Medical but not doctor. Degree routes. Looking for ideas.

[OrchidRosetta]

Hi,

my daughter has always wanted to be a dentist, always said this from year 7. Shes mentioned trying for medicine or a doctor more recently, but as she’s 15 it changes understandably. Someone mentioned Pharmacolgy and another friend said try for aesthetics. These are just ideas. As we are now looking at A-levels we are thinking of Bio, Chem, and something else. The last two weeks have made her doubt herself about the competitiveness of these courses. What careers could she look at that aren’t Doctor or Dentist but science. Just want to add not research type. She lives biology in every sense. Chem is really to get into that route of medicine. She’s really great with people and talking so something along those lines, and she says she wants to help people.

Physician Associate?

Maths is the obvious one. Supports the sciences and is required for many, if not most, medical degrees.

Public health. Many ways to get into it, including the option to become a consultant from a non medical background.

Sorry, I misunderstood the question. I thought she was looking for the third A Level!

Ideally maths with those a levels, biomedical engineering?

One of the Allied Health Professions: https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/allied-health-professionals/roles-allied-health-professions

Psychology 3rd A level. Then Nursing or medicine - depending how her A levels go.

Careers that have specialists skills and can have high levels of autonomy that people forget about that don’t have the crazy rotas to moving around the contry:

Cardiac Physiologist
Therapeutic Radiographer
Diagnostic Radiographer
Pharmacy
Dietician
Podiatrist
Physiotherapy
Operating Department Practitioner
Midwifery (still has crazy rotas)

Agree with this

A close friend is a respiratory physiologist

She now earns £££ at a private hospital and is doing a PhD

Radiology?

Speech and language therapist? Highly analytical, new grads go in the nhs at band 5.

Yes this is more what I was looking for. She could go down the medicine route- but not a doctor, if that makes sense.

And what degrees would she be applying for if these were an option?

I didn’t think about speech and language therapist and I like the sound of cardio physiologist.

The AHP roles are specific degrees. If you click on the link above it should give information on degrees.

BioMed or BioChem at uni gets you into all sorts of interesting fields..... From Health Economics, to Medical Consultancy, Pharma, even AI now, as this is the next big thing in drug research.

Add Maths to Biology and Chemistry and that gives a good broad entry into lots of degrees.

What's putting her off dentistry? Is it that I'd so ridiculously competitive?

Has she thought about Dental Therapy instead?

Just to say maths A level is not needed for medicine degrees.... chemistry def, biology in many cases, 3rd A level can be anything.
So if she wants to keep medicine open as an option that is all that is needed.
I dont know about AHP routes re a levels

Optometry. It's more and more a medical role now and you have to talk to people all day if she's good at that.

Has she had a go at this quiz? https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/FindYourCareer

good god please don't

@ramonaquimby my thoughts too 😂. Not unless they want to be unemployed.

Suggest she have a look at the specialities available on the STP (Scientific Training Programme) to get an idea of the range of science based professions in the NHS. This might help her direct her choice of A levels.

Biochemist or biomedical scientist spec in chemistry

Medical research type roles too if she's very into biology & chemistry

Osteopathy - involves a lot of medical knowledge without being a doctor.