30-year-old mum wants to study medicine

I realise that I am severely limiting myself but I can't uproot my family and Leeds is the easiest place to get to from the rural-ish place I live in - still half-hour train ride away on rickety half-hourly trains!

Hi,

Going to sound random but have you considered nursing? You work in health (obviously) and although it's not as heavy science based you still need a good grounding on anatomy and physiology, pharmacology etc - and you're dealing much mire heavily in the broader aspect of a patient. However it may be a more stable career, no reason to move around and you get a lot more financial support. Along with flexible hours-and with the average age of a student nurse 29, more of your peers are in a similar situation.

Obviously if medicine is THE dream- go for it and follow it! However if you want to work in healthcare in generally I would advise nursing as an alternative option with more benefits for someone in your position! (plus the pay when you graduate isn't half bad! )

Hi,

Going to sound random but have you considered nursing? You work in health (obviously) and although it's not as heavy science based you still need a good grounding on anatomy and physiology, pharmacology etc - and you're dealing much mire heavily in the broader aspect of a patient. However it may be a more stable career, no reason to move around and you get a lot more financial support. Along with flexible hours-and with the average age of a student nurse 29, more of your peers are in a similar situation.

Obviously if medicine is THE dream- go for it and follow it! However if you want to work in healthcare in generally I would advise nursing as an alternative option with more benefits for someone in your position! (plus the pay when you graduate isn't half bad! )

This. I think Nursing would suit you better OP. But I won't stop you to pursue your 'dream' of studying Medicine.

I realise that I am severely limiting myself but I can't uproot my family and Leeds is the easiest place to get to from the rural-ish place I live in - still half-hour train ride away on rickety half-hourly trains!

why?

Because she'll be a fantastic nurse but if she'd like to aim higher I'm not stopping her.

Because she'll be a fantastic nurse but if she'd like to aim higher I'm not stopping her.

i was asking why you said nursing preferentially to medicine.

Nursing feels more family oriented job. It would suit her more.

Nursing feels more family oriented job. It would suit her more.

I think pursuing your dream is great and I know the oldest on my course is 38 and loving every minute of it, that said you do need to consider your flexibility. If you can only apply to one medical school because of where you live that will stack the odds against you - and Leeds is one of the less transparent schools in some senses as its not totally clear what they want from applicants as it rejects a lot without interview who meet everything they publish that they are looking for. Also, not all your years at medical school will be based in the medical school building itself - in clinical years (and possibly before depending on the nature of Leeds' course) you will be scattered about West Yorkshire on placements at hospitals and community locations.

The other thing to consider is when you qualify and apply for Foundation training. You can apply for special consideration for a particular Deanery because of family commitments but (a) there is no guarantee you'll get it, and (b) the Deanery is a wide geographical area - so you may be lucky enough to get allocated to the Yorkshire and Humber deanery for training (that covers Leeds) but get allocated to programmes that base you in Scarborough, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Skipton etc. These rotations are usually 4 months long so its impractical to uproot a family but you are expected to go where you are allocated - there is no concession in allocation to the training programme for people with families (only in allocation to the deanery). Then you will face the same issues all over again when you apply for specialty training.

You may find positing on New Media Medicine helpful - they have a lot of matures going for medicine (many successfully) and they will be able to give you advice / information.

you can do crash courses (sorta) into medicine,

Lol this sounds so bad. I can imagine saying to a patient:

"Don't worry, I'm a doctor! I did a crash course...

sorta."

NOO i meant crash course at college of basic sciences etc, then do your normal training years... ma baad!

though if my doctor told me he did a crash course in medicine AND he was amazing, i'd think he was a genius... not such a bad interpretation after all

And pray tell, what happens when she has to do nursing placements? Isn't it the same arguments why she shouldn't do nursing either? If every possible problem has to first be overcome, nobody would ever get round to doing anything.