GCSE options for medicine

[JessicaBrassica]

Dd currently plans to be a surgeon. (Obvs this may change).
Her school offer health and social care as a gcse equivalent. She's keen to do this but I have concerns that it may not be academic enough and may not be well recieved by universities.

She's also doing 2x English, maths, 3x sciences, Spanish, drama and dance.

With both drama and dance I feel that her other option should be more academic - maybe history.

Anyone got any advice?

Do what you will get the best grades in. Unless you love history or a language no one cares if you have them or not. You'll get the best grades in your favourite subjects. Drama is actually pretty useful for medicine as helps with those MMIs. Health and social is a good subject but not a GCSE so won't count in grades for med school.

I'm a mature medical student. I'm on the graduate entry course but quite familiar with the traditional undergraduate entry requirements too.

Broadly, I would recommend doing whatever she will get the highest marks in.

In terms of what has helped me, my first degree was languages and it has helped enormously, being able to understand the Latin and Greek names for things. On that basis, could she do French as well as Spanish? Also, there is quite a lot of emphasis on ethics and psychosocial stuff during the degree and interview process so a humanities subject could be a real help.

Hopefully she will get the requisite A Levels and get in first time and none of this will really matter, but if not, and she still wants to be a surgeon then she might find herself looking at the GAMSAT later on for the graduate entry. Some humanities knowledge/ critical thinking here will really help.

I agree with the PP who said that performing arts can be quite time consuming and also, in my (long ago) experience, there was some dependency on group work. Obviously not for the full grade but I remember it being quite unhelpful being put in with students doing the subject 'for a doss' (their own words), not turning up to performances etc.

From the perspective of med school entry the most important consideration is that, beyond English, Maths and sciences, your DD chooses subjects she enjoys and in which she will get her best grades. However, from the perspective of keeping options wide open as she is still young, I would be advising her to keep it broad with a humanity in there. They can change a lot over those years. I have one DC in med school and one applying this year. In both of their school cohorts there have been DC who started their GCSEs saying they definitely wanted to do medicine and are now studying a wide range of subjects at university. Some switched to subjects like NatSci, Maths and Economics but others have gone on study Law and English and one MFL.

I would second what @mumsneedwine says about taking a subject that doesn't count as a GCSE subject. A number of med schools have a GCSE scorer and DC can need pretty much perfect grades for the GCSEs they count. You want highest number of GCSEs to choose from, not one in the mix that doesn't count.

2x English, maths, 3x sciences, Spanish, - stopping there Spanish is easier than French so French may be better. Drop the drama and dance.

I would do English x2, maths, 3 sciences, a modern language and then history and geography - which would be more similar to medics in our family, perhaps with one extra one like drama in her case or music for our family.

Spanish is fine. With languages, best to choose the one she enjoys most and is most likely to do well in.

From memory Birmingham for example scores on 7 GCSES and accepts GCSE equivalents. Liverpool scores on 9 subjects and again accepts GCSE equivalents. As always check the websites/ contact admissions for the final say.

I think she needs to go down the more academic route and forget the Health and Social Care course.
It's really geared towards those looking for health care assistant/social care roles- at a push nursing.
Are her teachers advising this course?

Just to correct some info above - in case it's relevant.

It's not a case of just needing 7 x 7s, or med schools only counting the grades in 7 subjects. Off the top of my head, Leeds, Aston, Nottingham, Leicester (and Kings aswell I think) all point 8 GCSEs, QUB and Cardiff point your best 9 GCSEs. It is really important therefore that she does well in 8 or 9 GCSEs.

It sounds as though she already has 9 choices, and the dilemma relates to a 10th choice? If thats the case, then it may not matter - none of the medical schools we've looked at score 10 GCSEs. I would say however, particularly with drama & dance, that 10 GCSEs is going to be hard work and it would be better to get 9s in 9 GCSEs then 8s in 10 GCSEs.

That is correct information for A level choices, but a vocational subject is absolutely fine as 9th or 10th subject. My daughter took hospitality and catering as her 10th subject, enjoyed the course, reduced the stress and hasn't disadvantaged her in anyway.

If you ace the UCAT (clinical entrance exam), your GCSEs become less important and you have a good choice of med schools to apply to even if your GCSEs aren't amazing. However, if you don't, you can easily find yourself in a situation where you can only apply to the med schools who don't focus so highly on UCAT but do really focus on GCSEs (Birmingham, Nottingham, Cardiff etc.). At this stage you have no clue how good you will be at UCAT. So you do need to score as highly as you can in your GCSEs and best not choose unrecognised courses. This gives you maximum wriggle room in the event of having an off day or two.

