Hoping to retrain as a Doctor, any advice appreciated

[bluefootedpenguin]

Hi. I am currently a Secondary School Teacher, I have been a Head of Department and my career has been progressing well but I have felt for some time now that I am always going to desperately regret not going into Medicine.

This has been something that I have thought about constantly for the last 10 years, and I should have done it much earler. I have probably made it as difficult as possible by having two small children,a Husband and financial commitments.

DH is fully supporting my decision and Financially we will cope, just.

My biggest concern is my Children. I am hoping to get onto the 2013 graduate entry 4 year course. I know the competition is huge, but I am determined that I must atleast have tried to do this and I am studying hard for the GAMSAT.

If successful, my children will be preschool and Y1. I understand that the course itself is quite 9-5, which I can work around, but I am concerned as to the level of personal study I would be required to do to support my learning. While it is really my dream to become a Doctor, I do not want it to be at the detriment of my Children. If I can manage 2-3 hours personal study a night, would I be able to have some weekend time with my kids?

Has anyone any personal experience of getting on the course and training with small children? Is it at all realistic?

Any thoughts/insights/advice greatly appreciated

Hi, I am not a doctor but have experience of supporting students in a similar situation (a few backs now) but thought I'd reply as no one else had.
The first few years are more 9-5 lectures and labs. Studying for tests and prep for tutorials is doable with a few hours study most evenings. Many younger students with no children still have a part time job, do uni sports teams, go out clubbing etc and manage well so you should have time to spend with your DC.

For students with children the difficult time can come when clinical experience starts in the hospitals in certain areas that are not 9-5 e.g. A&E observations, obstetrics - hanging around late into the night to observe births etc.Weekened shifts and long,unsociable hours kick in seriously when you are a junior doctor and childcare can become an issue. Having children can also impact on your specialism choices - dermatologists,orthopedics,GP's etc tend to have regular hours whereas heart, obs and gynae, A&E etc have very irregular working hours and many night shifts.

DS1 is an F1 now. Throughout med school he didn't have to do any weekends - even throughout clinical years (and didn't seem to do too much uni work either:) ) He had lots of free time for relaxing, clubbing etc. Since starting F1 on 01/08 he has done 3 x 91 hr weeks (13 hrs a day with no day off) which might be hard with young children. I'd say go for it - you will probably always regret it otherwise. Quite a few graduates in his year.

Thank you for your replies! It's good to know i am not being totally unrealistic.x

Bluefoot, this is a very, very tough challenge you are setting yourself, but not impossible . Graduate entry to Medicine is difficult, a lot more so than applying as a School leaver.

TheStudentRoom is a very useful mine of information, there are active forums on Med application, Graduate Med application, re-application, they are well worth trawling through. Do your research very carefully, some Med schools have small quotas for Post Grad entry, some have no quotas. Some seem to let in more Uni. UKCAT (or Bmat if it's a Bmat Uni) is VERY important. Buy some study aid and work on them for several weeks, daily (600 UKCAT Questions is very good, plenty of other books also available on Amazon).

My DS1 is a 1st year medic, so my info is unto date, GOOD LUCK !

Half a sentence is missing... meant to say that some med school let in more mature (some even 40+) age, other Unis don't.

I'm a medic (retired) and the one thing I really think you need to be aware of before entering the course is the travel involved. I studied at leicester and our clinical attachments could be in any hospital as far east as Boston (Lincolnshire- a 1.5 hour drive away) and as far west as Coventry.

It didn't matter when I was a student. I had no dependents, I just stated at the hospital for the 8 weeks of my placement and came home at weekend, but if I had children it would have been another story.

It doesn't change once you've graduated. A friend is on the west midlands surgical rotation which covers hospital from Coventry down to Hereford.

So think hard about where you want to study and be prepared to move around to follow work.

It's also worth thinking about which aspect of Medicine you'd like to enter once you're graduated. Some are more family friendly than others.

I used in work in Medical school admissions; the five year programme rather than the four year graduate one. We used to accept a certain number of graduates and it's a lot less competitive. To be honest as long as you've got a good 2.1 and some relevant experience I think it's the easiest route into Medicine. It does of course mean another year of fees. We did accept quite a few older graduates (including one in their fifties!) and they often did very well. As blownin says the difficulty for those with families was the clinical placements and the foundation and early careers years because you are expected to move round.

