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

Are you even aware that the junior doctors are starting their longest strike ever today, and why?

You sound like you're airing an idea you've done no research on. Fair enough but if you're serious about improving patient experience surely you'd be a bit more aware of the issues within the NHS.

You’re putting your family (and most importantly yourself) through way more than a decade of financial and emotional stress. Minimum of 4 years at medical school (if you get onto a grad entry course, realistically you may need to factor in more than one year to apply) followed by foundation (2 years) then at least 7 years of obs and gynae training before reaching consultant (if you stick with that specialty, I don’t know anybody who went into the specialty they thought they would pre/at medical school). If you want to go into a more specialist area within O&G then you’ll need to further apply for sub spec training which can add on extra time. There are increasing bottlenecks to get into specialty training so you may need to factor in a year or two to CV build (publications, extra degrees, presentations etc are increasingly required for training programmes that were once undersubscribed) and try and stay afloat as a locum or in a fellow post. My husband is an O&G reg and it has a huge attrition rate - the only way many of them get through it is by going less than full time which will then expand the time in training proportionally. Realistically you’re looking at more like 15 years (DH and I both started medical school in 2010 and probably have another 3/4 years in our respective training schemes before becoming a consultant) although being a consultant is just a different kind of stress.

Then there’s the stress of the actual job. Med school is the easy bit - many will bend over backwards to be family friendly and give you placements locally. All this disappears once you graduate. For foundation you’ll be ranked nationally as to the deanery you’ll be allocated. There’s no guarantee of a place where you already live. You’ll then rotate pretty much every year to a different hospital. Some deaneries (e.g South Yorkshire) are small enough that you can probably live centrally and commute. Others are huge and you could be looking at 3+ hour drives between hospitals so you’d need to factor in moving house yearly or living in hospital accommodation in the week/whilst on call. Your placement may get changed at the last minute or they may not tell you where you’re going until a couple of months beforehand depending on how dysfunctional your training programme is. You’re supposed to get your rota at least 6 weeks in advance but in many places that doesn’t happen making childcare etc very challenging. In O&G you’re going to be doing resident on call shifts for the entirety of your working life (including as a consultant).

Being a doctor in the NHS is increasingly dreadful. You find yourself having to work harder and harder whilst still giving a poor standard of care as you’re working in a failing system. You start most of your consultations apologising for something. Staff bulling is rife and there’s also increasing abuse from patients. Actual training can be hard to come by (especially in the foundation years) as you end up doing ward monkey jobs (NHS bureaucracy is truly something else) punctuated by moments of absolute panic as you try to look after a sick patient with limited support or resources. There’s also the additional threat the profession of PA’s that the government is trying to push through (as they won’t be able to emigrate as easily) further undermining training opportunities (why train a doctor to do a procedure who will be working in a different hospital in a month when the PA will still be there?). The pay in no way reflects the responsibility hence the strikes. You also have the hidden costs of paying your GMC membership (galling as they’ve been found by the courts to be institutionally racist), college memberships, exam fees (into the thousands and often low pass rates - you‘ll also be revising whilst working a full on call rota), indemnity insurance etc etc. DH and I have spent the best part of 4 grand this year on just being doctors.

It’s not all doom and gloom - I’m now in a specialty I love, I’ve been honoured to be present at such important moments in people’s lives, it can be intellectually fulfilling and I’ve had some amazing opportunities. But on the flip side it’s cost my mental health (I ended up in trauma counselling after one job). Medical schools select people who care about people and want to do a good job. You basically select the people who are most at risk of burning out when the system means you can’t provide the standard of care you want. Up to 1/4 of doctors report symptoms of burnout (and from my friendship group this seems very low - many of my peers have needed to take time out of work due to burnout/mental health issues and it seems like most of us are or have been on antidepressants at some point). 1/3 of doctors are planning on leaving the NHS (either to emigrate or leave medicine all together). I’d struggle to encourage anybody to become an NHS doctor at present and if I had my time again I wouldn’t.

Is it not four years for the graduate entry programme? And there is funding available. Family member took this route after a non science degree and military service. No regrets.

the op does not actually confirm she is a graduate

It sounds like you are trying to “right” the “wrongs” you experienced during childbirth. I think you’d be better off getting some therapy to understand and process what happened. You may find the anger you hold dampens your desire to become a doctor eventually. It seems like the fuel in your fire is coming from the injustice of the experience.

One of my friends married a student doctor and they had two children quite quickly.

She ended up living alone for years as his placements were all over the country and she didn't want to go and leave her own job, family and nursery to live in a place she didn't know with a husband she would hardly see.

He had to rent a flat and so they were running two homes and she had to go at the weekends and cram into this little flat as he didn't seem to have time to go and see her and the children.

CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau

She’s 37, it’s obviously not a whim.

Can't you have whims at 37?
I still have them and I'm in my 50s.

And, imo, it is a whim.
The OP has a whim to join the NHS and become an OBGYN to help women while having no science background, no life-long urge to go into medicine and a very sketchy idea of the time it will take to get there.

You can have unrealistic dreams at any age, surely?

If that is legitimately your reason you will not get through the personal statement stage of the application process:

https://www.medschools.ac.uk/studying-medicine/making-an-application/personal-statement#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20high%20academic,part%20of%20your%20UCAS%20application.

Ignoring the impact it will have on your family, do you have the qualifications needed to get into med school in the first place? Or will that be more studying?

You could do it. If that's the path you want to take.

However I would echo everything everyone else has said, that you have little idea of what you would be undertaking or how little power you would have to stick it to the system.