I think it's a shame if prospective doctors would be disadvantaged to have taken health and social care (alongside the usual academic subjects). Too many medical students are in it for the status or because their parents want them to do it and miss the whole helping people aspect. A health and social care course would help open their eyes to the reasons why it's important to be a good doctor.

My daughter only did GCSE double science (and maths).

Other GCSE subjects were English x 2, History, French, Latin, Drama and RS.

She took Chemistry, Biology and Drama for A level, dropping Maths after AS level.

She is about to finish medical school this year. Never had any questions from admissions people about her choices and has done very well academically.

@NerrSnerr that aspect can be addressed in their pre-application volunteering which is often in care homes or similar environments. A key part of the selection process is the interview which assesses suitability to be a doctor and will draw on their caring experience etc. You can have the best academics there are but if you don’t do well in the interview, you won’t get an offer.

@Abra1t Newcastle doesn’t care which A Levels you studied as long as you can ace the UCAT. They teach you all the science you need to be a doctor.

To summarise, GCSEs can be in anything and some Unis score them. Others just need you to reach a minimum threshold (but all will include core subjects in those grades). But no one care what others are in.

Don't do a language unless going to get a 7. Waste of a GCSE. And new ones are hard.

Some Unis accept BTECs, some don't.

Health and Social care is a fantastic course for anyone entering that area. Even doctors.

UCAT is vital. It is a test designed by pure sadists.

Applying strategically is vital. Once got GCSEs come back and find us here and lots of advice going for free.

Things change so this is all pertinent for this year. You need to check again the year you apply.

Drama is fab and v helpful for interviews. I know several medics with A level drama.

You do not need all 9s and all A stars. Don't listen to anyone's advice (including mine) without checking. People talk a lot of rubbish about medicine.

Great advice @mumsneedwine

Abra1t, I would say your daughter's choices were very good and typical of an academic private school or state grammar. I would say one of History of Geography in place of one of Drama or RS migjht be better as those are traditional English GCSEs but having the two difficult languages is definitely a plus. I did French and German for example. My doctor sibling did French and Latin (I think - it was quite a long time ago so I may be wrong) on the language front.

Nowadays it's surely less so, as thete is more robotics/automation, but being a surgeon is still very much a practical/crafty job, so I would recommend something that practices fine motor skills like DT or Art, or even playing a fiddly instrument. I'm not very dextrous, so have always ruled out surgery, but even at uni and already at school sometimes struggled with practicals like making fine cuts of samples to examine under the microscope or measuring exactly, using pipette etc, so wished I had invested more time during school to train my hands. A friend of mine specialised in surgery as his hobby was carpentry and he definitely liked the similarities between the two jobs.

Thete =there, see, I can't even tap the right letters on my phone, you won't want me anywhere near you with a scalpel 😀

If she's interested in it and she will study, then she'll get a good grade which is all that they will really look at.

as long as she gets good grades in English maths and the three sciences it won’t matter. As it stands she is doing 9 very academic gcses which is more than enough.

@NellyBarney your post reminded me of this from 2018:

www.bbc.com/news/education-46019429

Surgery students 'losing dexterity to stitch patients

...Prof Kneebone says he has seen a decline in the manual dexterity of students over the past decade - which he says is a problem for surgeons, who need craftsmanship as well as academic knowledge.

"A lot of things are reduced to swiping on a two-dimensional flat screen," he says, which he argues takes away the experience of handling materials and developing physical skills.

Such skills might once have been gained at school or at home, whether in cutting textiles, measuring ingredients, repairing something that's broken, learning woodwork or holding an instrument.

Students have become "less competent and less confident" in using their hands, he says.

"We have students who have very high exam grades but lack tactile general knowledge," says the professor...

Having been on the receiving end of the poorly executed closure of a wound with staples myself (admittedly never used staples myself, but did plenty of suturing back in the day as a Sister in A&E and the principles of wound edge approximation are the same) that did rather resonate with me🙁

Not sure whether it is specifically the OCR Level 1 / 2 qualification which is under discussion here , but
have just had a look at the resource guide for teachers for that one and there is a lot in it which is important for anyone dealing with patients / social care clients to have an understanding of (barriers to communication, rights and responsibilities etc) - even doctors.

I've taught HSC, the Cambridge National version, and it is a great syllabus. Lots on legal aspects, what good care requires and how to provide it. Also includes first aid training. Lots have gone on to take it at level 3 and are in the caring profession or the NHS. But a couple have become Drs. As long as you have 9 GCSEs to score it does not matter what they are in (as long as English x2, Maths and Combined science).

She needs a humanities subject ideally, whilst they are not overly picky you want to maximise her chances, I personally would suggest she drops dance at school and just does it as extra curricular