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How hard is a Medicine degree?

For those of you currently at medical school, please give us your honest opinion, how hard is your degree? Is there no time for a social life? Is the work load manageable? Is the course too challenging or hard but doable?

I'd like to study Medicine but if the degree is about remembering too much, how do you do it?

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Reply 1
Avatar for Helenia
Helenia
20
How long is a piece of string?

It varies a lot depending on your course and uni, not to mention your personal strengths, but given that the majority of people who get in do eventually graduate as doctors, it's clearly "doable." There are plenty of threads around the forum about social life etc - short answer is that you can have one most of the time but have to learn to balance it and sacrifice it come exam time.
There are so many different considerations for this question, as in medicine can be hard for a variety of different reasons (and whether or not you'll find it hard for those reasons would depend on your individual strengths. Volume of work, length of the course, content... Different people find different things 'hard'. Medicine is hard work, but it's not overwhelming. It's a challenging and demanding course, but it's fascinating and varied. There is certainly time for plenty of social life, but you need to be proactive in organising your time. In medicine you get good at discerning what absolutely needs to be done vs what's a waste of time, particularly in the clinical years. I personally found the length of the course hard, particularly when non-medics I started first year with all graduated, got jobs, mortgages... and I was still a student. But it is very much worth it.
Reply 3
Avatar for 7589200
7589200
18
8.7/10
Reply 4
Avatar for Elles
Elles
17
Original post by Vazzyb
8.7/10


What are your reference 0/10, 5/10 and 10/10 degrees,plz?

















:wink:
Reply 5
Avatar for 7589200
7589200
18
Original post by Elles
What are your reference 0/10, 5/10 and 10/10 degrees,plz?



KS2 SATs Maths

A Levels Maths

University Maths Degree (at say Cambridge)

!


lol my post was more to illustrate helen's point tho
There are three things to do at university: Work, drink (i.e. socialise) and sleep. You can only do two of these well.
Reply 7
Avatar for Vanny17
Vanny17
19
Original post by Helenia
How long is a piece of string?

It varies a lot depending on your course and uni, not to mention your personal strengths, but given that the majority of people who get in do eventually graduate as doctors, it's clearly "doable." There are plenty of threads around the forum about social life etc - short answer is that you can have one most of the time but have to learn to balance it and sacrifice it come exam time.



A piece of string is always two times the length from the midpoint to the end
To the Op: It takes motivation and time plan.
I'm thinking about doing medicine but I'm not that good at chemistry. Does that matter?
Original post by Anna.A123
I'm thinking about doing medicine but I'm not that good at chemistry. Does that matter?


It doesn't matter as far as doing well in medical school goes (there's no pure chemistry and not that much biochem) but unless you get an A for your chemistry A level you won't be able to get an offer.

So the short answer is, yes it matters, but only for getting in!
The concepts aren't challenging. There is a lot of information, but much of the foundations become second nature. The hours are generally that of a full time job +/- revision time during exams.

At the end of the day, you ain't slogging it in the baking mid-day sun slinging tarmac at the roadside. It's not that hard. You have the absolute pleasure of using your brain everyday which is better than most things you could be doing.
Thanks for the replies, I'm also a bit unsure about the whole body anatomy thing, having to disect bodies sounds a bit queasy. Also I couldn't ever inject anyone, I mean I think I could get used to it. Would I have problems? Does that mean I couldn't do medicine? I love it and I'd love to be a GP. That does not involve having to disect anyone
Original post by Anna.A123
Thanks for the replies, I'm also a bit unsure about the whole body anatomy thing, having to disect bodies sounds a bit queasy. Also I couldn't ever inject anyone, I mean I think I could get used to it. Would I have problems? Does that mean I couldn't do medicine? I love it and I'd love to be a GP. That does not involve having to disect anyone


There are medical schools which don't do dissection, but most of them still use prosections (pre-dissected specimens) which you will have to touch, move around etc.

You will have to inject people and take blood from them. Many are squeamish about this but most people do get used to it.
I found first year really hard mentally because I felt like I had to sacrifice months of my life just to revise, which isn't fun. But there's no chemistry and nothing that needs much understanding. Just vast amounts of information that doesn't fit in your brain.
(edited 9 years ago)
Right ok thanks a lot, if you were to revise as you go along would there be any problem? As in when it comes to exams?
Reply 15
Avatar for ab192
ab192
8
Original post by Anna.A123
Right ok thanks a lot, if you were to revise as you go along would there be any problem? As in when it comes to exams?


How do you mean revise as you go along?
You will have to work consistently to keep up with the degree (e.g. go over lectures, do PBL etc.) and I found I had to go over some of the more difficult systems such as neuro and renal again before I started 'revising' to properly absorb them. But this kind of balances out as I found some of the other systems like psych much easier, so did less work.
Like the other posters have said, the concepts in medicine are not difficult at all, it is merely the volume of information that you have to absorb (when I said those systems are more difficult, I really meant there's just more to remember).
On top of working throughout the year, most people will also start revising more in the build up (as you'd expect) and at my uni anyway there are weeks after teaching finishes and in between exams set aside for revision.
It's also important to remember that this is just my experience and as everyone has their own way of working, you might find that you get into a different swing of work which works better for you.
Original post by ab192
How do you mean revise as you go along?
You will have to work consistently to keep up with the degree (e.g. go over lectures, do PBL etc.) and I found I had to go over some of the more difficult systems such as neuro and renal again before I started 'revising' to properly absorb them. But this kind of balances out as I found some of the other systems like psych much easier, so did less work.
Like the other posters have said, the concepts in medicine are not difficult at all, it is merely the volume of information that you have to absorb (when I said those systems are more difficult, I really meant there's just more to remember).
On top of working throughout the year, most people will also start revising more in the build up (as you'd expect) and at my uni anyway there are weeks after teaching finishes and in between exams set aside for revision.
It's also important to remember that this is just my experience and as everyone has their own way of working, you might find that you get into a different swing of work which works better for you.


Thanks a lot, this helped
It's piss easy. My brother's in his 3rd year and he just dosses about all year and passes. The fact that you either get a pass or a fail also means theres no reward in working extra hard to get them top scores

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(edited 9 years ago)
All medical students have to do dissection, the type depending on their medical school. I think if you aren't interested in how the body works and are squeamish medicine is a poor career choice. There is alot of putting your fingers in orifices and sticking needles in people.
I didn't find it particularly difficult as a degree but I enjoyed the subject matter. You do have to work consistently and it's a full time degree course, none of this 4 lectures a week malarky.
I loved my time at uni though and the work load gets worse when you qualify so a fluffy lightweight degree would be poor preparation for the job.
My son's about to start mech eng though and that looks fairly full on as well, so it depends which other degrees you are comparing it to.
Original post by taysidefrog
All medical students have to do dissection, the type depending on their medical school. I think if you aren't interested in how the body works and are squeamish medicine is a poor career choice. There is alot of putting your fingers in orifices and sticking needles in people.
I didn't find it particularly difficult as a degree but I enjoyed the subject matter. You do have to work consistently and it's a full time degree course, none of this 4 lectures a week malarky.
I loved my time at uni though and the work load gets worse when you qualify so a fluffy lightweight degree would be poor preparation for the job.
My son's about to start mech eng though and that looks fairly full on as well, so it depends which other degrees you are comparing it to.


But it's not unbearable is it? Dissection? I mean I think I could get used to it. And the workload I have no problem with. I was just concerned with the amount of chemistry in the course?

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