Can we just stop for a moment and realise how weird the Medical degree is? Think of it this way: chances are you’ll have friends applying for courses other than Medicine (you know, all those degrees for sane people you’d be considering if only you loved yourself).
You’ll hear those people talking about how they’re not yet sure what they want to go into after they graduate and/or discussing all the different jobs they could potentially end up in.
As you look down at the seventh draft of your Personal Statement, you realise a very peculiar truth: unlike them, you seem to have it all decided. You’re going to be a doctor.
This is where Medicine is unique. What degree other than Medicine, after 5-6 years of study, takes you straight into a specific job? I mean, I don’t know about you, but sometimes that thought is just distressing. It can feel like you’re jumping on a 300 mph train headed straight for a highly specified, non-negotiable direction. What if you change your mind? Or the ride is nothing like you expected? Or you get bored and want some variety?
Asking yourself those questions doesn’t mean that Medicine isn’t for you or that you have commitment issues – it’s only right to be cautious when the stakes are so high – it’s the rest of your life that we’re talking about here. And life changes: you yourself change as do your circumstances. Surely you want as many doors open as possible – and despite what it can seem like, good ol’ Medicine doesn’t come along and shut all of the doors. Let’s explore the wide array of opportunities a Medical degree can offer beyond (or even instead of) being a doctor.
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Get ready to make your mark in Medicine with 6med!
The first step to creating your medicine career path if to get your med school offers! You can guarantee your success with 6med’s Complete Bundle, which guides you through every step of your application.
So, are you ready to start your med school journey?
Research Careers
To kick off, let’s look at one of the more well-known opportunities you can pursue as a doctor: conducting studies to widen the breadth of medical knowledge and publishing the findings in scientific journals, otherwise known as research. The most common way to enter this field is to obtain a PhD at a research institute following your Medical studies. It’s a highly competitive area of medicine where strategic thinking, experience and networking is key.
As a student, you can scout for shadowing opportunities with researchers, attend conferences or even become part of a project with the scientists at your university. It’s important to remember you might have to start very small – that promise of adventure you got from your lecturer when you agreed to help out with their research may turn out to be simple admin work – but with each experience, more doors will open. This is one of the most important parts of work experience, allowing yourself to try new things and see what interests you!
This career option is most attractive to those who like to appreciate medicine as the complex science that it is – or simply enjoy living in the lab, watching as their sanity slowly begins to degrade – you choose.
Teaching Careers
In Medical School, you’ll probably find yourself explaining a difficult concept to a classmate (or even more often – asking them to explain something for you) – and after graduating, having become a clinician, you may be tasked with taking under your wing some highly knowledgeable, perfectly responsible and not at all burdensome students. Some medical school students and graduates will even take on part or full-time tuition work, (such as the expert tutors that help us deliver our 6med Crash Courses, one of the many features of the Medicine Mastery Bundle!).
If you find yourself enjoying those times, you can pursue teaching students on a bigger scale by becoming a lecturer. As you go through Medical School you’ll realise that this job is fairly flexible: you’ll see Medical graduates for whom lecturing is a day job and doctors who pop in to do a lecture once or twice a year – it’s really up to you.
Whether it’s the passion for your field that will motivate you, your enjoyment of teaching or a willingness to give back to the world of medical community by helping to raise a new generation of doctors, educating others can be a highly satisfying career path.
Travel Careers
This is the part you were waiting for, right? Well, it turns out human bodies stay more or less the same on the inside as you travel the world, making the vocation of the doctor highly transferrable.
While travel in itself obviously isn’t a medical career, you may pursue career opportunities that facilitate you to experience the way medicine is practiced in different parts of the world. The main thing is to do your research – various options include working with organisations such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and The Red Cross or doing locum work.
Medical journalism/writing Careers
School can make it seem like writing of a level surpassing that of a ten-year-old doesn’t belong in a science classroom. If you enjoyed reading books, creative writing or essays during GCSEs or A-levels, there’s no need to leave that part behind as you enter Medicine. Health is an aspect that permeates all parts of society – every single person has a body – giving doctors a place of considerable value in literature and journalism.
Opportunities to write begin at university. Some Medical Schools have their own student papers – and if not, there is bound to be a university one. There may also be some student-selected components of your course which will allow you to write in a way that isn’t dry with hard science. Technically speaking, you’ll be practising your writing even before you get a place at uni with your Personal Statement!
The key is to keep seizing the opportunities and accumulate as much experience as possible since there isn’t a set path for a writer. Look up the careers of Medical graduates like Michael Mosley or Sanjay Gupta and see what you think.
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Personal Statement Masterclass
Personal Statement Masterclass
Are you looking for Guidance for your Medical School Application?
With 6med’s Complete Bundle, you’ll get access to live Crash Courses, in-depth Workbooks, revision platforms, video Masterclasses and more, all covering the complete Medical School application process.
That’s a lot of support so are you ready to get your place in med school?
Legal/forensic medicine Careers
Let me paint a familiar picture for you. It’s 3 am – you are on your sixth episode of CSI: Miami that night – and as the next one loads, you catch your reflection in the black screen, asking yourself why you’re not applying to a police academy instead. Or Law School. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there with those TV-induced career choice hang-ups – I almost gave up my plans to study Medicine so I could become a CIA agent – because of Homeland.
But for real now, Dr Watson. If it turns out you find the Medical Law and Ethics aspects of your course particularly interesting or develop an inkling for dissection in the anatomy lab, you may find yourself willing to apply your degree to pursue various medicolegal opportunities.
If being a doctor doesn’t fulfil you, studying Medicine allows you to enter the world of legal and forensic investigations surrounding death (assessing wounds, toxicology, decomposition), rape, paternity, injury claims, etc.
Public health Careers
There are various organisations concerned with the health of people as a whole which could employ you, the most well known in this country being ones such as the World Health Organisation or Public Health England. If you like your infectious disease, epidemiology and/or epidemiology modules – and you sure will, all Medical Students absolutely love them – they could become your everyday reality.
It may not always involve containing zombie outbreaks, but you can help to develop public health campaigns or programmes such as vaccinations and education initiatives, all the while analysing statistics, to improve the health of your community.
Business Careers
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that in the world of today, entrepreneurship and medical practice aren’t mutually exclusive – if you like to manage others and have creative ideas for changing the world of medicine, you can do anything spanning from starting a charity or an NGO to developing innovative medical equipment or drugs, even running a private clinic. As long as you’re not trying to develop a pyramid scheme revolving around a herbal treatment for all ailments known to man, the world is your oyster.
To Sum Up
So hopefully you can see that medicine is anything but restrictive. That 300 mph train I mentioned at the beginning does in fact stop if you want it to and it can switch tracks – you decide. The Medical degree is a long one – it gives you plenty of time to roll these things over your mind. To remind you, we’ve discussed:
- Medical research
- Teaching at university
- Travelling as a doctor
- Medical journalism and writing
- Legal and forensic medicine
- Working for a public health organisation
- Business in medicine
Whether you Want to be a Doctor or go another route, there’s still plenty that you need to know!
6med.co.uk has guides to help you through every step of your medical application process. Some of our top guides include:
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