Studying medicine as a postgraduate could make you a better doctor

With 10 candidates for every place, medical school is notoriously hard to get into. You can have three As at A-level, a brilliant score in the additional entrance test and have done all kinds of relevant work experience, but still you don’t get in.

The answer for some people is to sign up for a postgraduate medical course after taking a degree in another subject such as biomedical sciences, although some schools don’t mind what subject your first degree is in as long as you have a knowledge of science.

What matters more is your degree classification. Fifteen medical schools offer accelerated four-year graduate entry courses including Warwick, Nottingham and St George’s, University of London.

Warwick insists that you have a first or a 2:1 in your undergraduate degree, whereas St George’s and Nottingham are prepared to consider applicants with 2:2s as well. At St George’s, admitting students with a 2:2 is now under review.

Graduate entry is not an easy route to take. Last year Warwick had close on 3,000 applications for only 170 places.

“What is tough is the sheer numbers who want to do medicine,” says Prof Colin Melville, head of the postgraduate medical programme at Warwick.

“Those who get in are highly motivated. In our hospitals, our clinicians think [that postgraduates] make better doctors.”

St George’s admissions tutor Philip Adds says: “I think they bring with them a tremendous richness of experience and maturity, which is not present in the school leavers.

“A lot of them will make first-class doctors. In order to succeed they have to be so committed to get a place.”

Warwick insists that applicants take the United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude test (Ukcat); St George’s requires them to take the Graduate School Admissions Test.

St George’s medical school takes only 60 home students on the graduate route out of 1,300 applicants and is unusual in that it conducts interviews.

Examiners interview applicants through multiple mini-interviews asking them the same scripted questions and marking them according to how they perform.

“It’s a better predictor of academic success than traditional panel interviews,” says Adds. “It is fairer and more objective.”

Amy Barrett: ‘I enjoy the practical side of my course – we see patients once a week’
Amy Barrett, 22, is studying a four-year postgraduate course in medicine at the University of Warwick, having done a first degree in biomedical sciences at Keele University.

“When I took my A-Levels, it was always in the back of my mind that I would like to do medicine. But I didn’t expect to get the necessary grades, so I didn’t apply. Instead I applied to study biomedical sciences at university.

“Something clicked for me academically. I got into my stride and I ended up achieving much higher grades than I thought I could, finishing up with a first. Suddenly medicine was a option.

“So I applied to Warwick for postgraduate medicine and luckily I got in. I started in September 2013 and am loving it.

“I enjoy the practical side of my course the best and I like the patient contact. At Warwick we see patients on a ward for an afternoon a week during the first year.

“My case shows that it is possible to study medicine and become a doctor by taking the graduate route. It’s not easy because there are fewer places at this stage than at the undergraduate level. But it’s important for people to know that there isn’t just one option.”

(Source: TheGuardian)