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postgraduate medicine + GAMSAT

Hello Beautiful people,

I need some advice, I am 30 years old, graduated with an MEng in Chemical Engineering ( 2:2). I've had medicine at the back of my mind for ages and i feel like i need to suck it up and just go for it next year 2020.

My concerns are: The exam will be too hard, I haven't opened a text book in over 6 years. I work full time, I can only apply to two universities as I have a 2:2, even though i have a masters, its an integrated one so its not a post grad degree. is it worth putting all this energy in if i can only apply to two places?

I have no issue with returning to study and currently work in a hospital where I have an oversight of all type of clinicians and look after an entire A+E department. I have a good understanding of the NHS and its long term plan, so in terms of health care experience I'm not lacking.

What i would like to hear are some stories of other students applying for postgrad medicine who also had a 2:2 and did not have a life science degree. What motivated you? if you failed did you regret it? can you prep for the exam in 6 months if you haven't hit the books in a while?

Thank you

Reply 1

username4937028

Original post by Him89

is it worth putting all this energy in if i can only apply to two places?

Change the question. Is it worth putting all this energy in for a shot at the career you want? You only need one offer and it you meet the basic requirements and get above the cutoff, you'll get an interview.

The exam is testing, but it's doable. Just don't forget that technique is agruably more important that what you know. There are people on here who have had to reapply multiple times and eventually made it. It's not an easy path but if it's what you want, go for it.

Reply 2

Marathi

Hey, I'm a 3rd year GEM student at Warwick. My original degree was a 2.2 in graphic design and I worked in that industry for ~4-5 years before deciding to do medicine. It took me a few goes and I eventually relented and got a Master's degree to open up additional options (Warwick being one of them). I'm 31 now, but was 29 when I started.

I had to study a lot for the GAMSAT, I think the first sitting I revised for about 9 months. But I hadn't done any science since GSCE and even then I wasn't that good at it, so you could definitely have a lot better success than me. I ended up doing the GAMSAT 3 times (with my highest overall score being 58/59) and the UKCAT once, in my 3rd time applying I got 4 interviews (Notts, SGUL, Swansea, Warwick) with 3 waiting list places and eventually 1 offer.

My motivation was that I really wanted to change what I was doing and I was actually enjoying learning the science for the GAMSAT. After I was unsuccessful the first time I left design anyway and became a full-time HCA at my local hospital. So my motivation then shifted to being able to do more for patients and to gain a better understanding of the clinical side of healthcare.

It always stung when I failed, especially the first time because I thought I had nailed the exam and I did pretty badly. But I knew it was what I wanted to do and I continued to persevere and just saw each failure as areas to improve on. I think if I had got 4 rejections after my interviews I would have struggled with that a lot, I always felt that if I could get to the interview stage then I would be fine - even if in the end it was quite close!

I think I've found getting into med school more difficult than med school itself. Fortunately I've not had any problems since starting with exam results or OSCEs or anything. In my first year the 2 people who came top in the year in both the writtens and OSCEs were from non-science backgrounds. So you can definitely go far regardless of what you did before.

If you have any further questions feel free to ask or PM me :smile: