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Medicine and Investment Banking

Hi. I'm going into my third year of my medicine degree. I am really interested in doing an internship in investment banking, but two obvious problems are:
1) I have no background in finance / banking
2) Internships are only for penultimate students?

Further problems include:
3) My degree is in medicine, does it go against me?
4) If it does, can I not tell them I'm doing undergraduate medicine? Because I am intercalating (i.e. taking a year out next year to do a biological science degree), I can technically tell them I am a science undergraduate (which I will be?)?

If that helps me at all, I'm at Oxbridge, so I heard that investment banks look for Oxbridge students, regardless of what degree they are doing?

Thanks a lot for the help.

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Reply 1

Ourkid

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=8736083&highlight=medicine#post8736083

Hopefully that'll answer some questions.

Reply 2

Redeyejedi

My brother - also an Oxford medic (graduated in 2005) landed a job at Lehman Brothers and UBS in FI just in case he didnt get an ENT training post, after his F2 year....he is still in medicine, but given all this MTAS ****, several of his friends didnt get training posts so headed to the city...most got in to BB FO no probs..with no previous financial experiance.

Just looking on his facebook, of his former medic-friends, a couple at Lehman, UBS, BoA and BarCap to name a few.

Should point out they all had their MBCHB in addition to BSc...so maybe you want to consider going to clinical school anyway???

But the general trend seems to be that there should be no such problem in landing a job in IB with your credentials...some are also in consultancy as well.

Reply 3

ph9

what does 'bb' and 'fo' stand for someone? i keep seeing it around. *embarrassed*

Reply 4

ssk2

I always see medicine students looking to IB as those who just want some quick cash. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I feel. It can be done, blah blah blah.

Reply 5

ba_ba1

ssk2

I always see medicine students looking to IB as those who just want some quick cash. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I feel. It can be done, blah blah blah.

yeh i guess its true,

the pay for a doctor isnt brilliant at first, you probably have to wait until you are at least 30 until they start earning big money and doing private work. Doctors are very well off though so i wouldnt imagine there would be too many wanting to go into IB.

Reply 6

shady lane

There are a small number of degrees that I can think of that are less relevant for investment banking than medicine. Maybe architecture or history of art. But it's a reputable degree, I'd imagine anyone with a medicine degree from Oxbridge or Imperial would stand as good of a chance as anyone else with a non-relevant degree.

I just fail to see how one decides to go from one to the other, except for wanting a City paycheck. And if you wanted to go back and practice someday, wouldn't it be a detriment that you'd spent your time doing something so unrelated? Kind of a waste of a spot, since medicine courses have quotas and whatnot. Why not just do private medicine?

Not knocking medical students...but after all that work, you'd go to the City? Bankers are a dime a dozen it seems.

Exactly!

shady lane

I think architecture has a fair bit of quant stuff (civil engineering) built in to it. Could be wrong...

Reply 9

Inflation

shady lane

True that, but I'm sure it is a very small number.

I know in Oxford, after your first 3 years, you re-apply for the another 3 years (or is it 2?) so maybe some can't handle it and go into the City.... no idea if unis accept that as a degree...

Reply 10

Elles

Inflation

I know in Oxford, after your first 3 years, you re-apply for the another 3 years (or is it 2?) so maybe some can't handle it and go into the City.... no idea if unis accept that as a degree...

You get a BA after 3 years of preclinicals at Oxford or Cambridge. Oxford's is in "Medical Sciences", Cambridge's typically options from the Natural Sciences Tripos = they're both accepted as degrees for generic graduate job purposes. Then clinicals are 3 years to get the B in medicine/surgery.

relativematt

I am really interested in doing an internship in investment banking, but two obvious problems are:
1) I have no background in finance / bnaking
2) Internships are only for penultimate students?

2 - i suspect you could be considered for internships despite not being a penultimate year student, the norms aren't always rigidly stuck to. I know people who have done them after completing a degree (standard 3 years or after doing medicine).

Where this topic has come up before on this forum from prospective medical students I've generally found the intention quite baffling.
In your situation I think applying for Spring/Summer internships in your 3rd year makes sense. & if you're concerned about the lack of financial/banking background you could even consider taking a year out after preclinical with deferred clinical entry to decide whether or not you want to carry on & in the meantime do something related (e.g. more maths? economicsy-ish masters? multiple internships?)

I love clinical medicine - but if you know by the time you start you don't intend to practice I imagine it would be fairly tedious/annoyingly expensive/unnecessarily hard work etc. etc. & not necessarily much of a advantage in careers outside of medicine. So I'd say take advantage of the preclinical & clinical divide!

Reply 11

shady lane

MonteCristo

I think architecture has a fair bit of quant stuff (civil engineering) built in to it. Could be wrong...

Oh yeah, well I wasn't thinking about it in numbers. I was thinking about the content of the course. You're right; an architect could be pretty quantitative and creative. With random arts courses like Norse or Classics, you get the sense people liked a subject but realized there aren't many relevant jobs, so they choose something else. But medicine seems so random; not very quantitative and almost completely preprofessional. It's a nice stable career too. Plus, you can move into policy by doing a masters in public health or something. If I was willing to do a medicine course, I'd rather be a doctor than a banker anyday.

Reply 12

PortfolioManager

shady lane

If I was willing to do a medicine course, I'd rather be a doctor than a banker anyday.

You might be willing to do a medicine course and be a doctor at the start of the course, but 2-3 years down the degree you might change your interest...Happens more than often to people, not just medicine but other degrees.

Reply 13

Mos Def

A Cambridge 3rd year medic was waffling on about how much math was on his course, about how they have to differentiate the chromosome numbers and stuff haha. He's like, you'll only get this stuff at oxb, no other med course has this much math in it. But obviously the math content and level is miniscule compared to stuff like Econ :rolleyes:

Reply 14

CityMonkey

He has probably taken modules from the natsci course, which is allowed at Cambridge.

Reply 15

rboogie

shady lane

Gosh, you don't have the foggiest idea what sectors a bank covers, do you? It's not like investment in defensive like health care M&A and ER are at all popular right?

Reply 16

shady lane

Being a doctor has nothing to do with healthcare M&A, unless you are in a private health system like the US.

I know exactly what a doctor does, as my mother is one. I'm tired of you trying to tell me what the profession entails; I spent half of my childhood in clinics and hospitals. Let it go.

Reply 17

sins55

I met a guy at the LSE Morgan Stanley open evening thing who was actually a doctor - went to Healthcare M&A, so I guess it carries some weight...

Plus a lot of healthcare M&A can involve small start up firms who have good ideas - in this case doctors are important as they can assess the benefits and impacts of drugs. It is something I've heard of, and I'd definitely say Medicine to IB is possible...I just generally think a lot of medics (for obvious reasons) are very set on becoming doctors, hence why you don't hear about it as much! :biggrin:

Reply 18

shady lane

My point is that a medicine degree isn't really related; it just looks good for the bank to have doctors on the desk. Same reason someone who studies Norse at Cambridge is more attractive to banks than someone who did Investment Banking Studies at City.

Reply 19

rboogie

Shady, you have NO idea what you're talking about - why don't you work in a bank before you make assessments of what a bank does. Just wait a couple months, it'll all make more sense. You're one telling us you'd take that iowa pharmacist over a Yale medic - congrats.