Transferring from Biomedicine to Science

[lebnon]

Hi,

I've wanted to be a doctor for the past 2 years of my life. Or I thought I had wanted to be one. I figured I'd work real hard in Biomedicine and get to the promised land of medicine. However, after speaking to 5 doctors/surgeons, reading countless thread on another forum about medical life. I've decided it's not for me. Every surgeon I spoke to held the sentiment, 'In medicine, you miss out on important moments in an average person's life, medicine is amazing, but I don't really think the pros of medicine outweigh what you miss out on.' I did some further reading on life as a doctor and found the following. Standard working hours for a surgeon are well above 80 hours a week and most surgeons get one weekend off in a month. On top of all of this, until you're 35 you're sitting the hardest exams of your life trying to pass (which something like 30% of people do first time).

So in reality, life as a doctor is, studying until you're 25 at uni, an internship, a minimum of two years working in the hospital, (you're 28 at this point), then you apply for specialist training which for most specialities is 6 years and most people don't get in straight away or pass first time.

Medicine is not a career, it's a life. Are there any thoughts on this or do people disagree? 

I'm not attacking people who have chosen medicine here. In fact, I have nothing but respect for people who have. It's a big sacrifice to certain parts of your life and your heart must truly be for the people if you are willing to work 100 hours a week in a hospital during the best part of your youth.

Now, at the this point, I have completed 8 subjects at uni. I'd like to transfer A.S.A.P as any Biomedicine subjects I do from here won't be credited if I transfer to science at Melbourne.

I know yada yada, this is done through VTAC, but the following reply from the head of science admissions who has said:

Dear
 
Associate Professor Michelle Livett has forwarded your email regarding a transfer to the Bachelor of Science in 2013 onto me as I am the Selection Officer for the BSc.
 
We cannot consider any late applications for the BSc until after round 1 offers have gone out so I will not be able to provide you with any further advice about whether or not there is a possibility of you being considered for entry until Monday 21 January.
 
I will be in touch again after this date.
 
Regards

Does anyone know if I have any chance of being successful through this and getting a spot in science at Melbourne from semester 1, 2013?

Thanks for your time!

[JinXi]

Sounds like there's nothing much you can do except wait until 21st January as stated in the email. Also, your chances would mainly depend on your 1st year Average marks in BioMed and also the number of new intakes for Bachelor of Science.

I think with a reasonable average (say 60+?), you'll stand a fair chance of transferring since the demand for biomed course is much higher in Melb Uni than for science.

Glad to see that you had a fair bit of thought over your career and had the courage to make such a drastic change The worst thing you'll want is realizing that Med is not for you after you finish studying.

[lebnon]

Sounds like there's nothing much you can do except wait until 21st January as stated in the email. Also, your chances would mainly depend on your 1st year Average marks in BioMed and also the number of new intakes for Bachelor of Science.

I think with a reasonable average (say 60+?), you'll stand a fair chance of transferring since the demand for biomed course is much higher in Melb Uni than for science.

Glad to see that you had a fair bit of thought over your career and had the courage to make such a drastic change The worst thing you'll want is realizing that Med is not for you after you finish studying.

My average is 83.

I honestly feel Melbourne model is brilliant for medicine. I know personally I was wooed by the glamour of medicine in year 12, once you get into the real world (even though uni is not quite the real world), your priorities change drastically. I mean as my GP said to me in year 12, 'be prepared to miss your kids birthdays' when I arrogantly ignored him. For some people, medicine is the right fit, however, I think for a lot of people, it probably isn't.

Now there are specialities that are less demanding time-wise, a few of them, but you're really pigeonholing  yourself if you go into medicine with your eye on only one speciality.

I mean, compare medicine and engineering:

Pay:
-Medicine is probably better, however, engineers still earn at the minimum a very comfortable living. A good engineer can earn just as much as most doctors do.

Prestige: (This is no factor to me at all, but to a lot of people it is):
-74% of Americans stated Engineers were people they respected and 83% said doctors said they were people they respected.

Hours:
-9 til 5, or rather flexible in some engineering sectores. Med hours, crazy.

"Helping people":
-An engineer can help just as many needy people as doctors do, however most engineers don't and most doctors do. The humane and breathtaking beauty that is giving someone the gift of life is of course meaning that ~95% of doctors help more people than engineers do.

[Excellent]

What do your parents think of your dilemma? I always find that consulting with my parents on such issues helps.

[pi]

Deleted troll posts, don't troll please.

[Professor Polonsky]

My friend (who's looking into engineering) was considering doing BBiomed at Melbourne, and then an engineering masters. That could work for you if you can't transfer into science - I'd ask around about this option as well.

[Pup]

I think you can easily transfer from 1st year Biomedicine into 2nd year Science, if you majored in Bioengineering in the biomed degree.
But you need to do Calculus 2, Linear Algebra and ESD2.

[lebnon]

I think you can easily transfer from 1st year Biomedicine into 2nd year Science, if you majored in Bioengineering in the biomed degree.
But you need to do Calculus 2, Linear Algebra and ESD2.

