Radiography to Medicine

3

Hello,
I'll try to keep this short. I'm hoping for some advice, or peoples own experiences...

About 3 years ago I decided to go back to uni to study radiography. At the time I was recovering from some bad things that happened to me in my childhood to mid twenties that resulted in me spending a few years sort of drifting between jobs and dealing with depression and ptsd.

I decided (and took some hospital placements) that diagnostic radiography would be a good way to sort myself out and get a good job. It seemed interesting. I thought about doing medicine but didn't have the confidence at the time to consider that idea seriously.

Fast forward to taking an access course and getting into a good uni..I have finished a year of the course and am finding myself plagued by thoughts about how I don't enjoy the course/job that much, and how much I want to be doing medicine instead.

I started therapy a year ago and since then have been able to see that I could have done medicine, but I just didn't have the confidence/self belief to see that; I didn't ever think I was good enough.

I always read articles about medicine, I am interested in diagnosis and treatment, I am fascinated about different diseases. At placement when I ask questions about these other aspects of disease or diagnosis I'm met with 'I don't know' or a blank response, which makes me feel even more that there's a big limit to the job.

I feel like I can't drop out as that would be a waste of a year, and would look really bad on any uni medicine application. I'm pretty sure I have to see it through. It's also a hard course, especially if my heart's not 100% in it.

Basically is it ridiculous to feel like this? I don't have a lot of money, and if I did graduate medicine it would be in my mid 30s and I don't know how crazy an idea that is - to start studying AGAIN.

I'd really appreciate any advice or personal experience,

Thanks

Reply 1

APPLICANT2016

12

If you were to quit your course - what are your academic stats that you feel would enable you to study medicine?

Also - if you dropped out, medical schools will be reluctant to accept you.

Consider you are an admissions tutor. Would you favor a keen, wide eyed teenaged school leaver with top grades or a mid 20s mature student who has dropped out of uni?

You would be far better off completing your defree and applying for grad medicine. Bear in mind you would need a 2:1 in your degree and that grad medicine is more competitive then undersrag medicine. You would also need to take the GAMSAT exam.

Consider your options carefully.

Reply 2

Chez231

15

Or the UKCAT ^^ , I'm in a similar boat

Reply 3

xylas

21

Original post by fluffycat88

x

So as I understand it:

-You are studying your first degree (radiography) and are entering year 2.

-You are starting to have feelings that maybe you won't succeed in it or that your heart is not 100% in it.

-You are starting to see a different degree (medicine) as something you could be doing right now and that you would enjoy that much more.

-Hence, you want to know if these feelings are normal and how best to deal with them.

From my perspective (as a medical student):

-You only have 2 more years to go and you will have a degree under your belt in a subject/field/area of work which you find interesting

-These negative feelings you are getting are a hallmark of anxiety and as you might know are extremely extremely common

-On top of that, anxiety also puts thoughts into your head that 'the grass is greener on the other side' or 'what I can't have (right now) is best for me' and again this is extremely common.

-Therefore, yes these feelings themselves are very normal. It is your response to these feelings which are categorised as normal/abnormal, and it is very good to hear that you are continuing your therapy and you it is going well for you.

I don't know whether your therapy team has mentioned something called CBT to you or not but this is something that can definitely help towards the negative feelings and anxiety side of things. Your history of other mental illness I think is not that relevant here because it is very common for students beginning a course or anyone starting something new to get anxiety regardless of their background.

I hope this long-winded response is of some help to you and that you can find a way to help yourself the best way you see fit. Have a nice day!

Reply 4

fluffycat88

OP

3

Original post by xylas

So as I understand it:

-You are studying your first degree (radiography) and are entering year 2.

-You are starting to have feelings that maybe you won't succeed in it or that your heart is not 100% in it.

-You are starting to see a different degree (medicine) as something you could be doing right now and that you would enjoy that much more.

-Hence, you want to know if these feelings are normal and how best to deal with them.

From my perspective (as a medical student):

-You only have 2 more years to go and you will have a degree under your belt in a subject/field/area of work which you find interesting

-These negative feelings you are getting are a hallmark of anxiety and as you might know are extremely extremely common

-On top of that, anxiety also puts thoughts into your head that 'the grass is greener on the other side' or 'what I can't have (right now) is best for me' and again this is extremely common.

-Therefore, yes these feelings themselves are very normal. It is your response to these feelings which are categorised as normal/abnormal, and it is very good to hear that you are continuing your therapy and you it is going well for you.

I don't know whether your therapy team has mentioned something called CBT to you or not but this is something that can definitely help towards the negative feelings and anxiety side of things. Your history of other mental illness I think is not that relevant here because it is very common for students beginning a course or anyone starting something new to get anxiety regardless of their background.

