Honest advise from someone who knows please?

[3rd time lucky?]

I’m 24 in November and I have just suffered my 2nd failure at getting into medical school. I’ve always wanted to be a doctor and have consistently seeked out work experience to achieve this goal (including going all the way to Ghana to do a 5 week elective in the surgical department of a teaching hospital, volunteering with the elderly and children on the autistic spectrum for 2 years and working as a receptionist within the NHS for a year) and so after a 3 month period of cursing the GAMSAT/UKCAT and deciding to give up on the whole idea it’s not surprising that my desire to pursue medicine has begun to stir once again. Its become such a big part of me and I won’t be happy until I have a ‘Dr’ in front of my name. More specifically I want to become an obstetrician /gynaecologist. However, having calculated the 4 years of medical school if I get in next year, the 2 foundation years and the 7 years to specialise I’m feeling a bit apprehensive. I don’t want to be poor, baby less and still struggling away in the library at 37!

So my questions are:

a) How does obstetrics and gynaecology compare to other specialities in terms of difficulty, nothing in medicine is easy but is it relatively harder than the others. I’m worried about balancing a family, social life and the endless exams/training

b) What is the salary like while you are specialising? As far as I recall, junior doctors start on about £30 K when working for the NHS, how does this change over the 7 years (on average)

c) Is there much competition for jobs? I don’t want to work my ass off and then have to work even harder to put all that hard work into practice?

In the end I just want to enjoy the job but I don’t want to have to wait until 37 before that enjoyment starts….

[Touche]

a) Obs can be very stressful. Imagine a difficult delivery where everything's going wrong and all are looking to you to make sure mother and baby get through alive...

Gynae is much more relaxed, but you can't do one without the other sadly. I knew a staff grade in GUM who used to be a O&G consultant but gave it up because obs was too stressful.

b) Starting salary is less than you're probably anticipating. Have a look at the latest pay scales here: http://www.ome.uk.com/downloads/DDRB%20report.pdf (Appendix A, Part I)

c) You can check competition for jobs from last year here: Competition Ratios

In a nutshell 2023 applications were made for 289 O&G jobs, putting it on par with traditionally highly competitive specialities like surgery. Getting a job in the speciality you want is probably harder than getting into med school in the first place IMO.

You can enjoy your training. It doesn't all suddenly happen when you become a consultant.

[Stef6788]

Hey,
sorry that you have such a long wait. I'm not a specialist on Uk medical studies and OB/ Gyns so I cannot help you on that part. But I do have kind of the same problem, that i want to study medicine and wasn't taken in the first place. I am currently becoming a nurse before studying medicine.
I think it's agood idea that you already did some things that have to do with medicine. But working as a receptionist is not likely to get u into medical school. I don't know about the UK but here in germany and in the US it is highly recommended to do something social. I for example are part of the german junior red cross. So starting in an organization that maybe has to something to do with helping young mothers or teenagers that got pregnant might help you to get 1. into medical school and 2. show you if that is the right field for you.
Because I have also heard that specialty preferences change with the years of study, mine definitely have by just becoming a nurse. And if you will in the end get a job will depend on your grades, so if medicine is really what you want to do you should manage to get rather good grades!
Good luck
Stef

[Coco]

Watch 'Bodies'. It's a TV series done by the BBC a couple of years back. It'll show what Obs&Gyn is like in real life (and give a fairly accurate potrayal about NHS/Hospital politics). I seriously recommend it (you can buy/rent the box set).

And junior doctors don't start on £30K ...