To want to go to medical school at 37?

[MilanHilton]

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

No OP

This is not remotely sensible or indeed realistic

I’ll have to do 6 years in medical school and then extra training to be an OBGYN

you’ve been very optimistic with your timings given you come from a completely non medical background

Surely no doctor starts their degree thinking 'what I want to do is go into medicine but take no notice of my patients'.

It's like new parents who think they will do things differently and be absolutely brilliant but then outside forces take over.

How would you deal with it if you were in a situation where you let a woman down?

My sister was in labour in a ward where there was an emergency and she had to deliver her baby with no staff at all. Not because they hadn't made the decision to always listen to their patients or they couldn't be arsed but because they were dealing with something else.

it is.

in any event, it’s pie in the sky.

This. And also the PP's point about how everybody working in female-centred specialities dreamed of offering lovely woman-centred care. It is not the reality, and it's massively naive to think that you can go in and change things.

It is not impossible to qualify at your age with DC. But it would be very, very, very, very hard. You are asking your entire family to centre everything on you qualifying, all the while your DH pays for everything. You won't see your children. You won't see your DH. You'll have to either live away from them on placements or do a ridiculously long commute on top of long shifts. You'll have to study on top of work instead of spending time with them in the rare minutes you aren't working or asleep.

Obs and gynae is one of the most unfamily specialties there is too. The exams don't stop at uni. I think I've spent about 4k in post grad exams, only finished them last yr at 32... but that's cos Anaesthetics is odd that we sit our exit exam 4-5y into training. All other hospital specialties sit it in y7

You have no say where you live you'll get dumped somewhere in England by the application system - I've been anywhere from London to Devon to Yorkshire and you have 12wks notice to move... my mate was given Devon his wife got her allocation in Scotland...they've toddlers. They asked to get one or the other and were just told to resign if they didn't want the job. You're literally a number on a spreadsheet for the entirety of training. You aren't a person. I had a mate that worked the night shift until 830am on her wedding day as "technically" they'd been rota'd the day before her wedding on paper... that sort of rubbish we are forced to tolerate as institutionalised and can't escape

Sorry that became more of a rant lol

@Pottedpalm you mean the second foundation year - which is after the 6 years of study at uni - which you won't get loans for if you've already got a degree..?!

As I said in my post it will take the OP years to get back to a £45k salary level, and a HUGE amount of upheaval/sacrifice/sleep deprivation/having to relocate etc....

If you got in this year you would be an F1 at 44 and wouldn’t finish O&G training until your mid 50s. Assuming you progress at a normal rate.

You need to seriously think if you can be working nights and rotating hospitals every 6 months at that age.

I became a consultant in my mid 30s and was finding myself too old for nights by then.

I think it's an excellent idea but do consider how you can deal with shifts and children, the hardest part of your training will be when your kids are still primary aged - can your husband cope if you are gone 7pm-7am plus travel for instance (he should but I'm a realist). In many countries it's normal to be training still around 30, weeks are unusual in having undergraduate medical degrees

I think those staff probably wanted to give good care but it all falls apart under a failing system so just have your eyes wide open.

Do more research. Are you, your husband and kids prepared to move around the country every five years? Are you, as a family, willing to work your lives around your job? Will you afford a nanny or will DH be able to take every sick day fr every child and do every school run? Do you want to miss that?

Becaue training will come first. Above your husband and kids. Think long and hard. Maybe after primary school.

I am a doctor and although it's pants at times, I love it. However, I am about your age and have just got consultancy and no way would I start it now. 6 years at medical school puts you at 43, then 2 years foundation training is 45. I did an 8 year training programme after that which would have taken me to 53. That's full time, which will completely screw your work life balance. So you will probably go 60% which is the only real way to maintain any sort of normal life. It will take you double the time, your pay will be rubbish (60% of quite rubbish is very rubbish).

Also, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, we all want to be doctors that listen to patients. I try really really hard to do it. But it's knackering emotionally and physically and no one is perfect. Also (and this is no defense of rubbish doctors) it often looks and feels a bit different from the other side.

I think there are other ways of getting what you want. But, I'm not you and if you really want to do it, go for it and good luck!

Don't do it. Lovely idealism, but do you really think you're going to be the doctor that magically finds the time to listen to people better than anyone else? Not appearing to listen is a function of being massively overworked and overstretched - 10 minutes extra listening to you, might be another patient that doesn't get seen.

Start at 38
5 years med school = 43
2 years foundation training = 45
at least 7 years O&G training, if you do it full time = 52

oh yes, and as others have said, are your family happy to follow you around the country?

Depends on the uni we had a 42yo paramedic on our degree course

I think graduate medicine is an exception to the no funding for second degrees.

But it's very very competitive! Many people apply for it and loads of them will have very relevant backgrounds, in allied professions or sciences.

Check out student room for details.

the timings you give are based on the Op passing every exam first time around

This is someone with no medical background whatsoever.

Very unlikely

https://www.medify.co.uk/blog/get-into-medical-school#:~:text=How%20many%20medical%20school%20places,most%20competitive%20courses%20out%20there.

This.

I’ve worked in the NHS for 17 years, the last three of which in a specialist nurse role that meant a lot to me personally.

Like you I wanted to overhaul the care, do something worthwhile, change the experience of women, make them the forefront of care etc etc but after three years of absolutely working myself to the ground, even resulting in a hospital admission due to the stress, I realised that I alone cannot fix the NHS and it’a problem.

I resigned from the role about 6 months ago because I finally realised that no matter how much I pushed myself on an individual level to try and make sure that every woman felt she mattered, when nobody else seems to care or feel the same then it’s an impossible task.

I was physically, mentally and emotionally done with trying to achieve the impossible.

Your attitude and beliefs are all very honourable but you need to take off your rose tinted glasses.

And even putting all that to one side, the impact it will have on your family is huge.

I’ve worked alongside junior doctors for over 20 years and I honestly don’t know how they cope. Their lives are not their own. They are stressed beyond belief and utterly, utterly exhausted.

I think you would be absolutely crazy to even think about doing this when you have young children at home.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/30/nhs-doctor-apprenticeships-everything-you-need-to-know/

Absolutely agree. And working full time throughout.

For those mentioning GEM - 4 year graduate medicine has >30 applicants per place, so can't be relied on - and would only take a year off.

Mix of both. You can do what to you will probably be incredibly rewarding and make a huge difference to loads of individuals’ lives. You aren’t going to solve the NHS’s problems alone, sorry. It’s going to be a hard road but if you can imagine delivering your first child or even doing your first ultrasound and feel delight - that’s your road and you fly along it. Good luck whatever you choose.

Do you think doctors get into their professions thinking "haa! Now I can ignore my patiengs and treat them terribly!" Of course not!! They all (well 99%) go into this wanting to do a great job and to make a difference. They get disillusioned quickly and ground down by the realities of the system. You're too naive and dreamy. It's also selfish to do this to your kids and husband.

There are other avenues to help women in a small way, support group for example or volunteering somewhere that helps the cause.

Op i would direct you to this thread.

Because the responses there ie absolutely
not, apply

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/thirty_days_only/4973860-breakfast-venture-what-do-you-think?page=2&reply=131919939

I’d disagree with that. I gave up on vet school because I knew I couldn’t deal with it. Others were stronger. You can have dreams to improve the lives of others and not be as oversensitive as I was. OP needs to think about whether that’s going to be her too and you need a thick skin to be a doctor. She’s 37, it’s obviously not a whim.