Should I tell him, I don't think he's suited to medicine?
My boyfriend is strongly considering medicine as his future career. However, he's not the strongest academically (he's intelligent but considering his recent AS results and the amount of work he has put into his studies, I worry about whether he's going to get the grades to study medicine) He's got all the work experience, volunteering work and everything else and could actually make a very strong personal statement in my opinion however, his grades bring him down rapidly. He's now considering the postgraduate route and is thinking of a wide range of undergrad courses including Physiology and Anatomy and Biomedical Sciences etc. However, I'm worried about whether he will not be able to get into postgrad medicine in the long run due to the high competition and the lacking of "medicine worthy grades" if you will. Sorry if this makes me seem like a horrible bitch, but I don't want to see him chasing something he may never achieve and attempting to go down the postgrad route and not getting anywhere.
I am very concerned that he will do a course in Physiology and Anatomy and then get no further and therefore, he will have taken a degree with very poor job prospects and never use it
I mean I have all faith in his ability to reach good grades and to get onto another course. I'm sure he'll be able to achieve at least 3 B's at A Level.
Should I tell him to consider different careers? How should I go about telling him this because, he says that I am the only one who has faith in him (as horrible as that is) and I think he would be devastated to hear that I don;t have much faith in his ability to get onto medicine degree. :/
I know this makes me sound like a horrible bitch, but I'm just trying to realistic and I really am thinking about what is the best option for him :/ Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You
I am very concerned that he will do a course in Physiology and Anatomy and then get no further and therefore, he will have taken a degree with very poor job prospects and never use it
I mean I have all faith in his ability to reach good grades and to get onto another course. I'm sure he'll be able to achieve at least 3 B's at A Level. Should I tell him to consider different careers? How should I go about telling him this because, he says that I am the only one who has faith in him (as horrible as that is) and I think he would be devastated to hear that I don;t have much faith in his ability to get onto medicine degree. :/
I know this makes me sound like a horrible bitch, but I'm just trying to realistic and I really am thinking about what is the best option for him :/ Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You
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Yes I know I've got to be supportive of him and I am but there's no point in stringing him along. I just feel like he's going to be hurt a lot more in the long run if he does the postgrad route and gets a degree he'll never ever use rather than changing his options now and succeeding in an alternative career. I mean I am aware that this makes me sound like a complete bitch but I have faith that he can succeed in an alternative career, he could even pursue a health care profession because he really does have the personality for a health care career, which is a shame for the whole medicine thing. I'm just worried that if he's going to be too optimistic over his goals then he's just going to put himself into a deeper hole;I just think he'd be far happier succeeding in one career rather than failing in another. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind?
Let him do his thing that makes him happy and stop being shallow, if he wants to do medicine let him do it, if he makes a mistake he will learn and move on. Just support him, at the end of the day if my girlfriend turn round and said 'I don't think you're good enough for this.etc' I would feel pretty low, but luckily I'm doing well for myself at university.
Original post by Anonymous
My boyfriend is strongly considering medicine as his future career. However, he's not the strongest academically (he's intelligent but considering his recent AS results and the amount of work he has put into his studies, I worry about whether he's going to get the grades to study medicine) He's got all the work experience, volunteering work and everything else and could actually make a very strong personal statement in my opinion however, his grades bring him down rapidly. He's now considering the postgraduate route and is thinking of a wide range of undergrad courses including Physiology and Anatomy and Biomedical Sciences etc. However, I'm worried about whether he will not be able to get into postgrad medicine in the long run due to the high competition and the lacking of "medicine worthy grades" if you will. Sorry if this makes me seem like a horrible bitch, but I don't want to see him chasing something he may never achieve and attempting to go down the postgrad route and not getting anywhere.
I am very concerned that he will do a course in Physiology and Anatomy and then get no further and therefore, he will have taken a degree with very poor job prospects and never use it I mean I have all faith in his ability to reach good grades and to get onto another course. I'm sure he'll be able to achieve at least 3 B's at A Level.
