To retrain as doctor in 40s! Read specifics!

[UsuallyIwouldsayUABUBut]

I just searched for a thread on this as I know there have been some before, and indeed that I myself have even commented and voted to say that the poster is being VVVV U. It does seem mad to embark on a course that won't finish until you are practically 50 and then even given we are all going to work til our 70s, that's only 20 years, i.e. a half career.

However.... due to personal circumstances, I am living overseas in a country in which it is possible to study medicine more cheaply that the UK, and it's still very well regarded. We will be here for at least the 6 years required to study (timeline isn't a problem). I could probably get the foundation years in too, or at least a couple of them.

I don't enjoy the job I trained to do. I'm currently doing it from home but I won't progress this way. I don't think it will be particularly easy to achieve the level I was at after we move back to UK (current plan). And anyway, I don't enjoy it.

I'm not under financial pressure, I would like to have a career I can be proud of though. DH would prefer me to work but there's no particular need to make more money. I haven't discussed this with him yet.

I did science A-levels and got good grades (a zillion years ago, I remember nothing). There is a single test to do to apply called an IMAT, I assume I'd have to study.

Thoughts? Until this idea popped into my head I would have thought this was mad, but it kind of seems like I've been given the runway to do it without the usual issues that people cite.

Being totally honest because you're all being so helpful... will probably get flamed but I think the academic challenge (in answer to someone upthread who mentioned this, I would have no concerns in this regard), and tbh the prestige of medicine, appeal. I do not for one minute think that the prestige comes for free or that it is actually glamorous in real life. I don't see myself doing any of the other things mentioned that have patients involved.

Currently I'm in a corporate role. Demanding, stressful, intellectually stimulating. But it leaves me flat and I am not very good at it. I don't have any business sense at all! Literally not a commercial bone in my body. I think I'd be much better at something completely different, but I still want a Career capital C.

I've got various relatives that are medics, incl a parent. I will of course talk to them about the specifics of the career. I know for sure they would have been very supportive of a career change but would probably say it's too late now. They tell me on a regular basis I should have been a doctor (maybe partly why the idea doesn't die off). I have one relative also who is a bit older but ddefinitely started late and seems to work part time and fairly flexibly but is a Consultant in a prestigious hospital. I need to find out more about this as I am quite sure it's not the norm.

Something to consider is the impact of working in medicine on your body. My mum was a nurse and my grandad was a paramedic. They both had to retire at 55 due to ill health. My mum is still struggling with the consequences of nursing 10 years on and is on the waiting list for an operation to repair the damage of taking large quantities of painkillers on an empty stomach and she didn't always get meal breaks during 14h shifts and she was disciplined for taking time off work for a work place injury. The wards my mum worked on operated a work you until your break and this was more than 10 years ago so it might not be completely relevant but I don't think things have generally improved

My sister is a volunteer paramedic - this might be something to look into the experience would look good for the med school application and it can be done alongside jobs or child care. She works as an accountant as her day job. It took 6 months for her to train.

how will you manage years and years of rotation when you qualify? Your deanery could put you 2 hours from home one year and then an hour away in the opposite direction the next?

@CormorantStrikesBack is this the case in London? Surely it must all be somewhat in London given population density and the number of hospitals?

So it's not about patient interaction at all.

That's fine, but I do think you need to be clear and honest with yourself about what your goals are and why. Picking a high stress job because you think it has prestige has a good chance of not working out in the way that you imagine.

Healthcare involves body fluids, horrid smells and difficult, disagreeable, sometimes violent people. If it's prestige you want I'd honestly look elsewhere.

Ah I see, now we're getting somewhere . I get the fear of being flamed, there are people who seem to think doctors need to be saintly beings above such earthly considerations but it would have been much better if you'd said so at the beginning. Academic challenge and prestige (and money!) are way better reasons for choosing medicine than just wanting to help people - although ask a beleaguered SHO entering into the 11th hour of their shift draining alcoholics' ascites, trying and failing to insert canulas and writing up discharge summaries for less than £45k and they may not feel they get very much of either! But I get where you're coming from now, there are not a huge number of jobs that pay as well as an NHS consultant, have the general prestige/goodwill attached to them AND aren't fully office based. I do think doing any of the jobs mentioned earlier in the thread would provide plenty of academic/intellectual challenge, none of them are easy options and don't get trapped by old fashioned ideas that nursing is all about holding hands and scrubbing bedpans or radiography is just pressing a button to make the machine beep or whatever, but medicine probably is the hardest certainly in number of years put in.

