The Student Room Group
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>

Has anyone done an MSc during medical school?

I have finished an iBSc at my university this year (in year 3) and I really enjoyed it. I want to do an MSc in it - I checked my university website and it offers an MSc in that same subject.
Full time takes 1 year
Part time takes 2 years

I am not willing to take a year out so I am thinking about doing it in 4th and 5th years?
So my questions are:
1. Do you think there is enough time in 4th and 5th years to do an MSc along side? I feel like 4th year is going to be a tough year because its a massive change from preclinical years so I dont know if I can cope?
2. Have you done an MSc? If so in what years?
3. Do you think maybe I should do it in F1/F2 years? But I want to apply for the Academic Foundation Programme....
You will not have time to do an MSc alongside 4th and 5th year. These years are hard work, with Finals, SJT, F1 applications, busy clinical rotations. An MSc is hard work. Either the MSc or your med school work will suffer for it.
Think carefully about it - if it takes a year full time, doing it over 2 years means you’d be expected to still dedicate about half your week to it. Part time still means a good proportion of your time. Depending on the type of MSc there is also likely to be face to face time required - again think about how you’d manage that.
I did an MSc part time distance learning during FY1, 2 and 3. It took me 3 and a bit years to do it alongside a demanding full time job. My face to face commitment was 5 days per year and even that was a struggle to organise with rotas as the days were fixed. My MSc was aimed at people with a professional qualification in healthcare (ie qualified nurses / doctors, not students) and from the outset we were told there would be no extensions leeway in assignments for clinical commitments / being busy at work - we were told that we were all busy clinicians and it was up to us to balance our work. Even part time, I had to complete a module and the associated assignment roughly once every 4-8 weeks, even if I was in nights or working lots of weekends or whatever. And the research project took a LOT of work.
I really enjoyed my MSc and learnt a lot from it that I apply practically day to day. I’m glad that I didn’t rush it just for the sake of getting a qualification on paper, as I benefited from it a lot more doing it at the stage I did. Of course the other thing to think about is that people also often start their membership exams in F1/2 (not always - I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I didn’t) but again would be tough to balance an MSc and membership alongside a full time job.
If you really want to do it alongside med school and you think you’d benefit from it sufficiently as a student rather than a doctor, then just take the year out and go for it. A year really isn’t a big deal in the long run. But I would really advise not to try to do this alongside 4th and 5th year. You need to have a work life balance and you won’t if you’re trying to do an MSc as well.
lmao
I'm pretty sure you can't be enrolled on two degrees at once (intercalation is different and not the same thing as what you're asking about). In fact, I remember before I started GEM we were specifically told that all masters degrees, PhDs etc would have to be completed by the start of term otherwise we wouldn't be allowed to matriculate.

This is obviously setting aside the much more significant point of clinical medicine being a full time commitment (especially if it's your first clinical year) and not something you can only devote half your time and energy to.

You also wouldn't be able to receive the government masters degree loan so you'd have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

I think you should take another year out and do it as an iMSc.
Most institutions prohibit students from being enrolled for two degrees concurrently. I managed by way around this by only undertaking individual modules for Degree 2 during medical school without actually registering for a second degree. During FY1 I registered for the next degree, cashed in all my previous modules as "previous credit", and then finished off the last bit before graduating. A lot of MSc degrees are not actually that intense and you will have more time to do this as a student (assuming exams have gone well so far) than trying to squeeze it in part-time around FY1/FY2.

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you