What exactly is 'Access to Medicine'?

[gullie]

I've been hearing a lot about this lately and I thought I'd look through this forum to see if there's a topic explaining what it is- I couldn't find one.

So, my question is exactly what the title says, what is 'access to medicine'? What does it entail?

I recently completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program but my grades are not enough to get into Medical School (I got 33 points overall with 5 in Chemistry HL and 7 in Biology SL). My High School Diploma is in much better condition (GPA of 6.4) and shows that what I'm really capable of when it comes to Chem. I have a couple options for med school:
- apply to all Australian Universities and hope for the best!
- resit Chemistry (and possibly Economics HL) and only apply to medical schools that accept resit candidates
- get into biomedicine in UK, Australia, USA, Canada or New Zealand and then get into medicine graduate entry.

At least, these are what I think my options are. This brings me to my next question, are there any other options I have to get into medical school?

Another question I have is, what are my chances of each option of getting into medicine? Especially for getting into grad entry medicine, my english friends have been telling me it would be much better to get into direct medicine than graduate entry because graduate entry is much more difficult. Is this true?

I currently do work experience in an international chemical firm's laboratory and volunteer at a hospital's children's ward.

Comments, pretty much anything would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! ^_^

[Alysha]

I can't answer all your questions - but I will give you what I've got.

Simply, yes it is a lot - A LOT harder to get into Graduate medicine than the regular course. Applicants to place is something like 60 to 1, compared to a more reasonable 5 to 1 for undergrad entry.

In terms of application routes - I know there is at least one more. At Kings at least (and Cambridge), i'm not sure of other uni's, there are Natural Science courses you can start, and apply after your 2nd year for entry into medschool (within the same uni i think) provided you have done well enough in these 2 years. Biomed is amongst the courses you can do that from. So this is another option for you if you do start biomed at a UK university.

[Alysha]

Also, assuming you did your highschool in australia - I don't see the harm in applying to Australian Medschools too. If you get in, consider accepting it if you're not too determined to study in UK. If you don't, then all of ur other options to get into medschool are still open, including resitting some of your IB exams.

I am a little confused as to why you would have done IB and have a normal highschool diploma - but perhaps this is how it works in Australia?

If you are going to apply after resitting your IB exams, just look into which uni's take resitters and make sure you're happy with the uni's that will still consider you. If you're not, then there's no point of course.

[gullie]

Hang on! So there's a thing where I apply to a standard biomed course at King's for example and in the second year if I do exceptionally well I'll be able to apply to the 5 year med course? And then they'll be basing my academic requirements off of my course grades not my IB score? How can I apply for this? How much can it be guaranteed that I can get in?

No, no I'm Australian but I completed the my grade 11 and 12 studies in a european international school (if I had a choice, I would've completed high school in Oz, home sweet home). I'll be considered an EU student for 2009 entry in the UK. So both Australia and UK and possibly New Zealand will be cost-friendly =D. Of course I realise there are student loans for international and domestic.

If anyone else can answer my any of my questions in my first post, that would be great! ^_^

[Alysha]

Oh, and one last comment - while i'm at it. Regarding work experience...

From my experience, unfortunately, laboratory work(i.e. research), though it shows your understanding of basic sciences, doesn't seem particularly important for UK Medical schools. At least in my interview - I got probed and grilled about my work experience in the Hospital, and not a single question about any of my (much more extensive) lab work. That said, for American medschools, its an impossibilty to get in without doing some (significant) research.

I also get the feeling, that once you're at uni, they (the UK medical school that is), don't particularly want you to be doing any 'work' on the side of your studies. So you focus. How many students actually live up to this, I do not know.

[gullie]

Well then I'm glad I'm working 3x week in a lab and 3x week in a hospital instead of more of lab than hospital. I was also thinking (if possible, I'll need to speak to my respective supervisors) of doing some work experience in my now ex-high school's early years, possibly helping the youngin's with their english. Do you think the unis like the 'variety'? I'd like to become a paediatrician in the long run which is why I'm focussing on experience with children. Or do you think they'd much prefer experience in a medical related environment? Ah well, at least I'm having fun in the hospital =D

If anyone else can answer my any of my questions in my first post, that would be great! ^_^

[Alysha]

I'm not completely sure of this - in terms of them insisting on medical experience rather than any experience.
I know that I have in the past, during interviews, when asked,something like "mention a time when this or that happened and what did you do?" or "when have you had to multitask?" silly things like this, I think it is perfectly acceptable to draw from work experiences that are not medically related. I'd go for the working with children thing if I were you. It can't exactly harm you I think, and it does show some level of versatility. Especially since you know you want to work with children, it seems like a good idea, and you have a good reason for taking the job.

All you may want to do is prepare a good answer for why you want to be a doctor and not, say a teacher.

I'm gonna go do some research on King's webpage, and return with some information regarding this alternative route into medicine I mentioned.

[Alysha]

http://virtualcampus.kcl.ac.uk/vc/bhs/BHSentry2008.pdf

Thats from kings. Have a look at it, if you can acccess the Pdf file. Either they've changed the rules, or i was Sortof(!) mistaken. But basically, what you can do if you do a bio med degree at kings, is of course, apply as a graduate student the normal way when you are done, OR/AND, here's the added bonus - King's has a scheme they call 'Graduate Screening Scheme' - five year MBBS
(A100). Essentially, it means: As a King’s BSc undergraduate you can apply to study medicine or dentistry at King’s College, before the formal UCAS admission cycle begins in September, through the
internal Graduate Screening Scheme. The advantage is that the UKCAT aptitude test score will not be considered in the assessment of your application and if you are successful, you can secure an interview for the five year programme before you make your UCAS application.

If you scroll down to page 11 of the document (page 15 of the PDF), theres lost more info there.

Also regarding Cambridge - it would seem, in the short 3 years that have passed since I applied for Natural Sciences at Cambridge, they've changed the rules slightly. I distinctly remember transfer into medicine being an option at some point if you study this course.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/unde...alsciences.pdf

Now it looks a little bit different. If you have a look at this link, you will see that unfortunately - they now only offer transfers to courses like Law, management, and other 'nonsense' courses.

So, sorry to disappoint. But, there are schemes like the one at King's that I mentioned at other universities too. Here's one example of something that looks more like the transfer course i described earlier.
Biomed Anyone?

Of course, as always, contact the universities - and check check and double check and make sure that what you are proposing / want to do is a viable option.

[Alysha]

Undergraduate - School of Biomedical Sciences - Newcastle University

good news, here's another transfer course.