Natural Sciences to Medicine

Doing my AS-Levels, I'm kind of split. I'm doing Maths, Biology, Chemistry, and History at AS-Level, predicted at A in all of them, I'm aiming for Imperial, Warwick, or Oxbridge. The way I'm leaning at the moment is to do a Natural Sciences undergraduate course, then do the graduate accelerated course after that in Medicine - my reasoning behind this is that whilst getting the Medicine qualification, I'd have the qualification behind that qualification to specialise in Medicine, or possibly move into research or biotech - there's also the possibility of a less scientific career - like finance or maths, or the like.

I do have reservations about this - is my reasoning right, or is doing this just barking up the wrong tree?

I don't understand what you mean by the bold. Could you clarify?

Sorry, I think I said 'qualification' too much. The gist of it was that if I had both degrees, I could actually practice medicine with the latter, and branch off into biotech, research, or another career with the Natural Sciences. I just want to keep my options open, I guess.

Ah, okay. Note that becoming a clinician isn't the the only route you can go with an BMBS. There's a variety of other careers you can go into if you decide that you hate patients, although the BMBS is largely vocational and not an academic degree in the sense that Natural Sciences is.

Have you heard of intercalated degrees?

I hadn't! They look interesting, although in total, I think I'd spend the same amount of time on doing a full medical degree, with a year on Natural Sciences, as I would doing a full Natural Sciences degree, followed by the four-year graduate Medicine course. It's interesting, though - it might work out better, financially.

You'd actually end up spending an extra year by doing a full NatSci degree followed by the 4 year GEM! That's 7 years compared to the 6 years of the standard 5 year + intercalation.
Oxbridge medicine is 6 years long, but that's because the third year is kind of like a mandatory intercalated degree where you study a certain medical science in more depth.

GEM is very competitive - much more competitive than it is for school leavers, so you're signing yourself up for a hard road with no guarantee of ever studying medicine if you go the NatSci route.

In the end, if you want to be a doctor - medicine is the way to go. I suggest getting some work experience/volunteering under your belt to see if you'd enjoy a career in the profession: medicine is a long course and it's no small deal to be signing yourself up for it. Keep in mind, there's also the opportunity to get involved with research after a medicine degree (can go on to Master's, PhD, an MD...), as well as working outside of the clinical profession. Many clinicians are actually involved with research, but it's a very different kind of research from what basic scientists do.

There's also the academic foundation programme, which a lot of people are interested in!

You could perhaps use your intercalated degree as a foothold into further study in the basic sciences if you do decide that's the route you want to go down and that you're not titillated by clinical medicine.