In terms of flexibility it is possible to work part time at any stage of medical training but the more part-time you do the longer training will take, so on your trajectory that would make it even longer before you hit the promised land of being a consultant or GP and you don't (easily anyway) get out of having to move all round the country and do unsocial hours. And once you are a consultant, again it's not uncommon to work flexibly but flexibly for a consultant might well end up looking like working 50 hours a week rather than 70 (I joke but it's not far off the reality in some specialisms) - I really do think you need to think long and hard about what that would do to your family and whether there's another way to get a bit more career satisfaction without turning everything upside down quite to the extent you're thinking of?

@maxelly yes agree, I guess I didn't really go into the specifics at the beginning, only the too late element. And then my patients and not laboratory was more a response to why I wouldn't do for example neurological research work. I thought everyone who wanted to be a doctor wanted the prestige tbh, not so much the money, I earn more now than I would for years and one of the reasons I feel I can do it is because we are financially comfortable enough to get through the poorly paid years. I don't think doctors are saints at all, or that they 'love helping people'! From that point of view I definitely think I have a realistic view of it all.

The blood, guts and gore is a slight concern yes. Not sure how strong my stomach for that is. I think having children, being pregnant, and in particular (mostly this for sure) going through IVF, is what has most recently reignited my interest. But I went through private IVF in an nice London clinic. I found it fascinating and of course the life of a consultant gynae who has done the hard bit (I've also read Adam Kay!!) and now just does private, would appeal!

I’m not going to flame you @UsuallyIwouldsayUABUBut (I said not judging!!) but it won’t be enough to sustain you through the career.

Your question, London is more dense as a training region but you’d still be looking at travel times of 1-1.5hrs from one hospital to another depending on where you live (certainly in my day it was a case of 1 in and 1 out so you’ll unavoidably be moved further away at some point). You have very little say in this and it adds a lot to a 12-13hr day. And of course, London is expensive and hugely competitive. So depending on where you can afford to live, you may be further away plus you’ll need to be a top-ranked candidate to get London (academic prizes/publications). You can’t just “get through” medical school and get a training job in London.

You say you are academically very able - good, you will need to be, but not compared to the general population, you need to be “better” than your peers, other very motivated, highly intelligent, over-achieving youngsters!! If you do investigate/practice some UCAT/BMAT papers, you’ll have a better idea about this.

Sorry to jump in, but yes, London is actually divided into a number of deaneries but in London you are at least guaranteed to stay in the same city and the same rough part of the city for your training once you've been accepted into your specialty (which comes after foundation). But (a) the deaneries still cover a very wide area (North East London for instance stretches all the way from Romford in the east to Barnet in the north) so you still need a lot of flexibility to be able to move house or accept a long commute at all hours of the day (b) you don't just get to say you want to work in London and get put there, at all stages you have to compete against others for the most desirable jobs (London is always most popular) and you really couldn't guarantee getting London at all let alone North East London if that was where you lived, they don't necessarily assign people based on where they live even if they have children/families, it's done on a preferences and ranking system, so if you are an incredibly high flyer with top marks in every exam and a packed out CV you can go where you want but if you just scrape in you're often at the bottom of the list for assignments. Also some specialties are much more competitive than others, surgical specialties are always highly oversubscribed, 7 or 8 applicants per place I think, so if you want to be a neurosurgeon or cardiac surgeon you'd be thanking your lucky stars to have got a place at all and if they send you to Manchester or Liverpool or Newcastle when you live in London you go without question! Whereas if you were thinking of say Psych. or one of the other less popular ones and/or you live somewhere less top of the tree than London and want to stay there then it's less of a gamble...

Have you actually done your research in terms of being accepted into medical school in the country where you are. You make it sound like that step is an easy one. Surely medicine is hard to get in in most countries where you are.

Do few old A levels and good IMAT be enough? Do they do conversion courses like in the UK? Do all schools have the same acceptance criteria? Is it a case that once you're in, you're in like in the UK, or many get in for the 1st year but only 10% or so make the grade for the second year like in France. Are you able to move within the country or are you just looking at your local medical school.?

@maxelly thanks, this vaguely rings a bell from uni pals talking about IF they get London etc. I don't want to be a surgeon, I think it's more likely that I would actually become a GP in the end given the timelines.

