New Mum-of-Medicine 2016 Applicant Thread

[Needmoresleep]

It looks as if it will be a long year. I would welcome company, and as importantly, advice from those who have been through it before.

I don't recall any of my DC - including the DS applying for medicine - doing a 'conclusion'. I think the advice that space is too limited is good. They had very few rejections overall; three out of twenty nine applications. It doesn't seem crucial.

Yes Needmoresleep, it's always been a great relief in this house when the button gets pressed!

I do think the med schools could buck up a bit with their notifications and interviews. Last year they seemed incredibly slow.

Please read up on the new junior doctor contracts. A career in medicine sounds like hell and financially crippling.

Poor DD really wants to be a Doctor, and has for years, but from a family of economists. I think the employment landscape for future Doctors is interesting. You have:

1. The huge costs of training so the NHS is not formally training enough doctors.
2. Increasing numbers of alternative training options. Eastern Europe, Ireland, the new Barts school in Malta, plus schools further afield such as Malaysia and the Caribbean which then offer clinical in the UK, private Universities such as UCLan and Buckingham or medical schools in countries which have a tradition of sending Doctors to the UK (Egypt, India). This means that theoretically there will be more medical school graduates available than FYI posts. (Hence several medical schools warning in their admissions statemetns that FY1 posts cannot be guaranteed.)
3. A huge political timebomb (whatever party) of coping with the ever increasing demand for NHS services with finite funding.
4. Other career avenues for newly trained doctors: Australia, the financial sector, drugs companies etc.

It will be six or seven years before our potential medics will be graduating. The landscape will have changed by then, and will continue changing. My guess is:

1. The Government will react to the supply and demand for junior doctors. A shortage and terms will improve, a surplus and changes to their contracts will be a way of reducing costs/additing flexibility.

1. The world will always need good, well trained Doctors.

1. The NHS will change or evolve and will look quite different in a decade's time. My guess is that it might klook more like dentistry where NHS provide the basics, but private care is increasingly common especially for orthodontics, implants etc.

So we are happy that DD applies for medicine. She wants to do it, seems to like the caring/human side, is not afraid of hard work, and is not particuarly money motivated (though obviously wants to earn enough to live on.) She seems happy to stay in London and so there is bound to be work of some sort. To be honest that is more security than many of her peers embarking on other degrees.

Now to complete the last tweaks to the PS (draft 11!) and make the final choice. (One for MNetters - Cardiff or Nottingham for a sporty Central London girl. We are close to tossing a coin. She recognises that both are very good schools and she would be delighted to get a place at either. Its down to where she would be happier for the next five years, and that is probably the one which allows a medic to take part in normal University activities and build a good group of medic and non medic friends, and perhaps which is the lesser culture shock - London kids can find smaller cities a struggle. She has not visited either.)

Just so you are aware about the new junior doctors contracts.... junior doctors aren't protesting about pay (although, it is probably the final straw on the camels back). They are protesting because the government are getting rid of the safeguards to restrict the numbers worked by them.

Jeremy Hunt is saying on one hand that they will be protected by the EWTD, but David Cameron on the other hand has been trying to get rid of the EWTD. - they aren't advertising that part of the plan yet but its on an NHS Employers website that the 'EWTD is good in principle but is financially not good' They've tried to get out of it already but its under review. SO basically by getting rid of the safeguards, the government are then free to make junior doctors go back to the old days of working 120 hours weeks. - which is not safe. Even less safe than it was years ago because the demands are greater and the hospitals are busier and people are sicker.
I recommend you speak to junior doctors in the know. I've been reading up a lot about this recently as my niece was looking into applying but she's taking a gap year now to see how things pan out before committing herself to a disastrous career and loss of money.

I'm pretty sanguine about medicine too as a career for my DS. Things will work out, they're bound to.

The NHS is an employer. Admittedly the dominant employer for doctors in the UK, but still an employer. If their employment terms are not acceptable, people will not work for them.

Given the increasing willingness to contract out to private suppliers and a growth in things like Private GP practices for the time-poor who want to avoid the NHS rationing by queueing approach, there should be plenty of opportunities with other employers, certainly when training is complete.

