Biomedical Science and the useless degree in reality

Dear students

dont take biomedical science as a career for life as it is not worth it. this is my opinion only. the job market is saturated. please see this email below.

Attention: Chief Executive, IBMS

My name is Daniel and this email is about my genuine concern about pathology and its future along with the growing, frustrating community of students in biomedical science and related degrees who are unable to get a job in this field or are stuck in a particular liminal space in the pathology job profession. Part 1 of this email is my personal plea. Part 2 is my opinion about a growing issue about jobs/NHS pathology/Biomedical Science(BMS) degrees/universities/future of pathology and its genuine concerns.

Part 1- IBMS did an evaluation of my “non accredited degree” on 10^th April 2014 which concluded I had to do 4 top up modules to get accreditation. I would like a refund of my 250 pounds which I have worked hard to earn as a medical laboratory assistant. I have decided not to do top up modules in this field as there are not enough jobs and rarely ever any trainee positions. Also my assessment outcome was unfair as I had already done Microbiology and Biochemistry previously. But more importantly there is a bleak future for people like me who have first class degree in a related science degree but unable to get anywhere beyond Band 4(NHS or Private) in this profession because paperwork and rigidity is more important than ability, skill, passion in a scientific profession. I am awaiting a refund of my money as I don’t see why IBMS should hold my money if I am not pursuing this career anymore. You can have the original papers as well if it helps.

Part 2- Raising awareness of a growing but silent problem is the reason for my writing of PART 2. A problem with the saturation of this field is a very serious concern. I have seen and experienced myself while working in pathology laboratories where students who have BSc, MSc are doing jobs that they are very overqualified as there are no jobs for them in this sector for their skill and experience with nowhere to move in terms of knowledge and experience. If anyone did a checklist of any of the pathology locum companies and their candidate list with their experience and qualification, it will be interesting to see how many are skilled or qualified or state registered biomedical scientists are there who can’t find a job respective to their training and experience. But they were told that when they were studying that it’s a growing field in the university years with potential trainee jobs out there.


NHS Pathology is getting into public private partnerships and other private mergers as seen from the latest Sonic Healthcare and UCLH NHS Foundation Trust Hospitals Laboratories couple of months back. Automation is getting to be the norm because of the efficiency and amount load. All this needs to be considered when teaching Biomedical Science to the future kids who would be more of an "instrument specialist" rather than fully fledged Biomedical Scientist in Blood Science and the cons of the field should be explained to them so that they don’t make the same mistake like us when deciding their career. There is a harmless joke about BMS being called "Babysit Machine Scientist" instead of a Biomedical Scientist. Privatization is a blessing in my opinion to inject some much needed money into this broken system.

I would once again urge IBMS also to please reconsider their position when advertising this profession to students of the future e.g. A level students as there is a growing frustrating community of existing students in the field over the past years who are fed up of the bureaucracy and inflexibility. They are either starting or have started to look at alternative careers. Also it would be a very good idea to be transparent about the statistics about job numbers ,trainee positions, number of voluntary portfolios, number of jobs per year etc on the IBMS website. A real discussion about the value of a biomedical science degree need to take place at the level of students where its relevant. This is not just my opinion but given the chance I think more people will come out and voice their concern and thoughts.



Thank you for having the patience to read my email.


Yours Sincerely
Daniel

Completely depends what you want to do with your degree.
I'm taking Biomedical Sciences at uni, and I'm quite happy with my job prospects, the statistics of graduates from my uni being employed after 6 months of graduating is higher than I had expected.

Cant the degree lead to medicine or dentistry anyway?

Wait. aren't you the girl who ended up moving to China and teaching english because you couldn't find a job in the UK?

Where's OP at now? Did you manage to progress in to a trainee BMS role despite the immediate hard block after graduation? I'm in the exact same position, meaning the only route to BMS is spending time as a MLA in a lab who've no time to train anyone.

What did you both end up doing?

This thread is 7 years old...please don't bump old threads.

I don't know what you're talking about...

I've asked a question for genuine interest to people within the thread, are you really chastising someone for using the forum? I thought that's what it is here for and presumably, traffic is a good thing? Can't say I enthused to use the site again with present experience.

Because if you look at their profiles you can see neither has been active in either the last year or the last three years, respectively. Whereas if you made a new post, you could get advice about the topic from currently active users...