Medicine in a city you hate, or neuroscience in a city you like?

Last year, I applied for medicine and received 2 conditional offers. Although I got 42 IB points in total (exceeding the minimum), I got 765 in my HLs, so my firm (first) choice fell through, and I had to go with my insurance. The problem is, I absolutely hate the city that my insurance medical school is in. I spent some time there earlier this year, and it was like it sucked the life out of me and completely made me lose the will to live/study medicine (anyone want to venture a guess where it is?). I am currently taking a gap year, and I have no idea whether I want to go next year. Since my grades are not high enough and the deadline for medicine has long passed, I've been considering applying for something like neuroscience in London (UCL, Kings) and Edinburgh, and then apply for a 4-year graduate entry course after that. That would take 7 years, only a year longer than the normal (intercalated-degree including) 6 years. But, of course, the possibility that I wouldn't get into medicine a second time. So, my question is this: what should I do? Grit my teeth and get through the 5 years of medicine in a place that makes me want to blow my brains out at a fairly good university, or 7 years (3 in neuroscience + 4 GEM) in a beautiful city at a top 10 university?

If you want to do medicine, and you have a place. Take that place. Don't aim for GEM, its too expensive and too risky.

Yes, it may not be ideal in terms of living. But there are ways around it. Friends can make even horrible places not bad to live in. You can take day trips at the weekend. In all fairness you'll be too busy with medicine to really care where you're based.

You kind of have to get used to moving to places you don't necessarily want to. Its the life of a junior medic. You only have a small input in where you end up, especially for f1/f2.

Oh and no one gives a crap about how prestigious the university is. Get over it.

This is just how it's done in medicine, so if you want to be a doctor, take the offer and start getting used to it.

Medicine is the ultimate career of being sent to places you don't want to go, sometimes for years at a time. What are you going to do if/when you don't get your desired foundation programme or specialty training post? Refuse to take up work?

Which city is it, out of interest? I would say (having lived for a period in a city which I also disliked) that it does get better with time. You might not ever fall in love with the place, but you'll at least learn to tolerate it. And with decent friends and regular weekend trips away, time will pass much quicker too.

Think strategically and long term - med school is only five years, being a doctor is for the rest of your life. It would be silly to risk your dream job based on not wanting to live in a particular city for a few years.

Don't even think about graduate entry medicine if you have the grades for the conventional route -- it's just not worth it and an offer to study medicine should not be thrown away over something so trivial. If you're serious about the whole 'makes me want to blow my brains out' thing and just cannot conceive of living there another minute, then I would still suggest you stay away from graduate entry medicine, and instead reapply for the normal route elsewhere. However, you should know that there are a few medical schools that won't consider your application if you've turned down another medicine offer to apply to them, notably UCL.

Out of interest, is your offer a deferred offer? I can't imagine which medical school has already started giving out non-deferred offers for 2016 entry. Oh, and you asked for guesses: Keele.

This OPs post is pretty unclear but here he/she says
'I am currently taking a gap year, and I have no idea whether I want to go next year. Since my grades are not high enough and the deadline for medicine has long passed, I've been considering applying for something like neuroscience in London (UCL, Kings) and Edinburgh, and then apply for a 4-year graduate entry course after that. That would take 7 years, only a year longer than the normal (intercalated-degree including) 6 years. '

I don't think they have a place and they are already on a gap year(like me :P), I doubt it's a great idea to apply next year as that is 2 years gone just applying for uni with no guarantee.

If I am reading it wrong and OP you have got an offer for medicine, I would defo take it. But if it drains you, as you said, if even if you were to get paid a million pound, there is no point. Rather not end up getting depressed. Though don't confuse it with being stressed, pretty much all students get stressed for/in uni.

Good luck OP.

Unfortunately, I had the predicted grades for the conventional route (776 with a 43), which is what got me my offers in the first place, but I was suffering from fairly debilitating depression during exam time, so my actual grades ended up being just below the requirements I'd need to reapply to any medical school. I've considered retaking my exams and reapplying (although most medschools don't accept retakes, I think that if there are medical reasons they consider them), but that would still mean another year before uni after my already-gap year. I didn't know that about UCL though :/

Yes, it's deferred for 2016. And close, but no cigar. I actually remember telling my friend, that at least it's not Keele I've actually met several people who like it there, so it may be that I'm just spoiled from living in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. It probably is that, but rationalising it and experiencing it are two very different things.

I actually did get an offer, an accepted it with deferred entry for 2016. I feel like such a ungrateful wretch even considering not taking it because it is so difficult for anyone to get a place in the first place (it was for me), but yeah, it is emotionally draining. Of course, I've expected and accepted the stress that accompanies it, but but it's just so demoralising to even think about being there.

And thanks, RiskVsReward. I'll definitely need it if I am to experience my eureka moment in which this whole mess becomes clear.

That's just it - if I knew that medicine was definitely what I wanted to do, with every fibre of my being, it would be fine - but I don't. I'm having doubts about medicine itself, so when you add onto it the idea of the city...well.

It's actually the strategic, long term thinking, that has brought me to this point - knowing I'll have little control over where I get into for my foundation programme, so the undesirable location won't just be the 5 years, it may very well end up being the next 10-12. The thought of spending my entire 20's and 30's somewhere I don't want to be is seriously diminishing my drive to get through medical school at all, which concerns me all the more (if I'm having doubts now, what will it be like once it actually gets tough?)

That's just it - if I knew that medicine was definitely what I wanted to do, with every fibre of my being, it would be fine - but I don't. I'm having doubts about medicine itself, so when you add onto it the idea of the city...well.

It's actually the strategic, long term thinking, that has brought me to this point - knowing I'll have little control over where I get into for my foundation programme, so the undesirable location won't just be the 5 years, it may very well end up being the next 10-12. The thought of spending my entire 20's and 30's somewhere I don't want to be is seriously diminishing my drive to get through medical school at all, which concerns me all the more (if I'm having doubts now, what will it be like once it actually gets tough?)