- If you withdraw before starting 2nd year you don't have to pay back the one year of BMP. You can do the 1st year, resit UCAT apply to JMP to hopefully get a CSP offer next year. If not successful at least it gives you a year to think about continuing medicine or not.
This was something I considered but I'll have to confirm with JMP tomorrow since I know doing this essentially rules you out from WSU since wanting an unbonded offer wouldn't exactly be a compelling reason to transfer.
"Are you are an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident or New Zealand citizen who is currently (or has previously been) enrolled in a Doctor of Medicine (MD) or equivalent program, including combined medical degrees within Australia or New Zealand? If yes, you must submit a Transfer Request directly to the School of Medicine.
You are not eligible to apply via any other pathway. If such an applicant is found to have gained a place in the MD Joint Program in Medicine via any other pathway, the place will be rescinded. "
Fair enough. My calculations don't quite stack up in that case. Either way your taking a $280,000 gamble on that degree too (which you don't know if you will complete), ontop of the $80,000 (70k earnings + 10k hecs) you cost yourself with the IT degree.
Im obviously wary that lost earnings are very different to financial liabilities, just putting a new perspective on it
Point taken. It is very possible I don't complete the 4 year degree either but at least there aren't any financial liabilities. On an unrelated note what's your perspective on 'degree hopping'? Of course I'm not doing intentionally and I feel I'm at least learning about myself and picking up some degree specific knowledge along the journey. I can't deny however it feels a bit bad and like you said does add up in lost earnings.
These are three very different specialties. What makes you feel drawn to these specialties? I think you will find you have a better chance of enjoying the degree based off walking into Medicine with a diverse set of interests, and would be more likely to 'find your niche' based on mixing and matching aspects of those specialties, compared to the hundreds of grammar school'd myopic future orthopaedic surgeons who start medicine each year.
Super super happy to be corrected here if I have anything wrong especially since Chinsaki's here.
I was originally in the dental camp just based off WLB and shorter training periods but found out through spending time with some dentists and reading online that I think I preferred the consulting style diagnostic work and problem solving over procedural work. Whilst there is a balance of both in dentistry, it seemed to skew more towards the latter so I turned towards medicine. Shame since to be frank I'm not super career oriented and I think dentistry is a perfect values match in terms of autonomy and lifestyle but I don't think I'd be happy with the bread and butter of mostly procedural work.
I know medicine isn't exactly conductive to being lifestyle friendly and that the hard work never ends even after becoming a consultant but you'll notice the specialties I've leaned towards tend to be on the more lifestyle friendly side of medicine. It's just lucky I guess that I happen to at least find some of them interesting.
I originally wanted to go down the physician route for Immunology and Allergy but consultant positions seem basically non-existent. That's in part why I wanted to do GP and go down the GP with special interest route to scratch that itch and more (e.g. mental health). Massive variety, friendlier WLB and shorter training, the ability to build long term patient relationships and autonomy in how you practice since you're a contractor. My plan was to do something like 3 days clinical work and 1 day teaching or something like that.
(Disclaimer: The following is probably wrong in all sorts of ways)
The other specialties I mentioned are more currently 'oh that seems interesting. I'd like to find out more' so it's all based off impressions right now. Public health from what I've gathered seems to be consulting, policy and advisory style work in health prevention, promotion, etc which sounds interesting. Path from the small anecdotes online looks to be a lot of diagnostic, deduction and problem solving work. As for psych, mental health as an area is interesting to me. The work that draws me here I think is probably mostly outpatient work: the whole talking and listening, doing assessments, counselling style work, building long term patient relationships and watching that journey of getting better, etc . I think pursuing psychology would probably be a better fit here. In all honesty though I have an open mind. Those specialties were just the ones that jumped out immediately. Being a CMO also doesn't sound bad although I assume it's not at all sustainable in the long term.
Now, I also understand some of the reasons for X specialty aren't particularly unique to medicine. Part of the reason I did IT was because I thought it would be more WLB friendly than medicine, give me variety on a similar scale to GP if not more, scratch the problem-solving itch and have the ability to angle into healthcare through med-tech, digital health or consulting. Too bad I didn't actually like the work. I imagine nursing and some-wider scoping allied health's like OT would be able to more or less fulfil my wants though on a smaller scale and with far friendlier work life balance. In terms of consulting-esque work itself consulting in the business world or process improvement type gigs would probably fit the bill.
I'm not a med or dead person however so if you have any other suggestions for fields or careers I'm open. One of the main reasons I applied to medicine was because I didn't have any particularly strong feelings towards another path and thought it would more or less combine everything I was looking for in a health and patient centred context without the limitations (advancement, scope and income) of allied health.