If you are really determined to take this path, start where the a level students do and get some work experience. Volunteer or get a front line NHS job whilst doing whatever science qualifications you'll need. Go into it with your eyes as wide open as possible. If you're already looking at it from the point of view of how quickly can I get to 45k you already have issues.

You can listen but you won't be able to influence or change policy.

4 years ago I would've said go for it - I seriously considered medicine before going into a nursing degree. I had to do pre access, then access before uni. I'm technically in year 3, however I'm taking an interruption until October because it's overwhelming and breaking me a bit. The placements have given me panic attacks and it isn't easy to juggle family life. And that is NURSING, medicine is insane!

Don't do it.
I think all doctors want to listen to patients and be good doctors but the reality is that the NHS is understaffed and underfunded and it is almost impossible to do your job how you'd like to do it as a result.
Training is long and hard, pay is poor, you have to pay exams and college fees and gmc fees etc. you'll have student finance repayments too. If you want to see your children you won't be able to work full time (working 80% is the equivalent of a normal full time job) so it will prolong training and reduce pay so it will be a very long time before you make the equivalent 45K.
You're also treated terribly. You're moved around the country, sometimes with little notice. Can't get leave for important events no matter how much notice you give. You're often given on call rotas a couple of weeks before you start (it's supposed to be a minimum of 6 weeks before but I don't think I've ever had it that far in advance in any of my 12 rotational jobs!). There's endless assessments and hoops to jump through in training. There's also things that just wear you down, like getting paid incorrectly every time you move jobs (every 4 or every 6 months) and moving jobs is so stressful too.
It's also just incredibly stressful generally and emotionally exhausting and just a difficult job. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to be honest. I think being a physician associate is a much better option, it's family friendly, shorter training, limited responsibility and there's better pay earlier on.

As others have said PP, could you look into ways of working with mothers and children that didn’t involve such a humungous time and energy commitment? I used a doula with DC1 throughout pregnancy and for some postnatal care. She was invaluable to me as a first time mother. I have two young DC but I have a small ambition when they are old enough I may look into this line of work as I think it is incredibly rewarding.

Another option is a midwife or a healthcare assistant (not 100% sure if that is the right term). With DC2 I was at a different hospital and the midwife’s and assistants were just so lovely. I remember each and every one of them and they made a big impression on me. It sounds like the birth of your children was the catalyst for wanting this career change and I think maternity care is so incredibly important when it comes to listening to women.

Dear god op don’t do it. I’ve got too many friends who are doctors, all different types in all different areas of the country and there’s no way I’d recommend it to anyone.

If you're doing it to 'make a difference' I expect you'll end up even further disillusioned. The issues are at an organisational level, mostly. You won't be able to change that.

It also sounds like it would be immensely disruptive to your family.

So no, I wouldn't.

Channel your energies into something else. If you want to more actively help people, could you volunteer as a mentor or similar alongside your job?

This is beyond terrible as an idea- none of us need to say why because it's obvious.

Appreciate I went on a bit of a rant there.

In your position (if your main motivation is wanting to advocate for women) I’d consider looking at the charity sector - there are many interesting voluntary roles that you could get involved in (or potentially full time jobs) and ultimately improvement in maternity services (and indeed the entire NHS) needs to come from the government. Look at campaigning roles that actively lobby parliament etc - Maternity Action, Pregnant Then Screwed, Tommy’s etc.

There are also other roles within healthcare that have less training time (e.g. midwifery) but you’ll still be stuck in the NHS so I’d think very carefully before perusing them.

Of course, you’re allowed whims at any age. Don’t want to belittle OP. I think all the responses paint a picture of exactly how bleak the NHS is and I made a point of saying she can’t fix it by herself but that doesn’t mean we should dampen her ambition. Of course it’s going to be difficult (read some Adam Kay OP) and maybe a career like midwife or doula might be more suitable. Not for us to judge though.

Hi there. I'm a registered general nurse. I completed another degree in Health Science and attained a 1st (9 years ago).

Achieving a First made me enquire about studying medicine. I was 40 at the time. My friend, an ENT consultant put me in contact with a lady who had just trained in medicine in her 40's and was completing her FY1. I know the terminology has changed now, I'm not sure it's called FY1&2 now.

This lady was honest with me, she was having an awful time. Her children were late teens so she hadn't got the worry of childcare. The hierarchy, working conditions and length of shifts were horrendous for her.

She'd been a very senior nurse prior to her conversion degree to medicine. She was very well paid as she had been a band 8 b previously. Her earnings were no where near what they had been. The costs financially and personally were too much.

That said, she said she breezed through the academics of the degree, as you'd expect with her nursing background. She had run wards previously, so that part of the course was quite easy as she was used to hospital settings.

Having taken her advice and not pursued a medical degree, I continued nursing and I'm grateful for her candid advice. And now earn well.

Think carefully. From personal experience, when your children are poorly and you still have to go to work a night shift and care for others, it's the hardest thing you'll ever do.

YABU don't do it. You will regret it.

I think it would be an incredibly selfish move.

God no. Your training won't just be done at your local hospital you know, you'll be expected to work pretty much anywhere, even at the other end of the country with little notice. It would be difficult if not impossible to get into without a recent science background, you'll have no money and no quality of life for either you or your family. And then if you do become a doctor you'll discover that as much as you want to listen to women, you simply don't have the time, resources etc etc and the guilt will eat you up.

Other health care roles perhaps, midwife, occupational therapist (can specialised in women's health, neonatals etc) , nurse (again can work on gynaecology ward, neonatals) physiotherapist (specialised in women's health). But most people are leaving the NHS for a reason (sadly).

Honestly, you’re too old for this to be a good choice. It’s also very competitive to enter not only medical school but obstetrics specialty training, so the chances of you being accepted are remote.

wrong thread, possibly?!