Should I tell him to consider different careers? How should I go about telling him this because, he says that I am the only one who has faith in him (as horrible as that is) and I think he would be devastated to hear that I don;t have much faith in his ability to get onto medicine degree. :/
I know this makes me sound like a horrible bitch, but I'm just trying to realistic and I really am thinking about what is the best option for him :/ Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You
I am very concerned that he will do a course in Physiology and Anatomy and then get no further and therefore, he will have taken a degree with very poor job prospects and never use it
I mean I have all faith in his ability to reach good grades and to get onto another course. I'm sure he'll be able to achieve at least 3 B's at A Level. Should I tell him to consider different careers? How should I go about telling him this because, he says that I am the only one who has faith in him (as horrible as that is) and I think he would be devastated to hear that I don;t have much faith in his ability to get onto medicine degree. :/
I know this makes me sound like a horrible bitch, but I'm just trying to realistic and I really am thinking about what is the best option for him :/ Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You
You could save him a lot of pain and anxiety. Just make sure that he actually wants to do it first. A lot of people want to do it because they think that it is the only or the best way of helping people, that is not at all true, many disciplines from law to economics can be used to help people and can be far more far reaching than meicine. If he's doing it for the money then tell him it's pointless in this country, that's why I decided not to do medicine despite great grades and a good aptitude when I moved to the uk. If he's doing it becuase he is genuinely interested in medicine for medicine's sake that he should be just as happy doing medical research or something along those lines if he fails to make post grad.
Original post by Anonymous
My boyfriend is strongly considering medicine as his future career. However, he's not the strongest academically (he's intelligent but considering his recent AS results and the amount of work he has put into his studies, I worry about whether he's going to get the grades to study medicine) He's got all the work experience, volunteering work and everything else and could actually make a very strong personal statement in my opinion however, his grades bring him down rapidly. He's now considering the postgraduate route and is thinking of a wide range of undergrad courses including Physiology and Anatomy and Biomedical Sciences etc. However, I'm worried about whether he will not be able to get into postgrad medicine in the long run due to the high competition and the lacking of "medicine worthy grades" if you will. Sorry if this makes me seem like a horrible bitch, but I don't want to see him chasing something he may never achieve and attempting to go down the postgrad route and not getting anywhere.
I am very concerned that he will do a course in Physiology and Anatomy and then get no further and therefore, he will have taken a degree with very poor job prospects and never use it I mean I have all faith in his ability to reach good grades and to get onto another course. I'm sure he'll be able to achieve at least 3 B's at A Level.
Should I tell him to consider different careers? How should I go about telling him this because, he says that I am the only one who has faith in him (as horrible as that is) and I think he would be devastated to hear that I don;t have much faith in his ability to get onto medicine degree. :/
I know this makes me sound like a horrible bitch, but I'm just trying to realistic and I really am thinking about what is the best option for him :/ Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You
I am very concerned that he will do a course in Physiology and Anatomy and then get no further and therefore, he will have taken a degree with very poor job prospects and never use it
I mean I have all faith in his ability to reach good grades and to get onto another course. I'm sure he'll be able to achieve at least 3 B's at A Level. Should I tell him to consider different careers? How should I go about telling him this because, he says that I am the only one who has faith in him (as horrible as that is) and I think he would be devastated to hear that I don;t have much faith in his ability to get onto medicine degree. :/
I know this makes me sound like a horrible bitch, but I'm just trying to realistic and I really am thinking about what is the best option for him :/ Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You
Be supportive and tell him to be open minded, but let him go for it. I applied for medicine and would rather the Uni rejected me and I didnt get in rather than deterred before trying. Ps: I didn't get the grades and my best friend got BBB and we both eventually made it a year later. He sounds abit like us
especially as we both had afew weeks work experience, volunteering etc
erm if he got 3bs he could easily do graduate entry medicine also I don't know if biomedical science does have low job prospects.
