A career in medicine

A career in medicine has always been at the forefront of my mind
Jane, third year medical student at Comenius University Faculty of Medicine Bratislava, Slovakia

A career in medicine has always been at the forefront of my mind, I may not have got there in the orthodox way by leaving school and heading straight to medical school, but finally I am there!   After school I went to University to study biology at both BSc and MSc level.  I was not the kind of student at my school that was deemed academically good enough to study medicine.

I enjoyed the degree but knew a career in biological research was not for me and on completion of my thesis I started a job with a pharmaceutical company as a sales representative.

I enjoyed my job as it was straight forward, social and well paid, it was a role I was able to fill well, but it was not in anyway what I saw myself doing for the rest of my working life.  After much debate and advice I had nothing to lose in making a massive effort to get into medical school.  The only job I knew that I wanted to do was medicine.

I secured a place on an Access to Medicine course, which got me back up to speed and into the swing of studying again, and from there I secured a place at medical school.

Getting the acceptance letter was a very emotional and life changing day. One I will never forget. Studying medicine is a privilege, to me medicine is the ultimate career.

What other career can you chose which provides constant mental stimulation, a continuous opportunity to learn and progress, flexible working hours and a decent salary.  But most importantly, a career in medicine empowers you to help people, to be respected by others and to feel job satisfaction in a way that is impossible to feel in many other careers.

The opportunities are endless, and the choice vast, however along with this comes huge responsibility to individual patients, the population as a whole and the team in which you are working.

In addition the NHS may receive a great deal of press about its status, but at a time where many people are being made redundant, doctors are still in the same demand. I had to put a great deal of thought into the viability of studying medicine at the age of 27, although jobs are not guaranteed they are still readily available.

A career in medicine