New Media Medicine Forums - Medical News

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 07:49 PM PST

Hi,

Please can anyone advice me on how to prepare for the BMAt exam: example, revision strategy, books to read. I want to apply for 2015 entry into Brighton and Sussex Medical school.

Is medicine a mistake in my case?

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 02:33 PM PST

Considering that I'm not even in medical school yet, your first instinct is probably going to be to say that I'm getting ahead of myself and I should wait to ask the sort of things I am in this thread but I think I need to consider this carefully before going ahead with medicine and potentially realising that I made a huge mistake in career choice so I hope you bear with me here!

I'm currently in my first year of Physics and Philosophy at Oxford and want to go for GEM after finishing my degree. My dilemma is whether I'm going into medicine 'for the right reasons' or at least with the right mindset.
My ambition is to eventually work [as exclusively as possible] with cases with bizarre symptoms and where a diagnosis is an issue. I guess, in crude terms, you could say that I want to be the Doctor's Doctor... or, dare I say, similar to House MD (I am aware of unrealistic that show is, for the record). For that to realistically happen, I'd obviously have to be an excellent physician but do you think that other things like a PhD/MD would be sensible too? In the US, the NIH run a programme called the Undiagnosed Diseases Program... I wonder if this is a possible target and what sort of training/expertise they'd be looking for.

At the moment, I'm especially interested in pathology and infectious diseases though it seems like pathologists don't diagnose by symptoms but by the presentation on whatever slide is in front of them!
Renal architecture and the importance of the kidneys in critically ill patients is also pretty interesting and another area I'm looking at.
In both cases, there seems to be a load of uninteresting cases - HIV for ID and dialysis care for Renal - for each until you get to the top of the specialty and I wonder if you think it's worth the wait if you're not all that interested in that stuff.

Money isn't really a motivator for me nor is the prestige of the job/specialty but I do really like the idea of solving mysteries and following clues. Before getting back into education, I served in the Armed Forces in Intelligence and I think that the 'investigative' approach is something I really relish and could use for good in medicine even if my goals are a little less altruistic than what other potential medics claim their reasons for choosing the vocation are.

Sorry for rambling; Any help would be great.