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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to go to medical school at 37?

432 replies

MilanHilton · 03/01/2024 08:02

I’m 37, married with two nursery aged children. Husband and I both earn £45k each so we live comfortably but not well off.

My medical care when I was pregnant was atrocious and the NHS was negligent (they admitted it). Which really got me thinking… I want to be a doctor that LISTENS to women so that what happened to me won’t happen to another lady.

I know I’m old, and coming from a non science background I’ll have to do 6 years in medical school and then extra training to be an OBGYN. Looking at the junior doctor pay bands it is going to take me years to get back to my current salary. Not to mention needing to do shift work and the stress of it all.

Financially it will be a tight decade and by the time I finish uni, the kids will be towards the end of primary so hopefully life will be easier. I’ll be mid 40s when I finish medical school so will still have another 20 years of working still.

AIBU for considering putting my young family through a decade of financial and emotional stress with the hope that I’ll earn more in the future? Is it worth the stress?

AINBU - go be a doctor! You’ll save lives (sometimes)
AIBU - that’s too much work and financial turmoil, even if you become a doctor you’re not going to address the chronic lack of resource in NHS

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
mumsneedwine · 07/01/2024 18:41

Or F2s

Ap42 · 07/01/2024 20:17

Watdidusay · 07/01/2024 01:40

There are far too many comments here arguing OP should not pursue this because of the current state of the NHS. This is TEMPORARY.
Striking is unlikely to continue after the first half of this year.

Haha! Not so much due to the current strikes. More to do with the current state of the NHS. It has been stupidly understaffed and underfunded for YEARS! In the decade or so I have worked for the NHS, things have not improved. The current state of things indicate it will get worse, not better. It is definitely not temporary!

Birdh0use · 07/01/2024 20:21

Don't do it. Train as a midwife if that's really your calling. Remember most babies come at night

Savedpassword · 07/01/2024 20:32

Watdidusay · 07/01/2024 01:40

There are far too many comments here arguing OP should not pursue this because of the current state of the NHS. This is TEMPORARY.
Striking is unlikely to continue after the first half of this year.

The NHS is broken beyond repair. Haemorrhaging experienced staff by the hundreds.
There is no way back and I would be horrified if any of my children expressed a desire to become an HCP.

LaMarschallin · 08/01/2024 14:22

Itsdifferentnow

I am not being verbose

Just catching up.
You were definitely being verbose.

Craver · 08/01/2024 15:37

Recently retired doctor- I'm sorry your reasons for wanting to be a doctor don't sound good to me. why not explore your medico-legal experiences. Why not look at training medical professionals?

MuckyPlucky · 08/01/2024 22:42

Itsdifferentnow · 07/01/2024 18:16

MuckyPlucky
You are just hell bent on trying to win an argument even by lying about me. You want to think I am 'verbosely trumpeting' the same things. I am not being verbose neither 'trumpeting. Horrified, yes, to hear of the dreadful bullying such as parents being told to either split up and live at either end of the country and rip the family apart or leave the profession after investing over ten years of extremely hard study and exams and sleepless nights and being treated like dirt. You say things such as (people) 'felt offended by, due to the very arguments you espouse.' You mean my showing distress at the Junior Doctors conditions of work? e.g.
'Nobody in their thirties who has invested over ten years of hard graft and passed many exams should ever be told to live in Devon while their spouse is forced to go to Scotland and be separated from the children, then be given the option of leaving their career if they do not agree to the separation.' You mean, my saying this distresses those treated that way? I am sympathising with them!! Not to mention the other wrongs I am concerned to hear about.

Despite wanting me to think 'people' were offended by me, you say we are saying the same things! I have apologised for the clumsy thing I said and tried to explain why I get frstrated about people who suffer bad working conditions but treat it a martyrdom rather than being professional.

The crux is, I am a member of a different profession, you are in the one in the profession where you are suffering under the terrible ill-treatment of those who run.

I want to make sure everyone, ordinary working people not working in medicine, knows this is what is wrong in the Medical Profession. You, I would have expected, want people to know too.

But when you speak publicly you only scorn people who are not Medically qualified! Doctors are on strike, yet do the ordinary people, or even the quite well educated professional people have a clue as to why, except that they want more money? Because, and you may not like this, the Doctors themselves have done a very poor job of putting across to the public what it is that has made them so desperately upset; what actually the terrible conditions are. When I tried online to find out what their reasons were for striking. I found only one complaining there wasn't a chair in her office. As for pay, yes it's bad. But most people will look it up and say a junior doctor who has done internship and has GMC registration ( PLAB) can potentially earn between £2450 – £2900 (FY2-CT1) per month as basic pay with no on calls or out of hours and with those considerably more. Most ordinary people will not realise you have a lot of expenses and they will look at this as loads of money. Especially now because people are finding life hard.

I am trying to get Doctors to make their case so that they get a fair hearing and get the essential support of the country. Because, believe me, you need the general public behind you.

People do not know what you are complaining about.

They need it spelled out to them. There are so many groups being treated in an undignified and inhumane manner right now and Doctors won't get support unless they make a good case. There are disabled people losing benefit so losing their help and becoming housebound. They are having their Bank accounts investigated without any kind of reason. There are children being taken away from mothers because the mother asked for help when her Partner got rough. There are children in Adult Psychiatric Units and others in Psychiatric Hospitals 200 or 300 miles away from their parents. So many people need help and are banging on the door asking to be heard.

You really need to make it very clear to people what your grievances are and how they will cause people to leave Medicine and others not to apply.

In general Doctors as a profession do not communicate their needs and feelings to the public or Government very well. I have no idea why. I am not criticising but simply stating what I've seen over about 30-40 years of working near them.

To sum up; You really need to get across to the general public exactly what your circumstances are like when you become a Junior Doctor. Doctors need public support. The future of the Profession might depend on it right now. Things are so bad with the economy and there is such an inhumane approach to governing people and organisations now. We hear of the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' and, whether we like it or not (it makes me feel ill), the well-being and happiness of individuals is not the priority of the powerful people who are forcing in these massive world-wide changes. Changes that will be reflected in Health Care most certainly.

Again I sincerely wish you all the best of luck and thank you for the great job you do under these hunger-games conditions.

I really must stop here. I have so much other stuff needing my time and as I said before, I have trouble seeing the screen.

Edited

I have literally no idea what you’re on about. I’m not trying to win an argument. I’m not “hell-bent”.

I did try to clarify some misunderstandings and explain myself a little, and I did say in my post that I do admire your intentions and share your dismay at the system and the scandalous treatment of the NHS.

You open by saying you’re not verbose, then launch into incredible verbosity. You seem extremely angry, and seem to be drawn to increasingly ranting long messages (despite finding this hard due to not being able to see the screen).

With genuine respect and honesty, I do wonder why you’re so incredibly aerated and angered to the point of repeatedly posting the same or similar posts, pushing at an open door of largely health professionals.

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