Psychology or medicine at uni? (struggling w ucat)

Ive heard countless people say that taking medicine involves sacrifice and commitment, and its very competitive yadda yadda
but my parents and teachers say im perfectly capable of doing medicine
so basically ive wanted to do psychology at the beginning on year 12 for uni because i want to be a counselling psychologist. i take psycholgy chemsitry and maths and an epq (which was on art and bipolar disorder), predicted grades a*,a*,a,a* respectively
psychopathology and social psychology were my favourite parts and i found that throughout the year psychology was the easiest to get A* in
however, after reevaluating my career choice, i realised that i wanted to do more than provide CBT and do research, and being a psychiatrist would be the most ideal because I'm interested in psychopathology, and i could prescribe drugs as well as provide talk therapy.
it would be the perfect job - but the steps to that is whats bothering me
i need to take medicine to become a psychiatrist, and the main reason i want to take medicine is to reach that long term goal, but ofc universities are really looking for people who are passionate about medicine and helping people (im only halfway there - i love helping people, but dont particularly love medicine, i just dont mind it). a Dr told me "to play their game for now" when i told them abt my situation, but in long long run, is this doable?
i didnt take biology (because at the time i was sure i wouldnt take medicine so i wouldnt need bio, and i found part of bio super boring) which limits my options although there are many unis that dont need bio.
but now, im strugging a LOT with UCAT and im getting around 2380, and my exam is in around 25 days. if i dont get a high ucat score, my choices are even more narrowed down. i hope this doesnt sound bratty but id really want to do to one of the top unis - i can get the grades, ive done some volunteering, have gp work exp, entered competitions etc, but ucat is my biggest issue
so my final question is: do you think it would be possible to do medicine with a low/average (if i manage to improve) UCAT score, and having a long term career goal, considering how competitive it is?
im so sorry if any of this doesn't make sense and if its too rambly lol this is kinda stressing me out. maybe medicine isnt as bad as i have it in my head, its prolly just the application process being crappy
(also im seeing minimal improvement in VR no matter what technique i do (trying to improve accuracy for true/false.cant tell and leaving comprehensions qs for last; reading whole passage carefully then quickly answering questions; skim reading for key words and reading sentence before and after; reading passage backwards when looking for key words; mentally noting what each paragraph is about; reading the key word sentence super dramatically/exaggerated to have a very clear understanding of what the writer is saying, etc) - should i concentrate on improving other scores to compensate and stop wasting sm time on vr?)
thanks so much

Just some quick things to highlight, a Counselling Psychologist and Counsellors in general rarely are trained or even utilise CBT (Clinical Psychologists are but often draw on diverse modalities also), they are experts in relational models so many dont work in that way at all. Also, there is so much more to Practitioner Psychologists than research or therapy, we take leadership roles in teams, create health initiatives, supervise others etc.
Secondly, Psychiatrist very rarely, if ever do talking therapy. I have met one psychiatrist who did but she took another 5 year course and even then did this privately, as no health service will pay a Psychiatrist to do therapy as it is not cost effective and they dont have the expertise to do so. So i wouldnt go into Psychiatry if you want to do therapy.
I think you really need to understand your options more before making a decision. Psychiatry and Psychology are very different ways/lens on similar problems but come at if from very, very different ways.
Greg
Clinical Psychologist

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+become+a+clinical+psychologist&oq=how+to+become+a+clinical+psychologist&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIHCAEQABiABDIHCAIQABiABDIHCAMQABiABDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIHCAoQABiABDIHCAsQABiABDIHCAwQABiABDIHCA0QABiABDIHCA4QABiABNIBCTMyMTIxajBqN6gCFLACAQ&client=ms-android-motorola-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&chrome_dse_attribution=1
Might be route you want.

off the topic but, what exam board did you use for your a levels? What are your top tips for psychology?

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm looking into my options better, but I do have another question - do you know how patient-doctor interactions are like for psychiatrists? Like, are they much different from patient-doctor interactions between, lets say a GP?

AQA for chem and psych and Edexcel for maths
hmm i think the writing style just clicked for me. this is weird but doing rs gcse actually helped not content wise, but writing style wise because you just need to know how to waffle effectively
i spend most of my time learning the studies, because learning the conclusion and link to the topic itself is, in a way, just learning the theory content at the same time. i use Quizlet flashcards to learn the studies, but i also make Quizlets on the key words too. everyone learns differently so what i would say is
1) dont learn ALL the studies, just the important ones w lots of evauation points
2) write as much as you can for the time frame - just info dump (and use a pen u find rlly easy to write fast with)
3) know the structure for writing really well - i dont know about your school and how they tell you to structure the applied 16 markers and evaluation ones, so lmk if you havent learnt the 'burger' structure
4) most importantly have the evaluation points up your sleeve, like it should be like breathing lol. stuff like considering the sample (gender/age/ location - can you generalise): the experimental design (matched pairs, independent groups etc): type of experiment (natural, laboratory, field); ethical issues; extrapolation; socially sensitive research; reliability. there's usually so much to write about a single study
hope that helped :]

Ive heard countless people say that taking medicine involves sacrifice and commitment, and its very competitive yadda yadda
but my parents and teachers say im perfectly capable of doing medicine
so basically ive wanted to do psychology at the beginning on year 12 for uni because i want to be a counselling psychologist. i take psycholgy chemsitry and maths and an epq (which was on art and bipolar disorder), predicted grades a*,a*,a,a* respectively
psychopathology and social psychology were my favourite parts and i found that throughout the year psychology was the easiest to get A* in
however, after reevaluating my career choice, i realised that i wanted to do more than provide CBT and do research, and being a psychiatrist would be the most ideal because I'm interested in psychopathology, and i could prescribe drugs as well as provide talk therapy.
it would be the perfect job - but the steps to that is whats bothering me
i need to take medicine to become a psychiatrist, and the main reason i want to take medicine is to reach that long term goal, but ofc universities are really looking for people who are passionate about medicine and helping people (im only halfway there - i love helping people, but dont particularly love medicine, i just dont mind it). a Dr told me "to play their game for now" when i told them abt my situation, but in long long run, is this doable?
i didnt take biology (because at the time i was sure i wouldnt take medicine so i wouldnt need bio, and i found part of bio super boring) which limits my options although there are many unis that dont need bio.
but now, im strugging a LOT with UCAT and im getting around 2380, and my exam is in around 25 days. if i dont get a high ucat score, my choices are even more narrowed down. i hope this doesnt sound bratty but id really want to do to one of the top unis - i can get the grades, ive done some volunteering, have gp work exp, entered competitions etc, but ucat is my biggest issue
so my final question is: do you think it would be possible to do medicine with a low/average (if i manage to improve) UCAT score, and having a long term career goal, considering how competitive it is?
im so sorry if any of this doesn't make sense and if its too rambly lol this is kinda stressing me out. maybe medicine isnt as bad as i have it in my head, its prolly just the application process being crappy
(also im seeing minimal improvement in VR no matter what technique i do (trying to improve accuracy for true/false.cant tell and leaving comprehensions qs for last; reading whole passage carefully then quickly answering questions; skim reading for key words and reading sentence before and after; reading passage backwards when looking for key words; mentally noting what each paragraph is about; reading the key word sentence super dramatically/exaggerated to have a very clear understanding of what the writer is saying, etc) - should i concentrate on improving other scores to compensate and stop wasting sm time on vr?)
thanks so much