I hope this long-winded response is of some help to you and that you can find a way to help yourself the best way you see fit. Have a nice day!

<br>
Thank you for your reply:

This is my second degree (first was ages ago in unrelated subject). Starting 2^nd yr, I am on track for a 1^st, and am not struggling with it academically. It’s more that my heart isn’t 100% in it.
I thought I would enjoy medicine more before I did the access course, but I pushed those thoughts out of my head and went ahead with radiography, as I had low self esteem and it seemed too daunting to apply for medicine. I didn’t realise the extent to which I would regret that decision and think about ‘what if..’.

I’m a naturally curious person, and find radiography to be very limiting in terms of what we learn, and are expected to know.. The thing is, the aspects I find interesting are the medicine aspects - the physiology, the disease process, how it progresses, how it shows up on scans, diagnosing, managing, treating, etc. A lot of what we do, even the higher level stuff, often seems to be - have a look at clinical info to make sure scan is ok to do, take the scan/x-ray, and then ‘see ya, go back to your doctor now’. There is some degree of looking at the scan to spot problems, but it’s very limited.
I mentioned past problems because they led me to feel like I couldn’t do the degree I really wanted to do (medicine) and that I should ‘settle’ for something easier.
Regarding grass is greener -I see what you’re saying but it is about the actual degree and job - I am most interested in things that we don’t do and don’t need to know.

I have considered cbt, but didn’t go for that because the problems started long ago rather than being only a recent trauma, if that makes sense. But I will look into it further, thanks.

Can I ask, do you have ‘mature’ students on your course: Is it quite mixed, or mostly school leavers?

Reply 5

fluffycat88

OP

3

Original post by APPLICANT2016

If you were to quit your course - what are your academic stats that you feel would enable you to study medicine?

Also - if you dropped out, medical schools will be reluctant to accept you.

Consider you are an admissions tutor. Would you favor a keen, wide eyed teenaged school leaver with top grades or a mid 20s mature student who has dropped out of uni?

You would be far better off completing your defree and applying for grad medicine. Bear in mind you would need a 2:1 in your degree and that grad medicine is more competitive then undersrag medicine. You would also need to take the GAMSAT exam.

Consider your options carefully.

Thanks, I think I would have to look at graduate medicine rather than considering dropping out. Though I know it is notoriously competitive..

Reply 6

xylas

21

Original post by fluffycat88

<br>
Thank you for your reply:

Can I ask, do you have ‘mature’ students on your course: Is it quite mixed, or mostly school leavers?

No problemo, that's really great that you feel on track to complete your degree with a good classification. The only thing left for me to add is that your view of what medicine is like might be at odds from what it would actually be like. That's all I meant by 'grass is greener' thinking. A subject can be extremely interesting but that doesnt mean the course will be, and vice versa.

In terms of mature students, there really arent that many of them maybe 10-20 in a cohort of 300+. But there are loads of ppl who took a year out etc. so maybe like 1-3 yrs older but I wouldnt classify them as mature.

Hope this helps!

Reply 7

S.A.S.Ali

1

Original post by fluffycat88

Hello,
I'll try to keep this short. I'm hoping for some advice, or peoples own experiences...
About 3 years ago I decided to go back to uni to study radiography. At the time I was recovering from some bad things that happened to me in my childhood to mid twenties that resulted in me spending a few years sort of drifting between jobs and dealing with depression and ptsd.
I decided (and took some hospital placements) that diagnostic radiography would be a good way to sort myself out and get a good job. It seemed interesting. I thought about doing medicine but didn't have the confidence at the time to consider that idea seriously.
Fast forward to taking an access course and getting into a good uni..I have finished a year of the course and am finding myself plagued by thoughts about how I don't enjoy the course/job that much, and how much I want to be doing medicine instead.
I started therapy a year ago and since then have been able to see that I could have done medicine, but I just didn't have the confidence/self belief to see that; I didn't ever think I was good enough.
I always read articles about medicine, I am interested in diagnosis and treatment, I am fascinated about different diseases. At placement when I ask questions about these other aspects of disease or diagnosis I'm met with 'I don't know' or a blank response, which makes me feel even more that there's a big limit to the job.
I feel like I can't drop out as that would be a waste of a year, and would look really bad on any uni medicine application. I'm pretty sure I have to see it through. It's also a hard course, especially if my heart's not 100% in it.
Basically is it ridiculous to feel like this? I don't have a lot of money, and if I did graduate medicine it would be in my mid 30s and I don't know how crazy an idea that is - to start studying AGAIN.
I'd really appreciate any advice or personal experience,
Thanks

Hi there,

I'm interested in taking the same route as you; I'm having similar thoughts about radiography.

Can you give me an update on your progress so far?

Thanks,

Radiography to Medicine

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