Becoming a Doctor..

MrCreosote

No

Medicine opens the door to some very good, and rewarding, jobs.
But that's all they are in the end of the day- jobs. Never think of it as a vocation- if you do you'll either burn-out or get ridden over by management/other workers and so on.

If anybody is thinking of doing med, the only bits of advice I'd have are to get some outside interests, never think you're indispensable, and jealously protect all your free time.

niaroh1x96

No

Hello everyone, thanks v much for the big response, has really helped me :pac: ....ATM i am not too sure about going into medicine (but this could change again ) ....heading more towards radiography & pharmacy now.

I think if radiography was offered in UCC this is what I'd go for, but unfortunately its not , UCC is where I would most like to go to college because its nearest to where I live (even though I'd still have to stay in Cork), and it's where most of my friends will be going, I know that you should not pick a college for these reasons but I really want to enjoy my time in college and not be too far from home :pac:

However , I think i would prefer radiography to pharmacy so maybe UCD is for me ....

Also, I know most of ye here hate talking about money :p, but dont pharmacists & radiographer make roughly the same???:pac:

any suggestions, opinions etc.;) greatly appriciated

just-joe

dissed doc wrote: »

I would say if it's on your mind, do it and don't be worried about not liking it. There is no question, you will find something in medicine that fits your mindset and life. You might not like some parts and really enjoy other parts but mostly, medicine is simple a framework for your actual career.

As a prospective med student - cheers a lot for this advice. I've had almost the same words from a couple of doctors I've met too, and it really is quite reassuring. I've been wondering about the whole thing for a while, but am leaning towards doing it more and more these days.

At what time do most med students//interns decide on which career path to take?

sam34

just-joe wrote: »

At what time do most med students//interns decide on which career path to take?

there will be one or two who know from the outset of med school - eg a friend of mine always said she wanted to do paeds, and thats what she is doing now, very successfully.

then there will be others who will pontificate loudly all along about wanting to be surgeons/intensivests/whatevers yet you will find ten years later that they are doing dermatology!

for me, i hadnt a clue in college what i wanted to do, until i did my undergraduate psych and i knew then that psych was where it was at for me.

some people dont know for years, so will do general medical schemes or surgical schemes before diverging off elsewhere, eg radiology or GP

tl;dr, dont freak out about not knowing where you want to end up. very few people end up where they originally thought they'd end up.

jmn89

No

just-joe wrote: »

As a prospective med student - cheers a lot for this advice. I've had almost the same words from a couple of doctors I've met too, and it really is quite reassuring. I've been wondering about the whole thing for a while, but am leaning towards doing it more and more these days.

At what time do most med students//interns decide on which career path to take?

Yeah Sam speaks the truth. I'm in final med now and have always found that what I swear blindly I'll do forever just happens to be what I'm doing at that moment. I've found it easier to outrule a few things - (didn't really enjoy my GP placement at all and I have no interest in standing in theatre all day). I'm getting a better idea at this point though.

A few people have had epiphanies over the years and have focussed themselves. Most of us are quite happily less clued in though and more inclined to go with the flow. A lot of people finish their internship and still don't really know beyond med vs surg etc. You have years yet - worry about getting into medicine first!

just-joe

jmn89 wrote: »

You have years yet - worry about getting into medicine first!

Ha yeah I'm definitely not contemplating the finer sides of a career in medicine, was a "just out of interest" question.. God knows if I'll ever make it in the door?!

Thanks!

niaroh1x96

No

niaroh1x96 wrote: »

Hello everyone, thanks v much for the big response, has really helped me :pac: ....ATM i am not too sure about going into medicine (but this could change again ) ....heading more towards radiography & pharmacy now.

I think if radiography was offered in UCC this is what I'd go for, but unfortunately its not , UCC is where I would most like to go to college because its nearest to where I live (even though I'd still have to stay in Cork), and it's where most of my friends will be going, I know that you should not pick a college for these reasons but I really want to enjoy my time in college and not be too far from home :pac:

However , I think i would prefer radiography to pharmacy so maybe UCD is for me ....

Also, I know most of ye here hate talking about money :p, but dont pharmacists & radiographer make roughly the same???:pac:

any suggestions, opinions etc.;) greatly appriciated

anyone?? :P

Phoenix Park

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

Be a dentist! Lots of money in that. In medicine, you will be learning until the day you retire, you're professionally obliged to keep up to date and medicine changes very quickly.

