To be upset dd is set on studying nursing when she could do medicine?

[Majamandy]

My dd is very academic - she got straight As/9s in her GCSEs last year (apart from 1 D in Art) and is half way through her A levels taking Maths, Biology, Chemistry and History. Her working grades are AAAA.

She's been doing a lot of medical work experience this year, as she's been set on doing something medical for a long time. She recently told us that she's decided she's going to apply for nursing.

AIBU to think that that's a waste of her academic potential? She'd earn so much more as a doctor.

Has she considered any other STEM heavy degrees?

There are areas of engineering that pay very well. Chemical, biomedical, even civil. Does she have GCSE physics?

There is also physiotherapy and some other allied healthcare fields. What puts her off those?

You can work all over the world with nursing, and you can progress into higher paid and better respected roles (sadly, ward nursing is not as highly respected as it should be). I know two professors of nursing who are doing very well for themselves. I also know two former nurses who did MBAs and now work in senior management, one in the civil service and one in private industry, neither one in Ireland where they both lived, qualified as nurses, and initially worked. Another nurse I know combined having a family with night work in maternity.

I also know several doctors and one current medical student who went straight from her bachelors degree (in the US) to medical school, doing a punishing regime of final year/honours thesis plus studying for the MCAT and doing interviews for various med schools. The reason to push so hard was to have time for marriage and a family before the old biological clock began ticking down. She has found her Mr Right. An old school friend who became a surgeon missed her biological window of opportunity and has regrets that motherhood was not her lot.

I would sit your DD down and ask her to talk you through her reasoning and her feelings here, shut your gob very firmly and listen.

Is there a kind of medical entry course she could do then decide? This exists overseas

There are some joint foundation years
www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/foundation-to-health-studies-year-0/overview

OP
Don't think of nursing as being 'less' than medicine, it isn't it is different and there is career progression. If she has spent time in hospitals then she will know what she wants.

Do you think she really wants to be a DR but lacks confidence?

Just started reading this thread but this stopped me in my tracks. Nurses are not sub standard Drs. It’s a different profession.

@nursy1. Yes, I’m a nurse so I’m aware of that. I’m also aware as a uni lecturer and mother of teenagers that it’s not unusual for people to not apply for courses or jobs which they perceive as harder to get into. It doesn’t matter how great nursing is, it’s easier to be accepted onto a nursing degree than med school. That’s what I meant by lacking confidence, that she’s worried she won’t be accepted into med school.

YABU

It doesn't matter whether you're disappointed or not. Your daughter has chosen her path and you should support that choice.

Totally different jobs. Has she spoken to any real life nurses or doctors before coming up with her choice? If she has and it is a considered choice then so be it. The day to day work of doctors and nurses has a different intent and scope and I can see how each would suit different people.

Lots of posters painting medicine as a poor career choice. Although the NHS is a tough place to work at the moment, as a GP I can honestly say I feel i have one of the best, most interesting, fulfilling and rewarding careers going which is also well paid and offers flexible hours. My earning potential has only recently been limited by the number of hours I can work due to having 2 kids. The ability to diversify - go into management, academia, private sector - is fantastic. I would still encourage anybody who is keen to go for it.

Wow this threads taken off!

One thing I’d like to add OP is that as a nurse it’s fair to say that Medicine is the ‘better’ career.....,,,BUT

compared to most of my friends who did Arts and Humanities subjects at RG unis my nursing colleagues earn more, have more job security, defined career pathway, more flexibility, more choice of roles, more job satisfaction.

We are all in our 40’s now and sometimes I think I would have liked a more prestigious career and not been ‘only a nurse’ but when I look at my friends working in publishing, teaching, events management - nursing wins hands down every time.

Ha she explored other medical jobs. There's loads. If she's more academic she could be a clinical scientist. If she became, say, a nuclear medicine physicist then she could combine some clinical with scientific and be much better remunerated than a Nurse.
It's not just nurses and Drs in the NHS. She sounds like she may need career advice.
Sure someone has www.healthcareers.nhs.uk
posted this already but

Interesting thread. The nurses I know have moved into research and counselling having found ward nursing and shift work very stressful and demoralising. Not sure if the same would apply to being a doctor. The pay difference from other areas of medicine also bothered them since they were also working very hard.

Being academic doesn't mean you have to go down the most academically demanding careers. Both my children are academic and gifted in Maths. DD has a place to study medicine, DS though whose results are as high as DD's has decided he wants to go into tourism. The degree he wants to study 'only' requires BCC and no Maths.

I don't think the path he wants to take is a waste compared to his sister though. It's what he wants to do. Having worked FT for many years in jobs I've never really enjoyed but earned me a good income, I would take it all back for doing a job that made me happy, after all, I'm there as much as I'm not.

It's understandable that if it was a last minute decision, it would be a bit of disappointment for you maybe, but you need to get over it. As everyone has asked, what's her reasons though?

Honestly medicine is tough
If you want to do it I’ll say it again and again think carefully about your chosen specialty.
I picked eyes and I love it- makes a big difference for patients in terms of quality of life, good work life balance for women, good mix of medicine and surgery, nice private practice potential, nice on-calls where juniors do most of the work for you. It is horrendously popular specialty but hugely rewarding. Work is complex and a challenge though.

