Do I have medical talent?

Whatever you do don't mention anything about this. Trying to articulate that you, without any training, are doing a better job than fully qualified doctors will not be looked upon favorably by those reading your personal statement; regardless of whether you're right or not.

Medicine is incredibly broad and complex. Sadly knowing caffeine pills are going to disrupt your sleep pattern and that aspirin can help some mechanical back pain does not a doctor make.

Entrance panels want evidence of commitment to medicine, empathy, leadership, team working, evidence you are a well rounded individual and that you have a clear desire to help people. Those qualities are high on their agenda, not self diagnosis and contempt for the current establishment.


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oh wow sounds like yet another dogmatic academic club so i guess it isnt for me. Disagreeing with my doctor is "showing contempt for the establishment" even though i happened to be correct. We all know gps can be uncaring and sometimes unhelpful, what i did was basic but at least i was being proactive. I really resent being good at stem, its full of rigid pecking orders. You present your own ideas and you are accused of insulting the work of others even if youre right. Your post has made my mind up, im not getting involved in stem ever again, literally the exact same attitide when i did chemistry. Creativity frowned upon, book regurgitating smiled at.

This reply alone proves that you should never become a doctor.

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dont worry i wont. Im basically being told to shut up and worship the word of my gp even though another doctor agreed with me that him giving a patient with brachycardia beta blockers was a bad move.

Yes, being overworked and seeing suffering over many years of a professional career can make people uncaring, that's why the application process makes sure it selects the most caring people, perhaps then they will have a chance of maintaining some of that over the course of a stressful professional career. Imagine what monsters would be created by a career in medicine if those who weren't 100% in it for the right reason were selected at the very beginning.

There is no room for mavericks in medicine and hierarchy (i.e. the establishment) and team decisions in everything lead to safety. Someone who believes they are better than those senior and has little respect for the hierarchy will kill people make no mistakes about it.

Book learning is exactly what you need. There is no room for creativity or experimentation on frontline medicine, it is reckless and leads to people dying. You learn your ****, apply it in a safe way and then you may save some lives. You don't make it up on the spot and use patients as guinea pigs.

Taking a pain killer for back pain doesn't prove you have any talent. Giving sleeping tablets when someone can't sleep is sensible practice not professional negligence, and propranolol is a perfectly good first line medication for anxiety unless your pulse and blood pressure are rock bottom.

So if you want creativity go and study an arts degree because you won't find it in medicine. If you have such little faith in doctors and are so self talented then carry on self healing and allow them more time to help people who can actually benefit from their book learning.

Your so called knowledge will not make you a good doctor. Sorry to sound harsh. Medicine is a hell of a lot more than deducing caffeine pills might keep you awake or beta blockers will affect your heart rate! If you wanted to do medicine, don't mention any of this. They will think you have a crazy unrealistic idea of medicine and it won't go down well

The issue here is that you and apparently the establishment seems to think that one anecdote of going against what your doctor said is "being a maverick who believes all doctors are retarded" See the strawman here? Instead of rewarding a pro active junior for pointing out one of a doctor's rare mistakes you admonish them for going against authority. This is not a good culture.


It's not about the depth of my knowledge which your right isn't very deep it was just to show that I could apply scientific principles to treating people just like when applying for engineering or something you talk about that time you made a swing with your dad in your personal statement. but apparently not that's not cool to put on your application at all so ok I won't but I'm allowed to voice my opinion that I don't agree with it.

Lol have you ever written a personal statement because you definitely don't write things like that on them.... You need to have empathy, knowledge of the role of a doctor not just a GP, know the NHS values, be used to working in a stressful environment, lead a team, work as a team member, communicate well and with feeling. It's not all about diagnosing like a robot

I had back pain, noticed that aspirin helped

1.) Those self-diagnoses are not particularly impressive. Who would've thought disturbed sleep could be linked to caffeine pills? I've diagnosed a couple patients on House MD and Casualty...

2.) Doctors are likely going to encounter difficult patients at some point in their career who think they know better than a medical professional (sound familiar?). You're going to need some tact in order to deal with said patients, right? Going to a medical interview and listing all the times you outsmarted your GP is going to give the impression, whether it's true or not, that you're incredibly arrogant and thus are completely lacking the tact and humility required to deal with difficult patients. That's why you'd be rejected. Not because it's a "dogmatic academic club".

Sorry, I'm being rather rude, but then given the overly-defensive manner in which you've reacted to people who have posted trying to help you, you've not given me much incentive to be considerate.

I seem to be my own best doctor but unfortunately I've never had any interest in being a doctor partly because I am squeamish about blood and it seems very stressful.

I had back pain, noticed that aspirin helped but paracetamol didn't, deduced that it must be an inflammation, tried a combined therapy of aspirin and cold water sprays, back pain gone.

Doctor gave me propanolol for anxiety, recognized it as a beta blocker - a medicine that affects the heart, declined to take it because I have a really low heart rate. Another doctor later agreed with me.

More recently my sleep pattern has been really bad but when I stayed up all night and went to bed at 9pm I woke up at 12 am and couldn't sleep again till 6am where I then slept till 4pm no matter how many alarms I set. I was mystified until I thought about what I was doing differently last time this happened and the answer was taking caffeine pills. Seems that taking them to stay up made me unable to sleep deeply when the time came. I decided to use this to my advantage, taking them at 5am just before sleep and for the first time in months I've managed to wake up at 12 pm. Compare this with my doctor who gave me sleeping pills that not only didn't work but gave me nightmares.

In the unlikely event I did apply to be a doctor should I mention this stuff or is it irrelevant?

oh wow sounds like yet another dogmatic academic club so i guess it isnt for me. Disagreeing with my doctor is "showing contempt for the establishment" even though i happened to be correct. We all know gps can be uncaring and sometimes unhelpful, what i did was basic but at least i was being proactive. I really resent being good at stem, its full of rigid pecking orders. You present your own ideas and you are accused of insulting the work of others even if youre right. Your post has made my mind up, im not getting involved in stem ever again, literally the exact same attitide when i did chemistry. Creativity frowned upon, book regurgitating smiled at.

dont worry i wont. Im basically being told to shut up and worship the word of my gp even though another doctor agreed with me that him giving a patient with brachycardia beta blockers was a bad move.