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Should I become a doctor

Zazious

All my life I've dreamt of being a doctor, more specifically a general physician (GP). As a child I was obsessed with health, always got doctors kits. Growing up I started to study people, health and diseases, medicine. I'm almost 26 and I feel like time is running out for me to do this. I know I'm still young but it takes years of study and I've got the ASD and anxiety that could ruin this for me. Both do seem to cause me a lot of difficulties and challenges in my every day life and three years ago I had mentalhealthproblems. I really want to do this but I don't know whether I should go for it not. My family don't offer a lot of encouragement or support.

My dream is to become a GP and have my own practice. This is my dream, I've already bought a few bits of kit, like a bag,  stethoscope, just to keep the dream alive.

I feel like I could do it but my head says no. I'm stopping myself but I don't know if I'm right or wrong. 

Please help. I could do with your opinions on this. 

  • Well on the one hand it’s a lot less stressful than other forms of medicine. There is less noise and your day is more structured. You deal with a variety of cases. Children who need vaccinations, flu etc and on the other end early steps of cancer diagnosis and end of life care for people released from hospital.

    GPs are in demand but it’s likely that what it means to be a GP will change. There aren’t enough GPs and the government doesn’t feel it has enough control of them since they mostly run as private businesses attached to the NHS.

    its possible in future more GPs will work in hospitals or NHS owned clinics.

    if you’re passionate about it and good academically you are more or less guaranteed a job with a medical degree, and people can and do transfer into working as a GP at any stage past their initial training. I don’t see why you shouldn’t go for it if you think you can handle it academically.

    most Med degrees want you to have 3A at a level Including at least 1 from biology/ chemistry. If you have that, or think you could get that fairly easily I don’t see why you shouldn’t try it.

  • Oh do!  The answer to my problems as an autistic patient might be more autistic doctors.  Then I could stop having to justify why doctor's appointments are so hard for me.  I'd be your patient please. :-)

    I hope you get the support you need to get through med school.  And we're here to vent at if you need a listening ear.

  • I think you should try. You might end up regretting it.

    I will tell you, as a child I was (and still am) health obsessed. I did want to be a GP. It wasn’t a dream, but it was the job I wanted. I had no push from parents to go to university, and I was so quiet at school, I did not dare to attend Sixth from, let alone anything else. There were too many issues to get around. 

  • Good morning King.

    Yes.....you should chase your dream (presuming that you have the requisite academic ability for the extensive studying and learning.) It is a bit of a no-brainer to me because your dream will also deliver all the boring and mundane things that we also need to thrive and survive.

    Like you say, time is short......get on with it!

    Offering you my very best wishes

    Number.

  • if you want it then yes, go for what you want....the uk absolutely needs more doctors, and decent ones too as the ones we have are pretty poorly trained.

  • Hi there. The open days at the Unis are coming up so go and have a look around. I left medicine because of mental health issues, so I am not the best person to ask.

    I think if I was doing it again, I'd probably go into being a Physicians Associate - less stress. IM me if you want.

    Best wishes,

    Mrs Snooks

  • Yes. If if its what you dream of then chase your dreams cause they don't come to you

    One of my dreams is to become a singer and I've already started to chase this dream

    Good luck doctor :0)

  • If you know it, then do it. But be gentle with yourself as you may not be a typical GP you'll be a ND GP which is even better! Plenty of us would like to come see you over other drs I bet Star

  • We're capable of thriving and of specialising. I live above an Autistic woman from South Africa who is a GP. She's amazing. 

    I once heard someone say to 'act like an ant' or approach big goals as if you're training for a marathon. Do one thing a day. Make a short term and long term goal list (no more than 10). And just do a little every day. It's genuinely helped me!

  • If you disclose your anxiety and ASD diagnosis to the university then they should offer you extra support. The 5 years of the degree will place you in all areas, mostly in hospitals but there are some community placements as well, you won’t be able to start specialising in general practice until at least the foundation years. There’s also a lot of academic work as well. Have you looked at any of the course details online or do you have a local university which teaches medicine? You could go along to an open day and see what it’s like. I’m not a doctor myself but I work with many and a handful are ND (not just ASD) so it’s not necessarily a barrier 

  • Go for your dreams! Otherwise you will have regrets. If you try and it doesn't work out, then you tried, and there's no shame in discovering that it wasn't for you after all. You could find that you excel, and your worries were unfounded. Take into consideration that it will be very demanding, and take steps to ensure you're looking after your own health and mental well being. If that means it takes a bit longer, then it takes a bit longer. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.