Perhaps get the facts straight before spouting the like of the above. I presumed when i saw your post the year was 2006 not 2010. If you keep up with the news you might learn there have been just a FEW changes to dentistry in this country in the past couple of years, its not a career to get into for the money nowadays thats for sure with the decimation of the public schemes available (if anyone was thick enough solely to do it for money in the first place).
Also, dentists are professionally obliged to keep up to date as well as doctors.
Getting into medicine or dentistry for financial gain alone is a fast-track to depression imo

ontheditch2

Am after applying for medicine as a mature student, filled out the forms as best i could.
In the unlikely case i do get offered a course, could i just get a few questions answered.
1.) I have an Honours degree already, how much will my fees be?? Did not get a 2:1, so not able to apply for Graduate route.
2.) When does a doctor start earning money? (If i do this, i will have to pay for it all off my own back, i should be able to get a loan, but how long will i have to get it) Do doctors get paid for any of the 5 years as a college student.
Has anyone on here gone this route, if so, how is it going?

Thanks

Chunky Monkey

No

ontheditch2 wrote: »

Am after applying for medicine as a mature student, filled out the forms as best i could.
In the unlikely case i do get offered a course, could i just get a few questions answered.
1.) I have an Honours degree already, how much will my fees be?? Did not get a 2:1, so not able to apply for Graduate route.
2.) When does a doctor start earning money? (If i do this, i will have to pay for it all off my own back, i should be able to get a loan, but how long will i have to get it) Do doctors get paid for any of the 5 years as a college student.
Has anyone on here gone this route, if so, how is it going?

Thanks

Don't know the first one, but for the second question, no you don't get paid as a med student, you'll start earning as soon as you graduate.

starry nights

just curious how much do interns get paid?

im only a 1st med but i was just wondering..

RobFowl

No

starry nights wrote: »

just curious how much do interns get paid?

im only a 1st med but i was just wondering..

2010 figures here, a basic salary of €33,619.30

http://www.imo.ie/IMOPage_2_29.aspx?ID=376&No=0

theowen

RobFowl wrote: »

2010 figures here, a basic salary of €33,619.30

http://www.imo.ie/IMOPage_2_29.aspx?ID=376&No=0

Wonder what that'd be with over time etc. Someone in my class said 70,000/80,000? Can anyone confirm?

ttmd

I think its wrong to play down that medicine is stable and reasonably well paying career too much. I think people can be put off by too medics talking about how difficult the career is - but a high percentage of careers are difficult nowadays, and most of them don't have the pay and employment prospects that medicine has.

Its wrong to say its easier to earn lots of money in some other career- its hard to earn a lot of money in just about any career.

Sure you can point to business people earning multiples of medics salaries, but they could go bust overnight.

Again I would never doubt that medics work very very hard, but I really do think they grossly underestimate the difficulty of a lot professions.

And Doctors are not the only ones in the world doing unpaid overtime.

imported_guy

ttmd wrote: »

I think its wrong to play down that medicine is stable and reasonably well paying career too much. I think people can be put off by too medics talking about how difficult the career is - but a high percentage of careers are difficult nowadays, and most of them don't have the pay and employment prospects that medicine has.

Its wrong to say its easier to earn lots of money in some other career- its hard to earn a lot of money in just about any career.

Sure you can point to business people earning multiples of medics salaries, but they could go bust overnight.

Again I would never doubt that medics work very very hard, but I really do think they grossly underestimate the difficulty of a lot professions.

And Doctors are not the only ones in the world doing unpaid overtime.

how many billionaires on forbes 400 hold a medical degree?

okay thanks.

/sarcasm

---

this is the only guy on the list with a medical degree http://www.forbes.com/profile/gary-michelson he didnt get there by being a doctor.

everyone else has either a business/science/engineering degree, theres alot of laywers on that list too.


bottom line, everyone else is better off, statistically speaking.

dissed doc

theowen wrote: »

Wonder what that'd be with over time etc. Someone in my class said 70,000/80,000? Can anyone confirm?

No. Used to be the case, on e.g., 1 in 4 on call rota, you could pick up maybe 60-70k doing 80hr weeks, but it takes its toll on you.

New rosters will see shift work, no overtime as before.

Vorsprung

dissed doc wrote: »

No. Used to be the case, on e.g., 1 in 4 on call rota, you could pick up maybe 60-70k doing 80hr weeks, but it takes its toll on you.

New rosters will see shift work, no overtime as before.