One thing - 3 B's is not being 'academically weak'. 3 B's is an incredible achievement. Just because he won't get into Oxford with B's doesn't mean he won't get in anywhere else, many top universities want AAB/ABB and often lower their entry on results day to accommodate students who didn't quite get it but had the potential. In my opinion, stop being a wet and let your boyfriend do what he wants, and support him while you're at it. He clearly has a vocation and you're probably jealous of him. Sorry, but insinuating that just because people don't do well in exams means their academically challenged has really set me off.
Original post by grace1011
One thing - 3 B's is not being 'academically weak'. 3 B's is an incredible achievement. Just because he won't get into Oxford with B's doesn't mean he won't get in anywhere else, many top universities want AAB/ABB and often lower their entry on results day to accommodate students who didn't quite get it but had the potential. In my opinion, stop being a wet and let your boyfriend do what he wants, and support him while you're at it. He clearly has a vocation and you're probably jealous of him. Sorry, but insinuating that just because people don't do well in exams means their academically challenged has really set me off.
You've taken this in the wrong light, I'm not saying that 3 B's is a bad achievement, in fact I'm pretty sure I was saying that I was sure he could get into a good health care profession with 3 B's what I meant was, you can't get into graduate entry medicine with 3 B's, you need 3 A's. Also the reason I described his achievements as being "academically weak" is because although I tihnk he could get 3 B's in his A Levels overall with a few resits and hard work, he got several D's this year at AS hence the academically weak. I mean I would never say that a B is a bad achievement and I never did say that because in fact I've got a B at A Level myself. I'm sorry if I came across this way and I apologise for any confusion.
I mean guys, I know a lot of you are calling me "selfish" or "shallow" but the fact is relationships are based on trust and honesty and obviously, I'm not going to say the words "I don't think your suited to medicine" but instead try to be more sensitive about it, as one poster above stated tell him to be more open minded but I'm not going to stop him from going into medicine, I just think I need to transfer my concerns over to him. Personally, I just think I would rather succeed in one career as a Paramedic (Or similar) which does not require the excessively high grades of 3 A's and a UKCAT score and is achievable for him who is more hands on rather than academic (don't argue with me here, I know my boyfriend, he succeeds far better in a hands on situation than in an academic one, but I have faith that with a few resits and a lot of hard work he could achieve very good grades of at least BBB) than end up with an undergraduate degree of Human Phsyiology and Anatomy, where the job prospects are very poor and end up earning a lot less and doing job he does not enjoy than if he had just heard my advice.
I mean guys, I know a lot of you are calling me "shallow" , "selfish" and "Jealous" but the fact is relationships are based on trust, honesty and being open with one another. Obviously, I'm not going to say "I don;t think you're suited to medicine" I'm going to be more sensitive about the matter and say something along the lines of "Now that you've got a whole year left of A Levels have you considered looking at other professions because you know I changed my mind at last minute" or as one poster said above "tell him to be more open minded" but just to clarify, I am not going to stop him trying to get into medicine, I just want to transfer my concerns across to him before he commits to something without considering the what could or could not happen. Like one poster said above maybe suggest to him an undergraduate course which has many career opportunities if medicine does not appear to be an option in the long-run. So instead of taking a degree with very poor job prospects such as Physiology and Anatomy maybe suggest a different course. My intent is good, despite what everyone seems to think. Its just in my opinion if I was in my boyfriends shoes I would rather succeed in a career where the entry requirements are not so demanding as medicine (which requires 3 A's, two being Biology and Chemistry which are very difficult subjects to say the least and a high UKCAT score) and where the grades are achievable for him (with a few resits and a lot of hard work) such as paramedic science or something similar rather than taking the postgraduate route into medicine, doing an undergraduate course in Physiology and Anatomy, with poor job prospects. Not get any further into medicine (because it is a very difficult career to get into) and never use his undergrad degree and end up in a job that he doesn't enjoy and doesn't pay well, all because he didn't consider what could or could not happen. My boyfriend is an optimist and he's definitely sure he'll get into medicine postgrad way but the competition for medicine is so increadibly high. I mean it was a big wake up call to me this year (in terms of his career) when a close friend of mine who applied for medicine with all A*s at GCSE, 4 A's at AS Level, a High UKCAT score, long term volunteering in a nursing home, work experience in several hospitals and a pharmacy, DofE awards, extra cirricular activities and all the rest of it didn't even get a single offer for medicine! I mean in my opinion (I could be wrong here) but getting into medicine there seems to be a lot lying on luck and I don't want my boyfriend relying on this to get him a job he will enjoy!
