time in hospital recently due to serious illness in his family and it's really brought home to him that what the medical staff do is so meaningful, which is a direct contrast to his job (in his view)

OP is he unhappy in his current job or suffering a bit from not finding the path in front of him appealing and having slightly rosy specs about a different career?

Its certainly possible to retrain but before you go down that path I would suggest he gets some solid and professional careers advice to help him work out what he enjoys, dislikes etc both in the current job and several other options.

Then get some solid numbers down and facts about income, likely need to move around, time before he returns to a solid income etc and think about what would happen if eg you fell ill, were made redundant or otherwise lose your own income. Also consider wider issues such as the impact on family.

Its a big change with long term impact so if you pursue it, you need all the facts and then to do it jointly.

Alondra & Loopy - couldn't agree more.
You'll be left holding things together at home as well as sole earner.
I'm a LP, it's hard, but at least I don't have a partner I become increasingly resentful of.
His life will seem a lot more exciting. Uni life etc whilst you're working & doing all the heavy lifting at home.
OK I'm jaded, but I am very much not alone in the current NHS.

@DSGR

So much negativity on this thread. My friend did this early 30s, loves it, hasn’t looked back. Still married with children. If this is your DH’s calling (and it sounds like it is) do you really want to stop him?

It's not negativity. It's being realistic.

I think too many people have had their heads turned by pastel-toned motivational Instagram posts about how you can do anything, chase your dreams, reach for the stars. It's really not that simple.

Actual doctors have posted on this thread with real-life experience, advising the OP's husband not to pursue it.

Reality does not equal negativity.

I would absolutely not do this!

The money involved is astronomical, followed by years of low pay for extreme hours and the onward costs of legal protection, registrations, further learning and never ending exams and assessments.

A junior doctor's role is absolute grunt work with very little say over working hours/days and annual leave. You can be allocated roles that are geographically inconvenient and incur additional costs for travel and accommodation.

Family life will be nigh on impossible for years. Not able to reliably play a part in childcare, not able to attend birthdays, funerals, weddings etc

There are many many other roles in healthcare and many other careers that have meaning.

Doc here. I'm nearly finished my "training" since starting medical school 12 years ago. I finished my last rotation last month and it was my last ever set of nights (speciality I am going into has no compulsory nights or weekends and that was a huge part of my decision!) I worked nights all through med school as a nursing assistant and then obviously since I graduated. For me the shifts have been one of the hardest parts of the job and unless he is used to shift work (some people don't mind it) then he should seriously consider the implications of it before he starts. When I was 19 I found it easy but the older I got the harder it got and I was a write off for the weeks I was on nights, lots of my peers the same. I could have wept with joy after my last ever set of nights!
I love my job but I wouldn't start in my 40's.

Posted too soon.
I have been fortunate in that my DH is incredibly supportive and that has meant I have been able to be selfish when I have needed to be, this included us moving out of our house into rented for 3 years for so I could move for work. We are settling down now and I'm glad I have nearly finished training. Full time it is hard for it nott to be all consuming and I imagine it's chaos with a young family.

Another doctor here of over a decade here. Thought I'd share a few facts I certainly didn't realised when I started:

1. normal working week is 48hrs. Which is like working 6 days a week for a 'normal' person. And during that 48hrs you may well not consistently get lunch breaks, and you will almost certainly end up leaving late making it an even longer working week.

2. you have very little control over where you go. You can apply to a region, but regions are big. And you will almost certainly be moved to more than one hospital within the region on any training programme, so unless you move will have a commute to content with, on top of the long hours.

3. the postgraduate exams are hard. Incredibly hard. Like I got 5 grade A A levels without much effort and still failed some of them initially. And failing postgraduate exams is very common. And did I mention they are very hard and you are revising for them in your 'free' time, around that 48hr week + 5-10hr overtime + 10hr commute?

4. the postgraduate exams are expensive. Into the thousands. And you have to pay for them yourself. Normally multiple times.

5. the rota is what it is, and you have very little control over it. This means you will miss multiple special events, including weddings. And the multiple stories of drs being rota'd to work on their own wedding day are not mythical - twice in my career I have had to swap to allow a colleague to attend their own wedding, which they had given the hospital ample warning of. This should be a bright waving red flag to you about how harsh and uncaring the working rota is.