I think I got about 60k in my intern year, that was with an average of 1 in 8 across the year

Edit 1 - this will be obviously a lot less with the new taxes that have come on board the last few years

Edit 2 - if you're doing medicine for tue money, don't!

lonestargirl

Vorsprung wrote: »

I think I got about 60k in my intern year, that was with an average of 1 in 8 across the year

Edit 1 - this will be obviously a lot less with the new taxes that have come on board the last few years

+ the 10% public service paycut
60k seems about right if memory serves me correctly, remember the first 6 months are proportionality better paid as you have a full year of tax credits

Vorsprung wrote: »

Edit 2 - if you're doing medicine for tue money, don't!

++1

Brods

niaroh1x96 wrote: »

Hello everyone, thanks v much for the big response, has really helped me :pac: ....ATM i am not too sure about going into medicine (but this could change again ) ....heading more towards radiography & pharmacy now.

I think if radiography was offered in UCC this is what I'd go for, but unfortunately its not , UCC is where I would most like to go to college because its nearest to where I live (even though I'd still have to stay in Cork), and it's where most of my friends will be going, I know that you should not pick a college for these reasons but I really want to enjoy my time in college and not be too far from home :pac:

However , I think i would prefer radiography to pharmacy so maybe UCD is for me ....

Also, I know most of ye here hate talking about money :p, but dont pharmacists & radiographer make roughly the same???:pac:

any suggestions, opinions etc.;) greatly appriciated

What is it about radiography that attracts you? The name, the medically-related job, the instruments, the physics, the patient contact (?) etc?? I like tech/gadgets as much as the next boardsie but I just can't imagine being a radiographer.

To be fair, I don't really know a lot about the job but on an orthopaedics rotation I saw the radiographer (and her student) pushing an x-ray machine around the operating theatre until the surgeon was happy with the image, leaving for another operation then being called back to check the placement of the screws in the lady's hip.

Maybe I have an underlying need to be in charge/control or something but this seems a bit unfulfilling to me? I'm glad someone is doing the job of course, it’s completely part of delivering patient care but glad it’s not me at the same time (This is written in ignorance as to what the entire job entails so please don't take offence and correct me if I'm way off the mark). I admire people who can do health sci courses and not be doing medicine as I think you need more of vocation because, as was said above, you can be overworked and underappreciated (/paid), or struggle to get a job in Ireland when you qualify- like a lot of my friends doing physio. I've yet to learn of a more employable person than a medical graduate and there are great opportunities to travel and work/train.

https://myucd.ucd.ie/program.do?programID=19 I think UCD are always gonna try to sell the course, so take this with a pinch of salt or try talk to a radiographer or a student. I'm sure they’re busy but from my experience, people tend to make time to talk about their jobs to someone who's interested.

As far as pharmacy goes, I did it for a year and changed to medicine. Still not sure I'm going in the right direction but I certainly NEVER looked back and wished I'd stuck it out... My friends who did are, on the whole, happy now but there was 7 people who left in first year (out of 70 odd) to do medicine and a few more are studying/applying to Grad Med after they qualify. As far as medicine goes, maybe 5 (of 130) dropped out and ended up in a load of different courses. This ratio kinda speaks to me. There are probably a lot more people who do other courses and would wanna do med than those that do medicine and wish they did something else.* I didn't do medicine first time around because I didn't think I wanted to do it enough, whatever that means. I saw my friends saying "I want to do med and nothing else. I'll repeat if I don't get in..." and psyched myself out.

As far as the Medicine goes, if it interests you and you get in, you'll be fine. This is my 5th year in college and I still don’t have a clue what I wanna do. I worry about it sometimes but then reality kicks in, there are a hundred different jobs I can do when I finish; there'll be something in Medicine for me (and everyone else!)

What college you go to doesn't matter, you will be stuck with the same people for 5/6 years, they will be your best friends when you qualify and for the rest of your life probably. People say Trinity has the best reputation, but I have no idea what people in Johns Hopkins know about TCD and most likely what they do know will never affect me! (Even though I wanna train in the States.)

Money and stability are both quite important to me in choosing to do Medicine, but so are the driving desires to understand how people work and how it all goes wrong. The body is fascinating. I will do research and, hopefully, enlighten us to some part of the processes going on inside.

(Ps I think a lot of the money is gone from Pharmacy too... Read about the conflicts last year and reference pricing etc)


*May have invented this statistic

just-joe

imported_guy wrote: »

bottom line, everyone else is better off, statistically speaking.

Thats a bit of a dumb statistic to use.. even if you were being sarcastic. Especially if you think for a second - I'd say their success has nothing at all to do with what they studied.

