Medicine 2024 entry for resit / retake / gap year applicants

A certain someone who used to give advice here used to say you should go to medical school in the country you want to work in. Bulgarian and British hospital environments will be quite different and f1 is difficult enough without having to completely adjust to how uk hospitals work. Also even if it’s gmc accredited that can be a bit weird because some med schools lose accreditation and leads to all sorts of problems trying to get a job in England. During my time as a hca I met a dr who said he had a friend who has an overseas med degree but is working as a security guard because he’s having trouble registering with the gmc. Also you won’t get any student loans for overseas degrees and will have to pay it out of pocket which is impossible for lots of people. Also even though the degree may be taught in English, your patients won’t speak it, which is just going to make med skl much more difficult. Also overseas medical schools tend to have significantly lower pass rates than uk med schools, so in uk if you get into med skl it very likely means you will be a dr, however that is not necessarily the case overseas. The same dr I mentioned Said in his med school if you failed just a single exam or had attendance below 90% you’d be kicked out. Also applying overseas can be quite dodgy as you have to go through an agent, and it’s hard to find actual trustworthy ones

Aw no worries!

My sister goes to Varna, Bulgaria and she's heard positive things about Sofia - I would recommend this as plan E however due to difficulty funding course fees (at the moment it's 7000 euros per year at Sofia but my sister recently told me that they will be increasing this soon to 9000 euros per year). Unless you find someone to sponsor you, it's very difficult to manage alongside living expenses (however this is definitely cheaper than in UK with 1 lev being equivalent to £2).

Focus on getting your A-Level grades and have a few options set out and planned for when you receive your results in August. You can always look at studying abroad after a gap year, giving you a chance to build up your savings. It's good to keep motivated that at any point you can use this as a back up option to fall back on after exhausting all other options - try your best and try not to get overwhelmed. It's important to take things a step at a time

Thank you, I think I'm trying to juggle 18 things at once, which is also therefore impacting my revision. Thanks for all of your help, and best of look to ur sister in her medicine career, and yourself, again thanks for the positive words, they've really helped me today

Thank you, I think I'm trying to juggle 18 things at once, which is also therefore impacting my revision. Thanks for all of your help, and best of look to ur sister in her medicine career, and yourself, again thanks for the positive words, they've really helped me today

Hey I'm in year 13 and got rejected from all 4 med schools pre-interview due to my UCAT of 2520 and a low BMAT too. I have a pharmacy offer but I am unsure if I should take it.

In terms of booking for UCAT this year, would it be helpful if I booked it before results day? As then I'd have an idea if I am able to apply to med this time round and then consider pharmacy?
I know that the BMAT is an option but this year I did both BMAT and UCAT and didn't achieve highly in those and I'm unsure if I should try for the BMAT again in case I do badly again, which, applying to 4 BMAT unis is risky anyways.

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do and does anyone know if clearing for med is still an option?

I’m going to copy and paste something that I’ve said before about gap years and advise re that.

basically I’m on a gap yr currently and have been successful in getting a med offer alhamdulillah. I was speaking with my mum and we both agreed that even if I was unsuccessful in that regard, this gap year has still otherwise been very valuable and beneficial. I despise when people call gap years as a waste of time, or something that makes you behind. Behind what exactly? If you can’t achieve anything non med related in a gap year then that says a lot about you as a person.

A gap year gives you free rein to advance yourself in so many facets, now that you aren’t restrained by school. During this time I have earned thousands of pounds, gained a lot of work experience which will hopefully give me an edge over my med student peers in clinical placements, which cancels out any academic advantage they may have on me, which is mostly irrelevant anyway and from my understanding not as big of a deal as some people who are scared to take a gap year make it seem to be. I have been able to teach children the Quran and about Islam at a madrasah. I have strengthened my hifdh ul quran. I have made a solid start in the Arabic language itself, using the madina arabic textbooks. That does not sound like a waste to me.

i haven’t even mentioned the med application side of it. Having alhamdulillah achieved aaa, I also massively improved my ucat from 2670 to 3040, and this is because I knew what to expect and where I went wrong, and I had a stronger motivation. I had way more time to do interview prep, using predominantly r/ucat discord server. I secured 4 interviews and have been accepted to med skl.

if I were you, I’d hustle and get aaa at least, no excuses. Work hard, don’t complain, don’t moan that you aren’t good enough to get aaa. Secure a hca job via nhs jobs or indeed as soon as you finish a levels. If you want more advice on why hca is important I can copy and paste something i said to someone else. Spend 2 months on u at so you can get a high score and get 4 interviews. If it’s below 2850 do Bmat and apply to a bmat uni. Start interview prep maybe 3 hours a week, then 2 weeks leading up to each real interview do a mock a day. Do your hobbies simultaneous to work and int prep.

Edit: in my gap year I have also been able to focus on the gym. I have also restarted karate after a 7 year hiatus

So with work experience, it’s not so much how much you do, what’s a lot more important is how you can reflect on it in interview. The main benefit I’ve found from hca is how much of a realistic insight it gives you into medicine, as all the challenges in the nhs will now affect you too. And as a hca you really learn a lot about the multidisciplinary team, in fact you become a part of it. And it is also a great opportunity to build on your patient communication skills, and will gives you lots to talk about re empathy, compassion etc. and you will also be able to make friends with young jr drs whove just graduated p, so will know the interview process very well, as opposed to drs who are older. And these jr drs might even be able to do mock interviews with you, and let you shadow them. The unique opportunity to do actual mock interviews with the very Same person you’ve shadowed is a massive help, as they will be able to help you know how to link things you’ve seen them do to the questions. And also working as a hca is actually decent money for our age group, I earn 9.50 ph on weekdays, and Saturdays and nights I earn 11.50, and the real big one, Sundays I earn 17.50. So that is a big bonus of working as a hca. How ever I must admit it is a very tough job, and I am seriously considering quitting, but I think if you’re able to stay in the job at least till you finish all your interviews, it will be a massive benefit.

Hello,
can I ask what a hca is? and what resources did you use to help you improve your UCAT score?
Thanks.

I used medify to improve my score

^^^^ @GANFYD I always joke that people ask you every single thing under the sun instead of google, now they doing it to me 😭

Welcome to my world!
I have generally stopped using LMGTFY

I have enrolled in Euopean University for 2023 and not very happy with it. Now thinking of cancelling it and reapply to UK medical school. This enrollment will hinder my UK application?

I have enrolled in Euopean University for 2023 and not very happy with it. Now thinking of cancelling it and reapply to UK medical school. This enrollment will hinder my UK application?

Did you enrol in Europe to study medicine there?

Yes. Just finished the first step of enrollment for the September in take