At the moment the Government (any party) is trying to patch a very creaking and unsustainable system together, in part by squeezing more from staff. This is at best a short term fix. Some more drastic action is needed, but its difficult to see any party being brave enough to take on a substantive reformation. The waste, just from missed appointments and inappropriate demands, is huge. Most care is very good, but the value is not understood.

Yes potential medics need to be aware that there will be big changes at some point in their careers, but as long as they want to do medicine because they want to care for people, and they are well-qualified, things will work out, even if there are bumps along the way.

I work with junior doctors every day and because of that I encouraged dd to think very carefully about this career. But the bottom line is she wants to be a doctor.

Her PS is done and with school for checking. The last paragraph does have some drawing together elements. She thinks she has her final 4 - just waiting on the UKCAT scores announcement next week to make sure nothing has changed significantly to rule any of them out for her. Fifth option is going to be one of them for biomed.

I've said many time here that I would rather mine had chosen a different career. They could have a better work/life balance and more money in many other careers. The many potential medics who are numerate need never fear being out of work. They wanted to be a doctor, they were warned to be careful what you wish for because you may get it.

The best young doctors dont want to work for other employers but they may start moving to Wales or Scotland, if they are sensible enough not to impose the new contracts. Should they be prepared to work in a system based on profit not care Australia beckons.

The NHS does indeed seem likely to go the way of dentistry with more private practise and higher costs. It used to be the envy of the world (or at least of those educated enough to understand the comparisons) for its low costs compared to insurance based systems (if you want to talk about inefficiency talk about that) and its good outcomes. We are throwing that away for political dogma.

One week to go until the UCAS deadline for Medics! DD's UKCAT is finally out of the way. She did well but thinks she may be borderline for one of her choices which prioritises on test scores so she may need to rethink.
I can see her submitting it at 11.59 on 15 October at this rate (anyone remember Outnumbered?).

By the way, what is a good, interesting well-paid alternative to Medicine? I may suggest it to DD...

PS is now on 15th draft. Still need to decide between Cardiff or Nottingham. Both sound good. So it looks like 23.59 for us as well. I need to find that Outnumbered episode.

UKCAT was disappointing but not disastrous. The problem is that the only people sharing their scores seem to have got in the 800s. (In RL as well as Student Room.) Others though are keeping quiet, so I am telling DD to assume she has done as well as them. I think in previous years UKCAT used to provide a running average so you knew where you stood. Given scores change so much from year to year it is hard to guess.

I also understand that gap year reapplicants often do much better with UKCAT second time round. Even if not true the Gap year as a viable Plan B should hopefully sustain her through a long year.

Good grief- 800s? Maybe DD is right to rethink then, she was above average based on last year's numbers but nowhere near that kind of score.

DD was very impressed with Cardiff at the open day. She is also keen on a London school but I'm not sure how financially viable that would be.

LessStress. I did not mean to worry you. DD got nowhere near that either. I think they are aiming for a 600 average. This I think may be slightly higher than last year but not by much. If so DD should be alright for most places but is staying clear of the UKCAT heavy ones. She is just unlucky the only two scores she knows of were both exceptionally high. (And both are strong Oxbrige candidates anyway.)

Which London one are you thinking of? Dd is thinking of KCL and seems happy to live at home, so it would be cheaper. Its not ideal, but we live within walking distance so she does not have to commute. The big advantage would be the diversity of patients and illnesses and the access to tertiary referral centres.

People are saying nice things about both Nottingham and Cardiff, and there is no guarantee she would an interview at either. So in many ways it does not matter, at the same time it seems very important where you might spend 5 years of your life.

UKCAT cutoffs are difficult. Sometimes a lot of students with a good but not great UKCAT decide not to apply to a medical school and suddenly the cut off falls, then next year it goes back up again. Very hard to call that one.

I would urge those of you with potential medics to write to your MP about the junior doctor contracts.

Our young trainee gp that I know can expect to lose 30- 40% of their salary from these cuts and may be unable to stay in London as a result. Their father died some years ago, they have no family resources to fall back on. Their social life is limited because they have to let down friends and family when they can't get away from work. Now they may lose their rented home.

I shall point out to my MP that the elderly, who have kept the Tories in power, have most to lose when the NHS is ruined. They have yet to wake up to the problem.

alreadytaken I would just say that many, many young graduates out there often have to let down friends and family because they can't get away from work. That particular issue isn't the monopoly of young doctors.

