Leaving medicine

I have recently completed my medical degree. I had a feeling from the first 2 years I may not want to be a doctor and when I got to clinical years I knew it wasn;t for me. After people convincing me to stay I decided tot ry and intercalation to see if I would like the research side, however I was not very good at it, but managed to get a 2.1. By then I only had a couple of years left and stayed. People, from friends to careers advisors kept telling me the advantages of staying and to finish the degree because it opens opportunities outside of medicine. Now that I have started F1, and realized how much i hate it I have applied for a lot of jobs.

The problem is, i have no skills elsewhere. When people kept saying 'you can do anything with a medical degree', it turns out to be completely untrue. Outside of healthcare the only things other people who leave medicine seem to go into is management/recruitment consultancy, sales and investment banking which I have no interest in.

I was wondering if anyone knows of anything else unrelated to healthcare people have gone into? My interests are in science, environmental jobs and design and arts, unfortunately not what a degree in medicine/intercalation helps me get. I do really want to get away from healthcare completely. Any help is appreciated.

Reply 1

giella

I would advise you try and finish your Foundation programme, if you can stomach it. It will show that you can fulfil a commitment to a specific programme of training and make an informed decision about your future. You'll also gain more skills and be more attractive as an employee or research student. It's also two years of work and you're barely out of university so it would reflect well on you to go the distance. You'll also have the option of doing locum work which you might not have otherwise, which could fund any additional studies.

What was your intercalated degree in? You've got a good scientific background as a medical doctor with intercalation and you could always retrain down the PhD route if you were interested in doing that.

Biomedical engineering may suit you if you're interested in design. Law may be of interest to you as well as you'd have a strong level of expertise in a specific area and certainly patent law might be of interest.

If you're interested in the arts, maybe approach the Wellcome Trust. They have an ongoing arts programme and you might be able to find an opportunity there.

I think if you investigate you may find quite a few environmental jobs may be open to you. It is worth maybe going to some networking events and seeing what's available.

I know quite a few people who've qualified as doctors who've found their way into other things. IT and business are the main ones definitely but I know one woman who became a medical advisor for a pharmaceutical company. I know you say you want to move out of healthcare but she's not involved in treating people at all and she has a very varied role within the structure of the company.

If you really do want out, rather than applying for jobs directly, you could probably do with approaching some recruitment agencies and see what they might be able to do for you. There may even be some specialist ones out there that can help career changers.

Reply 2

Waka Flocka

Environmental Health officer...

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Reply 3

M1011

Original post by stevenburns

The problem is, i have no skills elsewhere. When people kept saying 'you can do anything with a medical degree', it turns out to be completely untrue. Outside of healthcare the only things other people who leave medicine seem to go into is management~~/recruitment~~ consultancy, ~~sales~~ and investment banking which I have no interest in.

So just two of the absolutely most competitive industries to break in to then?

I imagine you'll find your degree is more widely useful than you might think.

Reply 4

stevenburns

Thanks for the replies everyone

'So just two of the absolutely most competitive industries to break in to then?' - I know they are competitive but they are no interest to me, and the degree doesn't give you skills needed for other jobs. Recruitment consultancy and investment banking etc don't require specific degrees.

Giella you have a lot of interesting ideas, the wellcome trust looks like option. Same with biomedical engineering, however it looks like ill need an additional engineering degree for that. What kind of IT jobs did the people you know do?

Reply 5

giella

There are quite a few graduate schemes in IT that don't require a specific degree or just require a science degree. It may be worth looking at IBM etc. just to get an idea of whether you could break into that side of things. With a medical degree you may find some of the bigger companies would look quite favourably on you.