As a student you'll probably be relatively ok, but beware of surgical or anaesthetic placements which will commonly start at 8, and watch that you're not always leaving on time regardless of what's going on around you. (There have been occasions where I stayed past 10pm as a clinical student, and only a couple of months back, my boss drove home a student at the same sort of time as an interesting case came in just before he was due to leave) In A&E you'll need to be around later to get the most from your placement, too (but may be able to do what I did and wangle a late start in lieu of an early finish iyswim)

After qualification though, you really won't finish at 5 very often at all!

Your terms (especially as a graduate entry student) will be long, so factor that in to your childcare arrangements too.

You will still be studying for a good 5 years after qualifying too (and that's for the faster-to-finish things like GP, surgery and add another 10) Courses are expensive and you won't get anywhere near the funding for the courses you need to progress.

F1&2 (first 2 years as a qualified doc) are a lot more civilised now than they were only a few years ago, but the rotas do appear to have been written by a toddler with a bag of haribo and a felt tip at times - utterly insane! Weeks of 13 hour nights are on the way out, but a 3 then a 4 on separate weeks isn't uncommon, and often impossible to swap. You will not be able to take annual leave in august as routine due to the main changeover happening on the 1st wednesday of the month (same for february, but to a lesser extent)

After that, you may end up needing to move or commute a lot, so planning your specialty around a travelling distance might be necessary with little ones. I drive 90 miles a day just getting to and from work, for example. Most hospital nurseries fill up with permanent staff kids, which as a junior doctor on rotation you aren't, so that can be an issue too.

I realise I'm being a voice of doom & gloom, but I think it's more important to know about the downsides rather than the "advertising". Some specialties are more family friendly than others, of course; as a surgeon, I'm probably in one of the more difficult ones (part of why I'm still planning ttc and will stall here for a while). It's hugely rewarding, if knackering, though. I'd say go for it, I certainly can't imagine doing anything else now!

I am a GP and previously heavily involved in medical shool stuff now teach GP trainees and medical students. I'd disagree strongly with the 9-5 thing. A&E or obstetics will involve nights/weekends/evenings. The travel can be long - I trained in sheffield but spent 2 long placements in Hull (70 miles away) and although this was an uncommon placement to have twice it will be necessary to travel to other towns than your base university. Some students do insist for childcare reasons on remaining in central hospitals but by doing this you miss out of usually better teaching and smaller groups in the district general hospitals and also piss off your colleagues who feel if they are up at 6am to get 2 buses and a train somewhere why shouldn't you. My current student has no car and told me today he got up at 530 to get a bus to the station to get a train to our local town and then another 40 minute bus ride to my surgery. Poor lad, I hope I am reasonable in saying he can start a bit later every day and trying to find someone who lives in town to take him home to the station some evenings

The majority of clinical placements usually 9-5, though some blocks will involve longer eg A+E, O+G.
Most people are sympathetic to the needs of medical students with children.
2-3 hours spent each weekday evening is probably more than you need to do.

There seem to be fewer graduate entrants this year, I dont know if that is a result of the economy and people not being able to pay fees.

Another thing to consider is what you will want to do re specialising. The recruitment system operating at present for specialist training doesnt allow you to have a great deal of choice over where exactly you are placed. Of course that is at least 7 years away for you.

catsareevil - where on earth does med school that's 9-5? seriously? how on earthdo the students learn enough. Most placements you have to do at least one on call every week which would be til 9pm or so (apart from GP where the standard day for GP and student is 8/8.30 til 6 or later)

I've got nothing to add to the thread, but will watch with interest because I am teacher trained but have also been thinking for a while now that I would love to be in medicine. Do you get much funding at all?

sleeplessinderbyshire

Really? I'm really surprised by that. It must vary with the medical school.

cats It does vary a lot, which is part of the trouble of course. It's going to be possible to leave on time/early in all places some of the time, but the converse is also true. I rarely see students out of hours in ortho, but other departments keep them late more often. Not on nights as a student, there's just not enough docs around to supervise them these days.

