The Student Room Group

Parents Pressuring me into Medicine

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Reply 40
Original post by Andy Social
Woah :eek: Thank you so much for sharing and I'm sorry you had to go through that :frown: This has really strengthened my feeling that I should study something because it makes me happy, not because of money or parental pressure (though these are still, perhaps unavoidably, issues). I hope your physics degree goes awesome - you sound smartz :colondollar: I've had quite a few people ask me if I have Asperger's.. My social skills are.. not amazing, I have chronic resting-donkey-face and I dislike spending prolonged periods of time with people, especially against my will (sounds weirder now as I type it :s-smilie:) - another point to add to the 'whyi'dbeaterribledoctor' list :biggrin:


If you think you may be on the autistic spectrum there is a good screening test which can be found here:

http://www.wired.com/2001/12/aqtest/

Being on the spectrum does not mean you cannot work as a medical doctor. I trained in neurosurgery and I am convinced several neurosurgeons were on the spectrum. There is one guy at Addenbrooke's who I will not name who has zero people skills but is an excellent surgeon.

Others are saying medicine is a great career. If it is what you want to do and you are a fully qualified GP or consultant it is a great option. However before becoming a GP or consultant you will need to be a junior doctor. This is not well paid and is stressful. My sister is a GP and she had clinical depression as a junior doctor.

When I won my disability discrimination case and my name was fully exonerated of all the disgusting and utterly false allegations were made, I had the option of returning to medicine. No way. I would not do that job on a premier league footballer's salary.

I also think you need to consider how important money is to you. I come from a very low income family and as a 1st year junior I was earning more than my mum and dad combined. Did it make me happy? No.

Parents should not threaten to disown you if you do not do what they want to. That is emotional blackmail and is totally unacceptable.
Reply 41
Medicine does have an employability level that is hard to beat, but it's far from the best degree in terms of post-grad earnings, and there are lots of degrees that make you very very employable.

Have you looked into any engineering degrees? The employability varies depending on the subspecialty, but some you can do really well out of. My friend doing Chemical Engineering is going straight into a 32k/yr starting salary even if she gets a 2:2

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