I'm sorry if it came across in any other way and as stated earlier I was not saying that B's are a bad achievement, B's are an amazing achievement in fact, I've got a B in one of my A Level so believe me, I'm not slating B's in any way. I'm just saying that you can't get into medicine with 3 B's and he didn't get 3 B's at AS Level this year, he didn't do very well in his AS' but with a few resits, a lot of hard work I'm sure he can achieve 3 B's and get into a good career!
I mean guys, I know a lot of you are calling me "shallow" , "selfish" and "Jealous" but the fact is relationships are based on trust, honesty and being open with one another. Obviously, I'm not going to say "I don;t think you're suited to medicine" I'm going to be more sensitive about the matter and say something along the lines of "Now that you've got a whole year left of A Levels have you considered looking at other professions because you know I changed my mind at last minute" or as one poster said above "tell him to be more open minded" but just to clarify, I am not going to stop him trying to get into medicine, I just want to transfer my concerns across to him before he commits to something without considering the what could or could not happen. Like one poster said above maybe suggest to him an undergraduate course which has many career opportunities if medicine does not appear to be an option in the long-run. So instead of taking a degree with very poor job prospects such as Physiology and Anatomy maybe suggest a different course. My intent is good, despite what everyone seems to think. Its just in my opinion if I was in my boyfriends shoes I would rather succeed in a career where the entry requirements are not so demanding as medicine (which requires 3 A's, two being Biology and Chemistry which are very difficult subjects to say the least and a high UKCAT score) and where the grades are achievable for him (with a few resits and a lot of hard work) such as paramedic science or something similar rather than taking the postgraduate route into medicine, doing an undergraduate course in Physiology and Anatomy, with poor job prospects. Not get any further into medicine (because it is a very difficult career to get into) and never use his undergrad degree and end up in a job that he doesn't enjoy and doesn't pay well, all because he didn't consider what could or could not happen. My boyfriend is an optimist and he's definitely sure he'll get into medicine postgrad way but the competition for medicine is so increadibly high. I mean it was a big wake up call to me this year (in terms of his career) when a close friend of mine who applied for medicine with all A*s at GCSE, 4 A's at AS Level, a High UKCAT score, long term volunteering in a nursing home, work experience in several hospitals and a pharmacy, DofE awards, extra cirricular activities and all the rest of it didn't even get a single offer for medicine! I mean in my opinion (I could be wrong here) but getting into medicine there seems to be a lot lying on luck and I don't want my boyfriend relying on this to get him a job he will enjoy!
I'm sorry if it came across in any other way and as stated earlier I was not saying that B's are a bad achievement, B's are an amazing achievement in fact, I've got a B in one of my A Level so believe me, I'm not slating B's in any way. I'm just saying that you can't get into medicine with 3 B's and he didn't get 3 B's at AS Level this year, he didn't do very well in his AS' but with a few resits, a lot of hard work I'm sure he can achieve 3 B's and get into a good career!
Sorry about the repeat I rewrote the first half haha
Original post by Anonymous
Sorry about the repeat I rewrote the first half haha
Original post by grace1011
One thing - 3 B's is not being 'academically weak'. 3 B's is an incredible achievement. Just because he won't get into Oxford with B's doesn't mean he won't get in anywhere else, many top universities want AAB/ABB and often lower their entry on results day to accommodate students who didn't quite get it but had the potential. In my opinion, stop being a wet and let your boyfriend do what he wants, and support him while you're at it. He clearly has a vocation and you're probably jealous of him. Sorry, but insinuating that just because people don't do well in exams means their academically challenged has really set me off.