If you had some statistic about being relatively well off (whatever that may mean I don't know, but if you ask anyone thats probably all they want in life. all they should want, anyways) and what line of work they are in, then I'd say all doctors fit into that category. I agree with ttmd, many careers are difficult, and many are hard to earn a lot of money in.

niaroh1x96

No

Brods wrote: »

What is it about radiography that attracts you? The name, the medically-related job, the instruments, the physics, the patient contact (?) etc?? I like tech/gadgets as much as the next boardsie but I just can't imagine being a radiographer.

tbh i think its just the fact that people keep saying that if I choose to do medicine i wont have much free time etc.

i do want to work in a hospital, i know that for sure, but what role i want to play in the hospital is what im having trouble deciding...

i think im swaying towards radiography atm is because its a job with fairly normal working hours/shifts and I wont be forced to work massive long days (+ nights ) ...


I want to work to live, not live to work...however i also want to really enjoy and like my job :P

niaroh1x96

No

this is also turning me off medicine aswell #

Just to point out a wee few things that people should know before starting a career in medicine in Ireland...............

First as an intern/ sho / reg you will be spending about 1 night in 5-8 in the hospital and
the next night sleeping it off totally exhausted. This means anything up to 25% of your nights you will not be around at all for fiance/wife/dog/kids/whatever.This is much worse if you want to be a surgeon.

You will be doing this at least 10 years - if you start at 28 you will finnish your training at 38 ie 38 years old and still working 36-80 hour straight shifts up to 100 hours per week and beyond.

After you complete SPR training (after 10 years) you are pretty much unemployable. Now if you have avoided it before you will be forced to emigrate, maybe 20% manage to come back to consultancy post. Most stay gone

You will be forced to spend many months and even years away from wherever you live staffing rundown country hospitals. This means either leaving your families or uprouting them every 3 months as you desperately search for jobs with no contract longer than 6 months or so.

Your starting salary as an intern will be around 33000 ( thats after 6% chop).The vast majority of the hours you work will not be paid. I work around 20 hours per week for which i am not paid and I work in one of the better hospitals.You will have to pay thousands in fee's for "training" courses, bull**** exams, medical councils fees, malpractice insurance etc (after tax) This means you will struggle desperately to pay any debts you have incurred as part of your training.The increase as you get experience is terrible - hospital porters make more per hour overtime than SPRs.

You will spend most of your time doing non medical jobs that cany nurses refuse to do - drawing up medications, taking blood, putting on ecg leads. You will spend a lot of time catering to your consultants private patients whims. If you offend a consultant - career over. Expect a lot of bullying.

Medical Admin hate you. Every so often they come up with a new plan to screw you. Your union is a joke, you will be constantly exploited. Our hospital pretends we all work 48 hours a week and are working time directive compliant. In reality people are still working eighty hour straight shifts without a break.Lunch is an overpriced sandwich eaten while doing dictations in clinic.

Your friends will be alienated by your constant non attendence at social events. Pretty soon your only social contacts are run down doctors and all you have the energy to do is bitch and moan.

You will spend you home hours studying for exams which have failure rates of 80% and cost nearly 600 euro a go. If your not doing that, you will be forced into spending your time doing micky mouse research to try and make yourself employable.

And on top of all that - when you qualify the numbers of medical students will have risen from 450 to 600 ! Each year the number of jobs grows less. The competion will be fierce, your lives wont be worth living.Gp might be a way out for a few but the college have an iron grip on the number of places and there are already hundreds who miss out.

And lastly - its getting worse. We had our 7 years of plenty and ended up with a run down dying health service. Now our years of famine have started and it gets worse everyday. By the time you graduate medicine will be a McDonaldesque career - low salary long hours no training, if you dont want it fine - there are hundreds more medical students waiting. If medicine is your vocation and you dont need sleep or food or family thats fine, by all means chose this career but otherwise watch out. And dont say you weren't warned..........

QueenOfLeon

No

niaroh1x96 wrote: »

tbh i think its just the fact that people keep saying that if I choose to do medicine i wont have much free time etc.

i do want to work in a hospital, i know that for sure, but what role i want to play in the hospital is what im having trouble deciding...

i think im swaying towards radiography atm is because its a job with fairly normal working hours/shifts and I wont be forced to work massive long days (+ nights ) ...


I want to work to live, not live to work...however i also want to really enjoy and like my job :P

Have you looked into nursing/occupational therapy/speech and language therapy?

I'd imagine they're more patient centred than radiography if thats what you're looking for, with more regular hours than medicine, especially the therapies.