Even nurses in eyes can do so much more than regular nurses running clinics and seeing post-op patients. I wouldn’t rule out nursing just find out what areas and medicine/nursing interest her and then maybe she should explore what the actual roles are like. Never push though... my parents pushed all 4 of us (my siblings) to be drs and my brothers (now engineers/lawyers) resented then for it!

I was similar to your DD (although not quite so impressively so!) when I was at school. I ended up doing a biological sciences degree and have been a support worker since I graduated (I am now in my mid-30s). I am looking into doing a nursing degree now, with 3 small children. Of I hadn't have constantly been told how academically brilliant I was and how I could do a anything I wanted, I would have gone straight into nursing and probably be more fulfilled (and also earning more money!) than I am now. Please tread carefully OP.

*if I hadn't have...

I work in mh we have trainee doctors that are with us for a few months part of their training,
in the last 18 months 2 have been ex nurses. Their experience is invaluable and apparently more nurses are now moving on

She may in the future take this route she may not nursing is an amazing career we should value it more but in this country we don’t see it that way it’s still seen by many as a job that caring women do I think attitudes are changing

Nursing is a wonderful rewarding career so don't for one second think that its a sub standard choice. I bet youv been grateful for the expertise and care of nurses in the past.
I think you've insulted nurses everywhere.

The highest earner I know (think well over £200k pa) was a nurse initially. They were academic and kept studying and took nursing into medical economics. I'm guessing they earn more than a Doctor? And they also have high job satisfaction.

There are loads of jobs in healthcare that are not about being a nurse or a doctor. If it's patient care she's interested in, radiotherapy, psychology, physiotherapy are all worth looking into. Then there is the whole area of biomedical sciences.....

@Majamandy are you going to come back to this thread at all - maybe if it makes the Daily Mail?

Yabu, though I would worry about all young adults, nurses and doctors, hoping to get a career out of the NHS these days.

I worked in senior healthcare recruitment until recently and have met and interviews a heck a lot of nurses who've done very well for themselves, reached a very high level of responsibility and salary etc. and are incredibly bright.

Also others work as senior nurse academics in universities.

I think there's a vast amount of opportunities available as a nurse, and lots of demand abroad too if she fancies that.

I'm not surprised if she doesn't fancy the responsibility and stress of being a doctor, I wouldn't either.

clitterai 200k is a very very high income and several doctors in my specialty (consultants) are near enough to that to be honest... it really depends on your specialty and private practice potential (for mine there are high turn over operations available privately). But I can tell you most Nurses will not reach 200K pa and the same for doctors too really.

Having talked to her, I think it's largely a lack of confidence that is stopping her from applying for medicine - she was insistent before her GCSEs that she'd failed them all.

I think we'll be able to tal her round into applying for medicine - she's been doing all the UKCAT preparation already so it's not like she hasn't been thinking about it.

Medicine isn't the sort of career for people lacking in confidence, for obvious reasons.

You trying to 'persuade' her sounds like a bad idea. Ask yourself if it's more for your own benefit, so that you can tell people 'my daughter's doing medicine'.

Yes I realise that GameChanger. My friend no longer works as a nurse. But started out as a nurse. My point is nursing + academia + growing confidence can equal a very high salary for some people.

Majamandy
Well I hope your daughter is able to choose what she really wants to do with some of the fuller information you’ve gained from these pages.

Nursing has been a brilliant career for me. I used to work in publishing, thats just not as rewarding in the job satisfaction stakes.
It frustrates me that nursings not better paid for the level of training and responsibility I bore. I’m semi retired now but do bits of locum work still which is definitely worth getting out of bed for.

I completed a degree in Adult nursing. After a first rotational “ initiation” post I went into primary care. I completed 5 years of additional training whilst working. I worked in the military with an emphasis on occupational health for a while. If I’d followed that career route it could have been very lucrative.
However I’m now a Nurse Practitioner, I’ve lectured on the role to nursing students. I’ve been the Nurse Rep on the CCG in my area influencing policy. That was all within 12 to 15 years of qualifying. At the height I earned 50k.
Not every Nurse wants to do that but Nursing is a very broad church. More so than medicine I would say. The role is very flexible, so combines well with childcare years when you can reign it back a bit.

It’s become much harder the last 10 years when you struggle to do a good job with the amount of resources available. Drs would say this as well. Job satisfaction has gone down for all of us in the NHS.

I think we'll be able to tal her round into applying for medicine

Stop making it about what you want. I mentioned my DD doing arts, well previously she dropped out of A levels, having been pushed into doing academic stuff by her Dad (my ex). Despite enrolling onto an arts course, he was still insistent she do something academic "to have something to fall back on". She hasn't picked anything he's suggested because she doesn't want to do that. It's part of the reason her relationship with him is damaged.

Surprisingly, the course she's now enrolled in will lead to a higher salary than her dad has ever managed, and she's so full of enthusiasm for it, and happier than I've seen her in a long time.