What the heck are you on about, did you even read the OP's post.
Every single university requires at least AAA for medicine, and most require aptitude tests, some asks for sound GCSEs.
The OP never said BBB was bad, but it is totally true that BBB is on the low side for average medical applicants, let alone offer holders.
Why would the OP be jealous of her boyfriend, she clearly loves him to be so concerned for him.
A person only lives once and the OP is concerned that the man may be wasting his youth where he may later on regret about. She obviously cares a lot about him. She wants him to do a degree with job prospectives so he has things to fall on if things dont turn out well. Or can you promise with your life that he will definitely get into medicine, and thus you give the OP such an advice? If not, then shut up
Your argument has completely no logic.
You are the only wet one here whatever what it means
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(edited 9 years ago)
there's no reason to tell him he's never going to make it, as his partner you should support him, however I would try and encourage him to choose a degree that will keep medicine as a possibility but also will have decent career prospects itself 'in case he changes his mind'
Going against the grain here but I think you should tell him. If he asks you for advice, that is. Surely that's the whole point? I wouldn't want insincere support from people I'm close to, I'd want the truth. If he still chooses medicine you should make it clear that of course you really hope he success and will support him, but you think he should consider other options.
Original post by grace1011
One thing - 3 B's is not being 'academically weak'. 3 B's is an incredible achievement. Just because he won't get into Oxford with B's doesn't mean he won't get in anywhere else, many top universities want AAB/ABB and often lower their entry on results day to accommodate students who didn't quite get it but had the potential. In my opinion, stop being a wet and let your boyfriend do what he wants, and support him while you're at it. He clearly has a vocation and you're probably jealous of him. Sorry, but insinuating that just because people don't do well in exams means their academically challenged has really set me off.
I'm sorry that you got B's or below and so are getting all jealous and butthurt about it, but no, it's not an incredible achievement for a person wishing to study medicine, where the minimum entry requirements are AAA. To a person who wishes to study a course needing C's BBB is great. To a person wanting the top courses or the top unis with high requirements, it's awful.
It does not sound at all like OP is jealous, she's been supportive, seen his AS results and realised it's going to be really hard to get into Medicine. She's giving the same advice as any career counselled would give, and it's sensible.
Lastly, she did not suggest he's academically challenged, she said he's intelligent.
Original post by joker12345
Going against the grain here but I think you should tell him. If he asks you for advice, that is. Surely that's the whole point? I wouldn't want insincere support from people I'm close to, I'd want the truth. If he still chooses medicine you should make it clear that of course you really hope he success and will support him, but you think he should consider other options.
Its his decision at the end of the day, she can offer a simple alternative but not be pushy about it. If he wants to do medicine, she should let him do it and support him
I dont let anyone influence my decisions when it comes to a job, not even my parents
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(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by UWS
Sorry I disagree. Its his decision at the end of the day, she can offer a simple alternative but not be pushy about it.
I dont let anyone influence my decisions when it comes to a job, not even my parents
Posted from TSR Mobile
I dont let anyone influence my decisions when it comes to a job, not even my parents
Posted from TSR Mobile
I'm not telling he to be pushy. I'm saying she should sit with him and tell him, once, that she's not sure Medicine would be the right choice at this point (explain all the reason etc) but that she would certainly support him if he did want to try, she just didn't want to see him spend ages on a degree and not even get into medicine.
Aren't a lot of universities scrapping the graduate entry for medicine or making it even harder to get into in the next few years?
If I was in your shoes OP I would support him in his ambitions, but since he does have a back up plan for if he doesn't get into medicine straight away, I'd advise him to look into degrees that would still land him a decent job and in the healthcare field if that's what he wants to go into, just incase the graduate entry route doesn't work either.
If I was in your shoes OP I would support him in his ambitions, but since he does have a back up plan for if he doesn't get into medicine straight away, I'd advise him to look into degrees that would still land him a decent job and in the healthcare field if that's what he wants to go into, just incase the graduate entry route doesn't work either.
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