Routes into pathology

I’m looking to pursue a career in either forensic pathology or histopathology. When looking into routes into these careers I’ve noticed two routes mentioned: the medical route or the scientific route. I was looking to gain some advice into which route is better to take.

It's not a question of better or worse. Do you want a clinically focused career (post-mortems, reporting patient histology samples, MDTs etc) or are you more interested in the technical lab science aspect of pathology?

What attracted me to the profession is definitely the lab-based aspect. Is there any way to work equally with patients and in a lab-based setting or will I have to choose between them?

Histopathology isn't a patient-facing specialty. The closest you will come to working "with patients" is post-mortem examinations Medically trained histopathologists report on histology samples in the lab, but this is different to the technical work that the lab biomedical scientists do.

I think the most helpful thing for you to think about is "do I want to study medicine and become a doctor". Choosing a medical specailty comes years after medical school and medically trained histopathologists still need to think clinically. If the idea of being a doctor is absolutely not for you then you've got your answer and you can start looking at the scientist pathway which starts with a degree like biomedical sciences.