Medicine 2025 entry

[HGC2]

Inspired and slightly terrified reading the 2023 entry threads and how much prep has to go into a medicine application!

DC wants to do medicine, probably in Scotland as a Scottish student, doing well at school but this doesn't seem to be enough! School has little / no experience of applications for medicine as a not fantastic state school!

Can anyone advise what work experience / volunteering they will need (currently volunteering at sports club with hope of job)
what are the spreadsheets that people talk about?
How do you strategically apply?

I have one child at uni and they just applied and got a place, this seems like a whole other level!

£15.53 is wide of the mark as everyone knows.

Those doctors need the BMA do they can earn more than they did making coffee at Uni.

Not if the BMA thinks it is fine to discriminate against them because they are pregnant. They then might have to start making coffee again (presumably in London as my DD has been looking for a job and Barista’s here don’t make anything like that).

@Karolinska I am not. I send many to Oxbridge every year. Love the place and the staff, However you are the type of person who puts them off, claiming Oxbridge students are better than others, when they know they are not. Fortunately I've come across v few students who are arrogant, but the attitude from some seems to prevail. Saying they are not better than others is not slagging them off 🤷‍♀️.

The BMA may not have been great in the past. But for now it's doing its job for the junior doctors. Do you mean £15.53 is way off what they should earn, or what they do ? Because I can prove that F1s earn that as it's written on their payslip. On Christmas Day.

Given there does seem to be an advantage to Oxbridge, how much value would you put on that advantage? I have a DS looking to study medicine. As a Scottish student it will be free in Scotland but not in England where he will have to pay 5/6 years of fees. Is it worth it?

@Sloejelly Costa pay £16.45 an hour in London. My student who works at a West London branch just told me

@Sloejelly I give up. Yes, you should incur £80,000 of debt because Oxbridge will help your career. Madness. If you're Scottish stay in Scotland. It's free. Unless you're hideously wealthy and money means nothing.

Thank you to everyone offering to help me sell my spreadsheet. I don't do it for the money, but to level the playing field. Not every school has somebody who knows the game (private or state). Let's make it fair so everyone gets a shot, they are all equally as bright and lovely.

Do you mean £15.53 is way off what they should earn, or what they do ? Because I can prove that F1s earn

There definitely an argument for increased pay for junior doctors, including those in their first year of training after graduating, but to suggest it is a salary earned by all junior doctors is disingenuous. It is like saying non-silk barristers earn £21k a year because that is the minimum set by the BSB for pupils and what some are paid. It is how the public are put off.

How do you get to £80k? Only fees differ and they are not £80k

Personally find the BMA, not very helpful. A good number of my colleagues have given up their membership many moons ago.

@Sloejelly a typical consultant interview panel will have the CEO/ medical or surgical director, a lay person, a representative from the relevant royal college, potentially 2- 3 speciality colleagues ( 1 from subspeciality) and from HR. Chances of more than 2 people on the panel having gone to the same university will probably not be common. Indeed some may not have even gone to university at all.
Also just to clarify I didn’t go to Oxbridge, sorry if you misunderstood my earlier post.

@Karolinska, I don’t mean to be rude by not answering your questions. You are not far off re my username though.

Also I don’t understand the concept of popular/more competitive specialties. There is a wide difference of interests, so this is subjective

puddinglane is signing off now, I think

@Sloejelly wow. Just wow. A senior doctor not knowing what their staff earn. £15.53 is their hourly rate for 40 hours. And every other hour that they work before 9pm. So if they work a 72 hour week they are paid 72 hours at £15.53. So yes. More than their basic pay of £32,000, but still £15.53 an hour, including on Christmas Day.

@Sloejelly if you go to Oxford you'll pay their fees of £9,250. Assuming the minimum loan of £4,500 that's £13,750 for 5 years. So £55,000. Assuming for the last year you get the minimum bursary and loan, that's another £3,000 ish. Total £70,000+. Assuming fees for last year accommodation it makes it around £80,000.

mumsneedwine please stop trying to make this an Oxbridge thing. I've been clear from the outset that it's a group of unis not Oxbridge alone.