6. you cannot avoid nights and weekends pre-consultant. So years of disturbed sleep patterns. I used to love nights in my early 20s. In my late 30s, they are like a form of torture and I really struggle. Most of my colleagues feel the same.

7. to progress in training you will have a list of skills you must achieve and things you must do. Do not assume your jobs will help you achieve these skills or do these things. Often you are concurrently trying to do your full time job whilst also trying to work out how to be trained in aspirating a knee (for example) which will be up to you to sort out.

8. you need money to succeed. Applications to specialist training give 'points' for all sorts of things that basically need you to pay for - attending conferences to present, doing courses, publishing articles etc.

9. the pay in the early years is not that good at all, particularly when you consider the level of debt from training - google the payscales.

10. training is basically an indebted servitude - a job has to be within a training program to count, so for example if you did an ED job as an ED trainee then decded to be a GP trainee, they would likely make you repeat the job. It feels the priority is keeping rotas staffed rather than helping drs complete training. ( technically there are exceptions to this but they make it very difficult; CESR etc is hard to achieve in most specialities)

I am not sure I would do it again, and I certainly wouldn't do it when older with children. I would explore other routes that are interesting but have more freedom and less rigid training structures. Things that spring to mind include:

• physicians associates (closest to general doctors)
• cardiac physiologists (closest to cardiologists)
• respiratory physiologists
• radiographers (closest to radiologists)
• operating department practioners (closest to anaesthetists)

@CelticPromise

Would he consider another health profession? I would have fancied medicine, had I been single and unencumbered... Retrained late 30s in an allied health profession, no regrets.

Second this…there are lots of Allied Health roles that usually require a 2 year postgraduate course. They may not pay as well as being a surgeon but if he is manager material salaries can be good and he’ll still have the ability to improve others lives…

@FazedNotPhased

My partner is a doctor. I'll be honest - it's shit. I can't rely on him to be home for any particular time, or to be free for any particular event. Weekends, nightshifts, long days...it's relentless. I am very proud of him but envious of anyone with a partner who has a typical working pattern (I am aware that doctors aren't the only ones etc etc). It's just hard, and it was particularly hard when he was in foundation training. He couldn't even stay awake sitting up in a chair eating his supper. I was very lonely because we'd moved away for his work, and that's where he always was.

Relatedly, you should also be aware that training posts are not necessarily tied to the area you live in - he could end up posted at the other end of the country, or at least in another county.

Sorry to be a downer. It's better now, but we're younger than your DH and DP is very nearly a consultant. Your DH won't be one of those until he's nearly sixty.

Similar situation as my DH also a doctor. His specialty training years were really tough on our relationship (I had a 9-5) as we were ships passing in the night. Rotas and shifts are brutal. Even now he is a GP and does 12/13 hour days meaning the childcare bulk lies with me and our young children hardly see him in the week. I'm also envious of people whose partners can WFH or finish at 5pm and be there to help!

HOWEVER, on my husband's UG course, he says about 50% were mature students.

I know of someone who did it with three children. He is qualified now and works as a GP.

There was a thread on this fairly recently. I'll say what I said there again - as a consultant at 34 I'm pretty tired, my 40 year old partner is in his final year of registrar training and is absolutely exhausted by the intensity of night shifts. At 37 and bearing in mind he can't apply til October and needs to get work experience etc, in the most optimistic scenario your husband is looking at graduating at 43, then finishing GP training (which involves night shifts, long days and weekends etc) at 48-49. All of my colleagues are starting to wind down the intensity of work from their mid fifties due to ill health or just exhaustion.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4414782-To-change-careers-and-become-a-doctor-at-39

Has he looked ar Allied Professions? You can work up to a senior band in mental health nursing/OT/physio etc and training will be quicker.

If he did politics at uni it's unlikely he took the a levels needed to get into medical school. He'd need biology chemistry and maths - all at A. If he needs to do a levels my suggestion is he does those in his own time over a couple of years and if he passes well enough then consider it. If he has the right a levels then what about wiring 2-3 years until your children are older. This would mean childcare/managing the house etc was easier for you. I'd also insist he does his fair share still of the housework. Yes it'll be hard but he's not a young student he has responsibilities - you can't pay for it all and do it all. That will breed resentment.