Medical Schools + Specialties

8

From looking at the competition ratios for specialty training, it's looking rough. I want to go into either paediatric surgery/neurosurgery hopefully which I know both are extremely competitive. But I'm still yet to make a decision on my med schools. I know it's very important to make your portfolio at uni amazing to give yourself the best chance so with these specialties in mind hopefully someone can provide me some insight as to which unis would be best suited?

Here's my stats :
GCSEs : 11A*s 1A 1 Distinction (Additional Maths)
AS Levels : BBBC
A2 Level predictions : A*A*AA
UCAT : 2010 B1

Any advice would be really useful thanks!!!

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

Which medical school you go to ostensibly has no direct bearing on specialty applications, particularly given that specialty recruiters are blinded to your medical school to ensure no bias.

Also you should be aware there are fewer neurosurgical consult posts than upcoming trainees and so neurosurgeons who have completed training now end up having to work in trust grade posts or do fellowships until a consultant somewhere ends up retiring, and then they all apply for that post. This is due to an error in workforce planning about 10-15 years ago where it was expected neurosurgeons would take on some then new procedures (I think to do with coiling brain embolisms or something?) but these ended up being taken on by interventional radiologists instead, so too many trainees were brought in to cope with an expected increase in number of cases, but as those never did increase, there was never a corresponding increase in consultant posts.

Basically you may end up earning much less after qualifying as a neurosurgeon than other surgical consultants because you probably won't end up in a consultant post. Neurosurgery is also generally one of the least "translatable" specialties to working abroad as most countries have enough of their own trained neurosurgeons and have no need to recruit neurosurgeons from other countries.

Realistically, as you need to study the whole of medicine for 5-6 years, then work across the whole of medicine for a further 2 years minimum, you probably should not be deciding on a very niche specialty already as you need to be motivated to learn about and work in all areas of medicine for the next 7-8 years minimum.

Reply 2

username7766204

4

This is not about the post sorry! But as a sixth former who is still not used to the grades etc. how come you got BBBC in your AS but are predicted As and A*s? My teachers told me in order to get an A* or A in A level your As grades need to be As . I’d love for an explanation because I don’t really get any of the As/A level grade system. Thank you so much !! ☺️ sorry this isn’t relevant to the post.

Reply 3

zozow

OP

8

Original post

by Raven_07

This is not about the post sorry! But as a sixth former who is still not used to the grades etc. how come you got BBBC in your AS but are predicted As and A*s? My teachers told me in order to get an A* or A in A level your As grades need to be As . I’d love for an explanation because I don’t really get any of the As/A level grade system. Thank you so much !! ☺️ sorry this isn’t relevant to the post.

Because I'm doing WJEC. For any subject as long as you get 80% UMS overall for both AS and A2, and 90% UMS in A2. You get an A* regardless of your AS grades. However to get overall 80% UMS, you still need at least a C at AS.

Reply 4

username7766204

4

Original post

by zozow

Because I'm doing WJEC. For any subject as long as you get 80% UMS overall for both AS and A2, and 90% UMS in A2. You get an A* regardless of your AS grades. However to get overall 80% UMS, you still need at least a C at AS.

Oh ok thank you so much! I am doing WJEC too so this is really helpful! Thanks again 🙃☺️

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