Medicine at KCL, Management intercalated BSc at Imperial, then do investment banking?

Oh no I'm definitely interested in medicine, definitely have the motivation - just I've always liked the look of banking/business as well. Not all medical students go on to be permanent doctors as well you know, a proportion go into scientific research or teaching or legal or other careers entirely, and if I did complete my medical degree, I would most certainly do something related later on in life - e.g. practice/research, just I'd like to explore IB as well. Its not like I'd never use it. More security in medical jobs as well, if IB never turned out well.

I keep hearing it costs £250k to train a medical student to registration, no idea where this figure came from though lol.

if you can get into KCL for med then you could get into Oxbridge/LSE/UCL/ any top uni for science/Finance whatever

Nah, I disagree. Getting into KCL Medicine imo is far more straightforward than elsewhere.

Get 6A*s plus, and then score an 60th quartile score on the UKCAT exam. Neither of which are as difficult as say, going through 3 interviews to get into Natural Sciences at Cambridge.

The NHS website. You're proposing to waste a huge amount of the time of very busy and well trained individuals, to the cost of a quarter of a million of our parents' taxes.

I could say an awful lot but it wouldn't be helpful, so I'll say this- if you're going into medicine and only want it for the degree, then it will show. It will show to your peers, and to your tutors, and in your motivation levels. You will either learn to love medicine and choose to practice, or you'll piss about and fall foul of disillusionment and drop out anyway. If IB is the dream then great, do a course that will teach you the skills you need. Medicine won't. Medical intercalated degrees are medical humanities degrees or medical science degrees- it will teach you about NHS resources and clinical resource rationing. It's a long, hard and wasteful way to get into a career that has far more appropriate entry paths.

You can only know so much from work experience and volunteering and reading and watching GOSH/junior doctors/24 hours in A&E etc - I want to be a doctor, but I also want to do science and business etc, I just need to make my mind up...

Nah, I disagree. Getting into KCL Medicine imo is far more straightforward than elsewhere.

Get 6A*s plus, and then score an 60th quartile score on the UKCAT exam. Neither of which are as difficult as say, going through 3 interviews to get into Natural Sciences at Cambridge.

I have an offer for medicine at KCL and I'm not sure whether I want to do Medicine/Science/Investment Banking in the long run.

Do you think doing a management intercalated Bsc at Imperial, then dropping out after third year would be a good idea if I wanted to go into IB, or do you think I should do the whole 6 year course before doing that, so being a doctor is also always an option?

Or do you think I should reapply for Bio Natural Sciences / Biochemistry, at Cambridge/Oxford, as this would put me in a better situation for two out of three of my possible career choices (Science/IB)

Any advice!
Thanks x

The NHS website. You're proposing to waste a huge amount of the time of very busy and well trained individuals, to the cost of a quarter of a million of our parents' taxes.

I could say an awful lot but it wouldn't be helpful, so I'll say this- if you're going into medicine and only want it for the degree, then it will show. It will show to your peers, and to your tutors, and in your motivation levels. You will either learn to love medicine and choose to practice, or you'll piss about and fall foul of disillusionment and drop out anyway. If IB is the dream then great, do a course that will teach you the skills you need. Medicine won't. Medical intercalated degrees are medical humanities degrees or medical science degrees- it will teach you about NHS resources and clinical resource rationing. It's a long, hard and wasteful way to get into a career that has far more appropriate entry paths.

Medicine is highly regarded in IB circles so there's no need to worry about that. But if you are quite certain (i.e. more than 80%) that IB is the path you want to go into then why spend 6 years at medical school studying for an extremely demanding course which you ultimately do not want a career in?

I mean you do have the option of intercalating and then leaving at year 3 if you wish to do so. Also given the state of the global economy, IB isn't exactly the most lucrative of fields atm. If you've yet to take your exams I'd say forget about this and just focus on exams.

Having completed the BSc Management at Imperial I can confirm, as others have also, that entering IB is perfectly feasible - a few members of my class did so.

You can always have a year out of medicine doing IB, which is more common at medical schools with a preclinical/clinical division.

Whether you will survive 6 years of medical school knowing you want to do IB is questionable (but possible). If you are committed to medicine though, go for it. It's a versatile degree that can be used elsewhere - these options can easily be explored for a year or two.

I like a good troll thread like this. Well done to the OP!

(And if I'm wrong, please feel free to take a screen shot of your UCAS update. That would be fun too.....)

Haha thanks. What is UCAS update? You mean my offers?

Don't you mean your "offers".....LOL! Nice one!

I'm confused, being a doctor shouldn't be a second-option. It'd be thousands of individuals first option if they could. Don't waste a medical school place, they're gold dust!

Universities give out more offers than the number of places available, so really he wouldn't really be taking someone's place. If anyone failed to get an interview, that's because the competition is strong and their application wasn't as competitive. Although the OP may be 50/50 about doing medicine in the long term, his application was obviously competitive enough to get an interview and offer compared to someone who wants to do it 100%.