Doctors - advice please - has anyone retrained as a doctor mid-career?

[Participant]

Hi all

I recently sustained a broken leg and was in hospital for two weeks. It was the first time I've been an in-patient at a hospital since I was about 9, and one thing that really struck me (apart from the abject misery of being an in-patient on an NHS ward!) was how interested I turned out to be in medicine.

I wanted to know everything about everything and was discussing things in technical detail with the consultants looking after me, and not just about my own case. It struck me that I could easily be passionate about medicine.

I'm an accountant at a FTSE20 on a decent wage. I'm 36 with a wife, two kids (5+2), and a mortgage, so have serious responsibilities. However, I am not passionate about my line of work, so I've been semi-seriously considering a pretty drastic career shift to medicine. I don't have chemistry or biology A-levels, but I do have maths and physics. My degree was management sciences.

My questions are, assuming funding the earnings gap is not an issue:

- Has anyone here re-trained as a doctor mid-career and what tips would you offer?
- Am I foolish for even contemplating this - is it just too hard a path for someone like me?
- What would be my route to achieving this - start with part time biology and chemistry A-levels then quit work for five years to do a full time degree in medicine? Presumably a part time medicine degree is absolutely impossible as you need to be in hospitals all the time...!?
- Are 'late starters' perceived less favourably in terms of progression opportunities; realistically I'd be in my early-mid forties until I even qualified.
- Will I ever see my family if I do this?!

I'm under no illusions that this would cost me a fortune in time and earnings until I was out the other side, and it's a massive gamble as it might not work out, but the more I think about it, especially since my accident, the more I'm realising you only get one life and you need to do what fulfils you in that time.

Sort of wishing I'd had this epiphany when I was 9!

Thanks.

 

[Participant]

Thanks for the excellent reply. To answer your bullet questions:

1. Entry requirements are brutal. Have you got the A-levels to take the entry test? - Not sure, I've got 4 A-levels, 2As in Maths and Physics and Bs in Economics and English
2. They take on a year ahead, so this year they'll be accepting students for 2018 - OK
3. Do you have a degree?* - Yep, 2:1 Hons in Mgmt Sciences
4. Are you willing to relocate to train/go Uni? - I'd consider it at the very least
5. Massive cost to qualify. Are you going to be in a position to fund this? - Should be OK for various reasons
6. Long hours and high stress - that's probably the bit I'm most concerned about - seeing less of my family
7. Money isn't amazing until you're SpR/registrar level- noted

*you're looking at 6 years from start to end of foundation stage if you start with a degree (4 year uni vs. the normal 5) and however long to get up the ranks as a registrar. Possibly 10-12 years to Consultant, if you put everything in to it and pass the exams first time.

10 - 12 years to consultant would have me at almost 50, but then I suppose I'd still have 15-20 more years of work ahead of me .

Great insight in the rest of your post. If I got offered a placement somewhere else I think I'd have already agreed that with my wife before I even start down this road.

Maybe it's too late. Will pick up that GAMSAT book anyway and have a read, cheers.