Medical science- Getting very competitive (1 Viewer)

[Tim035]

I'm a med science student myself, and yes I would walk through fire to be able to transfer into medicine at some stage. But has anyone else noticed the competitive attitude arising in a lot of the students, creating the impresssion that suddenly we're back in the HSC?
I think the desire for SOO many students in the course to be in that top 10 so as to be offered the oppertunity to do lateral medicine has created a situation where I personally feel dumb for ONLY getting in the 80s for a test or assingment in comparisson to other students.

 

[wind]

There'll always be someone better...unless you're a freak

So just try your best without worrying about what other people get. You get what you deserve and the marks you receive are an indication of the effort you put in. Try harder and you get better marks...theoretically lol.

Uni's always been competitive though; don't think there's ever been a time when uni's been relaxing...except in first year.

If you don't get into med through a transfer, there are always othe pathways you can take that can still lead you to medicine. And even if you've exhausted all possibility of getting into med...you don't need to do med What do you think everyone else is doing? lol

 

[Survivor39]

Tim, sorry to hear that. Really, don't feel you need to compete with other students to get that top 10. It just adds more pressure to yourself. If you want to do better and get better marks, compete with yourself, not others.

I think when I was in first or second year, I was too competitive and I never did that well (probably nowhere near the top 10 - not that I was aiming for med or the top 10 placings because our year didn't have the med entry thing). When I got to third year, I thought 'screw this, I am doing this for myself, not to beat others', and from there I did much better. And this attitude has carried on to my Honours year this year. I just found out recently I was on the Faculty of Science Dean's List and only 3 other medical science students were there, so I know I did alright.

Good luck though with medicine. I think if you don't get the top 10 thing, it's even better. I'm saying this because you can actually CHOOSE your major (not stuck with crappy core subjects med faculty wants you to do). And you do Honours in your major area. And then go on to medicine with your first class mark.

 

[Tim035]

Thanks Survivor, that was very inspiring. In all honesty I'm not overly worried about whether I get into this lateral medicine degree (and know that I'm not studying as hard as I could/should be if I wanted to do so) not to say I'm being slack at all, but if I wanted to I could do more.

Probably whats most humerous to me though is prior to even knowing about the course outline you must follow to do lateral medicine I wanted to do pharmacology at Uni, and as it turns out it is to what you HAVE to do for the transfer program. My only other thoughts are maybe Pathology, which reminds me of a question I wanted to ask- If you major in Pathology is it possible to work in like a diagnostic unit in a hospital doing like blood cultures and cancer analysis? or is that more a area of specialty medicine graduates can move into?

 

[babydoll_]

As far as I am aware, a Pathology background is useful but medical graduates are preferred.

That said, if you major in Pathology and/or Pharmacology you still have the opportunity to do lab work and similar work, but you'll only be covering the narrow area which your Science degree would cover, as opposed to the broader physiological and medical knowledge a medicine graduate would have.

I'm a Medical Microbiology major (in plain BSc/BA though) and I have been told I will have the opportunity to work in a diagnostic hospital (which I am hoping to land in a few weeks, it just so happens that my friend's mum is a microbiologist in the hospital system). So it really depends on what area you want to work in. Keep in mind that nobody wants to hire an unexperienced grad student, so if you are really keen, try and find somewhere where you can gain practical experience (a laboratory etc).

 

[Survivor39]

Thanks Survivor, that was very inspiring. In all honesty I'm not overly worried about whether I get into this lateral medicine degree (and know that I'm not studying as hard as I could/should be if I wanted to do so) not to say I'm being slack at all, but if I wanted to I could do more.

Probably whats most humerous to me though is prior to even knowing about the course outline you must follow to do lateral medicine I wanted to do pharmacology at Uni, and as it turns out it is to what you HAVE to do for the transfer program. My only other thoughts are maybe Pathology, which reminds me of a question I wanted to ask- If you major in Pathology is it possible to work in like a diagnostic unit in a hospital doing like blood cultures and cancer analysis? or is that more a area of specialty medicine graduates can move into?

Yes, after you graduate you can go into diagnostics. One of the UNSW science graduate on this forum recently told me he got a job at the hopsital collecting specimens for diagnosis.

One of my friend also got into a biotech company helping to detect breast cancer from hair samples. So really, the opportunity is there for diagnostic testing if research is not your thing. Just pick relevant majors, like microbiology, immunology, molecular biology, pathology or pharmacology.