Twll Funding? Student Loans just like everyone else. After your 4th year you apply for a NHS bursary which is the same as SLC in amount, but comes from a different pot of money. I've been working full time and then some for nearly 8 years and have nearly paid off my student debts. Parents helped a lot and I scraped in before the first fees hike in 1998. It's not a cheap venture.

I'm definitely for people following their dreams!

Tbh I think you'll find the actual studying at med school fine. You are probably so used to being organised and getting on with it that you'll do the work in a fraction of the time. It might even seem less work than your current job.

I think many of the difficulties once you are trained and getting the experience in your clinical attachments have been covered (and I agree, it can be really tough and I didn't even have kids at this stage). I guess once qualified it also depends on your aims and therefore what specialties you have to rotate through. I accidentally chose a very 'family friendly' speciality, on calls from home and not ridiculous amounts of weekends and evenings, but I'm under no illusion that it would have been a completely different ball game if I'd wanted to be a cardiologist or neurosurgeon, say. But the working environment for junior doctors everywhere has changed dramatically since the days of 48 hour shifts. You are not expected to stay for hours on end, you are expected to hand over at 5 and go home when you are on a day shift (well at least in my hospital). And it may cause a few raised eyebrows in some settings but this too is slowly changing.

I wish on the other hand I'd known just how many years of exams (and how much money I'd have to spend taking them) I'd have to endure AFTER I'd qualified as a doctor. Partly self inflicted and partly not, I'm 12 years on and still studying and some of the exams have been tougher than med school. DH's patience is wearing pretty thin. But again, a clever choice of speciality could avoid much of this?

Also maybe you won't be able to spend as much time as you might have wanted to in an ideal world with your children but I bet they'll be so proud of you. I would have been if my mum had done this.

Good luck whatever you decide.

I know lots of doctors and was friends with lots of med students.

Doing it with young DCs and a working DP is INSANE. Either wait until they are high school age or get DP to get a pt job and take on the main caregiving role. Unless he is über rich enough to afford multiple out of hours nannies, that is .

What is it about medicine that attracts you? Have you considered related careers eg public health, pharmacy, physiotherapy, midwifery, care management?

Final year medical student here.

Yes the course is largely 9-5 (actually more 8-6 in clinical years) but you are expected to do some nights and late on-calls and away placements for several weeks at a time. It can sometimes be difficult to get away at the end of the day. My medical school is particularly bad for giving a start time with no finish time. Overall I would say that the medical school is reasonably considerate to medical students with children.

I certainly haven't needed to do 2-3 hours every night and would agree with the poster who said that you'd probably get on fine and quite possibly would feel you were doing less work than you are now - I have friends who teach. I would say that around exam time though I have found myself working constantly except for sleeping and eating.

In terms of working after qualification junior doctors are only contracted in the main for 48 hours. I think there are still a few 56 hour contracts but not 100% sure. Haven't seen mine yet! However in my hospital it is very much the norm for juniors to be working more than this and not filling in their time sheets very accurately (being honest seems to cause huge hassle and there is a bit of a stigma about it.) So childcare is difficult if you find you can't actually finish at 5 despite the fact you are rota-ed to do so. I swear on my last placement nobody ever finished at 5. They were somewhat understanding about children and pregnancy, but the nature of the job isn't wonderful that way. Though it is getting better and things are much more reasonable than they used to be. Post qualification you do have the right to ask for less than full time training but I don't think this can be guaranteed.

The other thing to bear in mind is relocation. Some of the foundation jobs are not really well located for anyone with ties and the application process is quite pot luck, however they do take into account applicants with children, particularly those already in school.

Specialty training is becoming more competitive and many people do end up relocating to do this. Also many specialty training programmes will involve stints in different hospitals which may not be very near each other. Especially in large deaneries like Scotland.

And as above there are still lots of exams post qualification, study leave is not always in place and the courses and exam fees are extortionate.

I hope that's a reasonably balanced view. I would definitely recommend making contact with the medical schools and being keen, enthusiastic and asking.

I would also check which hospitals they use for training and if you have to do any away placements.

I'm definitely not saying don't do it!