I wouldn’t wait till 15 Oct to press the button. Is there any guarantee the UCAS system won’t crash on this very last day when all applications have to be in? Reminds me when DS sent his on the 14th or even 15th when he could easily have done so a fortnight earlier. He does live dangerously, I might add.

OP, between Cardiff and Nottingham, I’d go for Nottingham anytime. . .

alreadytaken, on one level I don't disagree. However I see this as as one symptom of a much bigger issue which will play itself out during much of our DCs early careers.

Put simply, the country cannot afford the health service we want. However this is probably true of every country on the planet.

So any Government will need to either:

1. devote more resources, cutting elsewhere, or
2. find savings and efficiencies.

Political parties may offer variations on the first, but no one will be able to offer enough. The second needs to be tackled. "Cracking down" on patients (charging for missed appointments, limiting care to smokers and the obese) is politically difficult. A fair amount seems to have been done, at least from recent observation, to improve administration/cleanliness and other non medical issues. So the next step is to squeeze more out of staff. It does not seem right, but it is politically easier. I don't have access to numbers but suspect that with all the overseas training opportunities there is currently no shortage of junior doctors wanting to work in the NHS. The problem might be retention and/or getting doctors to work in some parts of the country or in some specialisms.

I don't think the American system works as the bogeyman, in the same way that American health providers using the NHS in the same way, works. Instead there will be a slow chipping away, as has already happened with dentistry. Students enterering medicine need to expect that the NHS as we know it now won't exist in 20 years. There will still be demand for good doctors and those who want to care for patients ought to ebe able to carve out a satisfying career. But it wont be smooth and they should expect a lot of hard work, poor morale and at times a sense of exploitation. So the important thing is for the student to be sure that this is what they want to do. To join the medical profession at this stage because your parents want you to (surprisingly common in our experience) is a sure fire way to frustration.

A lot of this comes from our dentist, a family friend, who went through similar changes when he was starting out in his career. His clear message was to think hard.

Molio is right, certainly in terms of other London professions (law, banking, estate agency). New graduates are often cannon fodder and expected to work all hours.

Then for everyone (bus drivers as well as doctors) London is a problem. I don't see an immediate solution, though can envisage a time when a GPs appointment is a Skype call to India, coupled with a few diagnositc apps on your smartphone. Plus the onward expansion of London into the greater South East.

So much for predictions. The important one right now is when that PS will finally be complete.

UKCAT are issuing some stats tomorrow re this year's figures so your dc will be able to get some idea of where they stand then.

The stats are out - mean this year is 2531, just a little higher than last year.

Thanks NL. Glad scores are not at the 2013 levels. DDs score just falls into a lower decile than it would have done last year. Otherwise it might have been worth have a quick rethink and perhaps trying a UKCAT focussed Unversity.

Just as well. Getting the PS finished is the priority.

Yes dd thinks her choices are ok too and no need to panic and try BMAT which would have been a total gamble anyway. Bit of PS trauma this week but it's done now. Just have to cross our fingers for a bit.

of course long hours are not just for young doctors - but in how many other professions will they be working Christmas? If your young doctor is one of the few who doesn't they are likely to work New Year - and they will be doing so for a lot less money than their lawyer friends who will be buying their own homes in London while your child is still renting.

International comparisons have consistently shown that insurance based systems are less efficient. That is not just the American system but any system based on insurance. Britain spends less of its GDP on healthcare than most developed nations and not much more than half of what America spends. Throw away the NHS and you don't remove inefficiency, you increase it. Everyone will pay more as a result and when you are elderly you may be reliant on those phone calls to India because no-one will insure you. Be careful what you wish for.

As for squeezing more from staff - tired and worn out doctors make for unsafe care. Even if your are happy to see your child demoralised and exhausted being treated by someone in that state does not make for safe care.

I don't think either Needmoresleep or I are remotely implying that we 'are happy to see [our children] demoralised and exhausted'. That's a bit of a stretch!

And I have to say that dire warnings of gloom and doom from some quarters on MN about the terrible toll med school would take, my own DS seems perky as a pekingese, has enjoyed himself throughout and we're all hugely looking forward to his graduation in a couple of weeks. Perhaps a positive outlook is a good thing for a young doctor - I'd rather be treated by someone positive than a right old moaner always making problems bigger than they need to be....

despite dire warnings etc