For now I think this thread has given me enough to think about to pretty much put me off the idea in the immediate term! I wouldn't be able to start until Autumn 2025 by the looks of things, so I have a while to consider it all.

Mini reality check. One of my friends who I trained with is now (finally) a consultant in obs & gynae. It is the most high risk speciality. She has dealt with an incredible amount of trauma. Her on-call shifts are the worst of all specialties. And she is still not in a position to start private practice. That’s just not how it works in the UK/NHS. Very, very few consultants work purely in private practice. It’s not good for your CPD, it’s not good for your professional reputation, and it’s not good for your patients.

It’s not unusual to feel how you feel after fertility treatments/pregnancy/childbirth. Oh wow, what a rewarding career, I could do this. That’s like me going to the ballet and thinking the same. You’re just seeing someone who has been practicing a skill or a craft for 30 odd years. You can’t see what it took to get that are I don’t think you have a very clear idea about what it would take.

@vivainsomnia no I haven't done my research on acceptance rates. It's not so much that I think the acceptance step is the easy one, but you never know f you can get accepted unless you apply. So if I decided to do it, I would apply. If I didn't get in then I wouldn't be able to. I don't have flexibility to move, but have seen 3 options in the area I'm based in. No they don't do conversion courses.

Most of the time on these threads the poster doesn’t have a science background etc. but if you did science a levels etc. and have science background then I don’t think it would be mad to do.

Would your partner take on the majority of the childcare/responsibility for ensuring it's in place?

As a 52 year hospital consultant, I simply cannot imagine being this age, perimenopausal and being a junior doctor.
I loved my 40s and I think I peaked in terms of energy and confidence between 40 and 45. After 48 things started to feel much more of a struggle.

You might be different of course. Just bear in mind that this age can be a bit difficult for many women and whether you’ll be up to the rigours, physical and mental, of junior doctor training.

@ISpyNoPlumPie agree! That was exactly my point, why I included the BUT! :)

@UsuallyIwouldsayUABUBut you will definitely need a strong stomach to become a doctor! I think it would be a really good idea to volunteer in some way at a local hospital or healthcare facility to get an idea of what training could be like. I’m definitely not going to flame you for being ambitious and I wish you well in whatever you choose to do.

Actually there wouldn't be that option. Once you've lived abroad - even for just a few months, when you return you're treated as an international student for 3 years.

International student fees rates, no access to student loans or grants. It stopped me returning and doing a masters in nursing

Again, I don't know how it is where you are but in the UK, you need to do your research BEFORE you apply because each school have different criteria. Some put alot of emphasis on GCSEs results others A levels, others entrance test results (and there are 2 of them which each school relying using one or the other).

You could be invited for an interview and offered a place at one school whilst another will throw your application just reading your GCSEs levels.

Again, the system is likely very different where you are but I expect it requires an element of research first to even see if you have a chance to get an offer.

@Superscientist What’s a volunteer paramedic? Do you mean a Community First Responder?

I didn’t know that - thanks for adding that. And really sorry to hear it messed up your plans..

I did graduate medicine in the UK. Graduated aged 44 with two small children.

I do like my job but my feeling currently is that "the juice is not worth the squeeze". The stark reality of how much medico-legal responsibility falls on my shoulders, while being paid £15 a hour has horrified me. Why am I responsible for people getting paid £10k more than me?!

Also, doctors work more hours per week eg my average is 48 hours which is a whole extra day every week when compared to everyone else.

I feel that there are other patient-facing careers with a good dollop of science where you would get a better work/life balance and be remunerated more fairly.

@Trinnitus thanks for that perspective, it is really helpful. I feel pretty spritely atm but of course it will not last forever and 8-9 years is a long time in the future. God, forgot about the looming menopause :-/

I'm a Dr and if you were in the UK I would say don't do it! It's demanding in your teen/20s but with kids in your 40s....

You would need to do some sort of pre medicine course, then medical school, then junior doctor jobs. You will need very flexible childcare of the sort only family can give usually, or maybe a nanny. You will be knackered and will spend a lot of time studying outside of working hours.

I wouldn't bet on working to 70. Most Drs stop before 65 due to the demanding nature of the work. And it would be a lot of debt in the UK. Obviously things may be different where you are...

Sorry if that sounds negative, but it's the reality.