I certainly don't put anyone off Oxbridge. You are not the only person who has been involved in widening educational access. Please do stop talking as though you have a monopoly, because it's patronising.

Puddinglane thanks. Also, yes I quite see that interests differ. Nevertheless the numbers suggest that cardiology say is much more popular (therefore - perhaps arguably - competitive) than psychiatry. And despite what others may say, the pull of London compared to Wales (as one example) seems as strong as ever. I simply meant on those bases.

But that is the total cost not the cost of studying in England vs studying Scotland where living and accommodation costs will also be incurred.

Obviously in purely short-term financial terms it is a terrible move.

@Karolinska wasn't me who made it about Oxbridge. I believe the person claiming they produce better medics made it about Oxbridge. Lovely Unis, but others are available. And produce just as good doctors. Who will earn £15.53 an hour.

Incoming news tonight from the BMA about strikes. Wonder who has come up with a plan for FPR....

mumsneedwine you made it about Oxbridge. I have from the outset named a collective of unis - five to six. It always seems to happen but it's a gauche move. My posts are very clear.

Incidentally for those concerned about pay, DS is six years on from graduating and told me a couple of months ago that his salary will be brushing £70k when he starts his new job in September. It's really not that bad. That's not to say I'm not fully behind a pay rise for junior doctors but the pay is not dire. Some of the contract needs a re-write though - but all the noise is about pay. The figure quoted by mumsneedwine is purely a catchy headline; everyone knows it (well, almost everyone :)).

The entry process is challenging and the medical schools don't only look at exam results. I know a couple of doctors who followed this route. They worked in hospital as a healthcare assistants first. This did them well at the interview stage. Good academic results are a must. However even academically gifted people still get turned down for medical school places.

End of discussion from me. I can't even engage with people who know nothing about the current issues for foundation doctors.

But I don't like being called a liar.

£32,398 / 52 = £623 a month. Divide that by 40 hours ? £15.57. Which is actually rounded down to £15.33.

Headline crap ? Not, the reality of being a F1 doctor.

Not sure how a ST1/CT1 is earning £70,000 when base pay for 40 hours is £43,923 - that's a hell of a lot of OOH.

@Karolinska see your Ds is 6 years post qualifying, so had no idea of the training issues this year for F2. And no idea of how FPR has affected foundation years. Bet he had locums to earn extra cash ? They've dried up too.

Honestly, I hate arrogance and people thinking they are better because they went to someone's random choice of 6 Unis.

If you mean me mumsneedwine then I have to say I couldn't be more familiar with them. Pay is an issue but the junior doctors' contract and the terms and conditions of that contract are arguably a bigger issue than pay. I'm not clear that you're that familiar with what happens beyond the application process tbh. I'm sure the spreadsheet is very helpful but I'm just not clear that you know much more about life after that for a junior doctor - purely based on what you say in your posts. I thought for those parents of applicants worrying about your insistence on £15.53 it might be healthy to say that is for the purposes of propaganda - another poster has usefully compared it to barristers' pay - also to show that a junior doctor who is making steady progress does actually earn a very respectable amount. Scratching the surface is a good thing and not doing so can skew reality.

Why did you cut the scale short?

mumsneedwine DS has never done locum shifts.

You're making a huge assumption that all I know is through my own DS1. There's your first somewhat basic error.

Even if my sole knowledge was repeating my DS1 like a parrot, I have to say that since he looks after the team under him - and is the type of person who gets on extremely well with colleagues generally speaking - he is immersed in the current challenges they face.

And also apart from any further stream of info that I might have, another son's fiancee is a final year Oxford medic who had just been given her 18th choice of deanery.

Obviously DS1 isn't better than everyone else. He was ranked second nationally in his specialty not first.

And the unis named aren't random are they? They're the ones which seem to produce the doctors most likely to progress though the subsequent stages of training. That's not random - quite the opposite.

Back to applying for medicine.

@Sloejelly ??? That is the total junior doctor pay scale. What else did you expect to see ? Sorry, but confused as nothing cut short.

www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/pay/junior-doctors-pay-scales/pay-scales-for-junior-doctors-in-england

For anyone who likes a bit of fact checking (me).