study medicine, is it realistic?

gigawatt

Hi, i am in 1st year biological and biomedical sciences. i will be 34 when i finish. is it true i can follow the grad entry route to study medicine? and if so, is it another 4 years in college? that would make me 38 on finishing my studies. what happens after you graduate do you have to do compulsory training in a hospital before you are fully registered? i have read a lot of the other threads re this type of thing, and some of them are muddling and or assume knowledge of the way the system works. i dont want to study abroad or even outside of dublin really. i know i wont be entitled to grants but are scholarships a possibility? how much are fees each year? and what is it actually like for student doctors? is it true that you have to do 80hour weeks? or is it better now? and if not are there reforms on the way? can i sit gamsat now and use my results when/if i go to medical school. any info would be appreciated.thanks

dissed doc

Are you sure it's wise to bother with the biomedical sciences degree at all? if you want to do medicine, you'd be much better off just trying to get in next year. There is little or no benefit to having a full science degree in practice.

Registered doesn't mean anything with regard to actual medical practice. You will likely have to still do an internship year (or perhaps 2, as the HSE is determined to mimic the NHS and PMETB actions of the past few years). After that, you will still only now be eligible to actually start training in your chosen speciality.

Roughly speaking, the minimum time to actually having fully working skills and specialisation is ~ 14 years (6 undergrad, 1 intern, 7 specialisation). It's likely that if you had everything perfectly done, you'd get that down to 11 years at best (4 undergrad, 1 intern, 6 specialisation).

Estimate you'd be around 46-47 by the time you will actually have a fully trained speciality, finishing med school at 38. Hours are bad as an intern and the new contracts for NCHDs have appeared showing that the 40hr work week is spread over any 7 days that the employer chooses (5/7 schedule). However, it will likely be limited 48-56hrs at that stage (paid anyway, likely the usual extra 20-30 unpaid as in the US, UK, etc., ).

piby

gigawatt wrote: »

Hi, i am in 1st year biological and biomedical sciences. i will be 34 when i finish. is it true i can follow the grad entry route to study medicine? and if so, is it another 4 years in college? that would make me 38 on finishing my studies. what happens after you graduate do you have to do compulsory training in a hospital before you are fully registered? i have read a lot of the other threads re this type of thing, and some of them are muddling and or assume knowledge of the way the system works. i dont want to study abroad or even outside of dublin really. i know i wont be entitled to grants but are scholarships a possibility? how much are fees each year? and what is it actually like for student doctors? is it true that you have to do 80hour weeks? or is it better now? and if not are there reforms on the way? can i sit gamsat now and use my results when/if i go to medical school. any info would be appreciated.thanks

Tbh most of your questions have been answered in the 3/4 other threads that have been knocking about on this forum if ya have a look. The only one I'd say that hasn't is the issue of scholarships and AFAIK they're pretty hard to come by, particularly in Irish universities (unless they're sports related). Thus you'd have to finance it yourself. Its €25,000 a year but the government pay €13,000 of that. Still over the four years that's €48,000 in fees alone :eek::eek::eek:

chanste

If you think its what you want to do then you should definitely do it. I'm on GEM course in UL and 34 is not THAT old. But all you should be concerned about are the functional things and don't worry what other people think.

Can you afford it?
Do you think you'll get in?
Will you be happy enough to change from whatever your doing at the moment to being at the bottom of the ladder in this for some considerable time.

I'm 29 and in 1st year and I think that is about the average age on our course for what thats worth. For the record I love it and having packed in a teaching career for it I (so far - early days yet :-) ) have no regrets.