OP you have a successful career, two great children and a happy marriage. These things should not be underestimated. Maintaining them will not always be easy.

I think you should not think of medicine as a 'dream' but as a very serious commitment which will be expensive and take a very serious toll on your family life as it is now.

I am a doctor, 10 yrs post qualification, with 4 young children, married to another doctor. I work in an acute specialty. It is very hard. Med school is not the hard bit. Once you qualify, you have more exams to do - most specialties have both membership and fellowship exams these days, so factor in 2 years of your life being filled with revision. You will also spend your whole fucking life jumping through hoops of workplace based assessment and maintaining your online portfolio. The hours are pretty shite. The pay is good but not amazing, for example, my pay is based on a 48 hour week for a full timer. My sister is a secondary school teacher HOD and she earns the same as me. I work 0.6 which is 30 hours a week so a bit less than my my sis, but she does no weekends or nights (yes, I study and do the equivalent of planning in my free time too), I work frequent weekends and nights, and my annual leave and rota are sorted out a couple of weeks in advance. I have to rotate around hospitals over a whole region - that means in practice that sometimes I have a 1hr plus commute for months on end. Christmas is my busiest time of year. I have to farm my kids out to anyone and everyone in the school holidays. I miss parents evenings, concerts, sports days etc as well. I can't commit to an area as we have no idea whether we'll get a consultant post round here or not. Seriously, I enjoy my job, but it IS a JOB, although I accept that for some it is a LIFE - but this is harder if you're a mum too. There are many many better ways to spend your time. Why do you want to be a doctor? If it is for intellectual fulfilment, forget it, you will be totally frustrated from day one, the NHS contains a lot of really frustrated and fed up people - if you think the bureaucracy is bad in teaching then seriously, it's worse! If to do something 'worthwhile' then honestly, what is more worthwhile than teaching children? I genuinely mean that.

i felt similar op- i did a biology degree and felt i missed out at my dream of medicine - i applied as a graduate and gained a place but left after 3 months on the course and have no regrets. Learning as a graduate is so difficult - most are 18 year olds, first time away from parents, socially its also very difficult. Honestly i think with a young family, you would be best putting your energies in to that - i mean that in a nice way. On my course, the max age for graduate entry was 36? have you checked a particular uni?

Financially its a strain and the income after running up 50k of debt doesn't justify the pay and hours!

I'm with the 2 posters above. 12 years qualified, sidetracked by having children. Still not completed all my exams (despite lots of money paid on exam fees, 1st time passes and using up all my annual leave to study because no trust ever actually allows study leave, despite it being a contractual obligation) Strongly considering jumping ship as can't stand the bureaucracy, treating patients as tickboxes, fighting with management over clinical priorities. I wouldn't do it.
I know the grass is always greener, but at least as a teacher you can arrange your work to suit yourself at weekends and in school holidays (and you're unlikely to get called in at night and have to arrange for funny hours childcare!)

I work as a GP part time and in a hospice pasrt time. I have 3 DC and a working husband who luckily works flexible hours and a marvellous mother in law! Without them I could not manage at all. Today I had to ask a friend to pick up my 2 younger kids cos I ran late.
I couldn't imagine doing my hospital jobs with children at home.
Sorry to be negative - if you have loads of support then have a go. I do love my job, but I miss things with the children -tomorrow I won;t be home until they're in bed

I wholeheartedly agree with Purple!
I am a GP registrar and a graduate trainee. It is a very unfamily friendly profession. I recently called in sick for my nightshift from the ambulance that was taking my blue, barely breathing son to hospital to be told'tough , you have to work'.
I also spent 4 months breastfeeding my daughter at 6.30am in the hospital car park before a 7am surgical ward round, never getting home before 8pm - in a 9-5 job.
I currently work 50% which means 24 hours per week Inc nights and weekends. In reality I work a minimum of 30 hours. Last month I took home £1200 and I have been qualified for nearly 5 years!
That said I love my job but I would think very carefully about what you are giving up.
Good luck!

knackeredmother you are allowed time off for a family crisis like a very ill DC- I would definitely complain to HR about the person who said you couldn't have time off. Medicine is tough but it is not slavery. You do have rights.