I was completing a Bioneng pathway in Biomedicine anyway so I've done Calc 2, L.Alg and ESD2.

However, I was told by several university academics, engineers and friends who work as engineers (they've graduated) that Biomedical Engineering is a waste of time and if I wanted to go into Bioeng to do electrical engineering.  You can't do that from a Biomedicine degree so need to transfer.

[Pup]

Can I ask you why Biomedical Engineering is a waste of time? I'm was planning to major in Bioengineering in Biomedicine, so I can fulfil engineering pre-requisities, should I want to move into engineering as a back-up option.

[Pup]

It's a coincident, that the dilemma that you are in, is one that I've been planning out.....

[lebnon]

It's a coincident, that the dilemma that you are in, is one that I've been planning out.....

Engineers have a lot of transferable skills between disciplines. Biomedical engineering is really just a subset of electrical engineering. You may as well do electrical engineering to keep all the jobs open instead of biomedical engineering to limit yourself. when you apply for jobs, it's not going to be a dream boat, like, 'out of uni, I want to go and help design the bionic eye'. Your first job will be wherever you can get it and it's a hard job to get.

Electrical engineering is a much better option if you want to be an engineer. There are a lot of talks given to you on engineering prospects in first year ESD2. I suggest you pick science if you truly want to keep the engineering route option. One of the things they talked about was how they helped design a bionic ear implant. It was a team of surgeons, engineers, mathematicians amongst a whole bunch of people. So your knowledge in biology might not be as necessary as it seems because a lot of the time they can easily consult someone who does know anyway. It's just rather interesting, I'd highly recommend these 'perspective series lectures'.

Of course if you want to do tissue engineering or genetic engineering it's a different story, but be aware, these disciplines are really hard to find jobs in.

[Hancock]

I agree with many people saying that Biomed Eng < Electrical Eng. The idea is that you can more from the latter to the former, but not from the former to the latter.

You can actually double major in Electrical and Bioengineering in a BSc because they are quite similar. I haven't got the Powerpoint presentation that was on the LMS for ESD2 students last semester, but it is definitely possible.

Looking at the M.Eng(Elec) structure, you have so many free electives compared to Civil/Structural/Chemical (Mech has like 7 free electives). With these electives, you can basically do a minor in Biomedical engineering again. The course structure of M.Eng(Biomed) has a lot of electrical courses as well. The above poster is right in saying that you should not be diminishing you're graduate role opportunities by doing a niche field right away, CONSIDERING that you virtually do the same field under the brand of EE.

[Pup]

Do most people doing Biomedicine, who is doing a Bio-engineering major have the intention of biomedical engineering at the masters level, or do they have the intention of doing other health sciences such as medicine, dentistry, optometry etc.

[lebnon]

Do most people doing Biomedicine, who is doing a Bio-engineering major have the intention of biomedical engineering at the masters level, or do they have the intention of doing other health sciences such as medicine, dentistry, optometry etc.

There's not many people doing a Bioengineering major in biomedicine. I think about ~20 people and I know most of them. The majority of them are looking at doing post-graduate medicine (or dent).

But interestingly, all (but one girl) of us started with the intention of doing medicine but most of us are not sure any more.

As I've outlined in this thread, we're an interesting demographic because we've had exposure to what the life of engineering is like and that in health science and I think a fair few of us prefer the life of an engineer.

If you're interested in engineering, do science.

One thing I'd like to note, when I finished year 12, I got a high atar score. I missed out on med, but I guess I kind of wanted to feel acknowledged for my score that I wasn't someone who got an 80s ATAR or the like and I did indeed do really well, just unlucky with UMAT. I mean, I didn't think like that at the time, but looking back, I think it was a part of me picking Biomed.

When you come to uni, nobody cares if you are in Biomed or Science after first sem is over.

[lebnon]

I suppose I'll make a longer post to help you out.

Here's a few things I feel you should consider.

Why do I want to be a doctor?

To help people
If you truly care about helping people, become a scientist or even an engineer. As my lecturer said once, an oncologist can help 10 or so people in a day. A team of scientists can help a million people with what they achieve.

It's amazing to be saving people's lives
In theory, I would whole heartedly agree. But medicine is not really like what it is on American television. Most of the doctors I spoke to said they found their job to be mundane. It's extremely stressful as many people don't appreciate your work and it is very difficult to cope with people dying around you or you not being able to help people.

$$$, Chicks and Prestige
Not joking with this one, if these three were on the cards, it'd tempt me to do med personally but in reality, I just don't feel medicine offers these. I remember I was talking to my now ex-girlfriend and she said she actually found it unattractive that I would become a doctor as they seem stressed out and work all the time. Consistently, none of my none of my mates got with girls because they were in biomed. Prestige in medicine is lol-worthy, it's just not really there anymore. $$$ are great in medicine once you specialise, but overall, if you want $$$, go with engineering or dentistry. Money will  be on you straight out of uni and it is very handsome indeed. Median salary for an electrical engineer before overtime with 10 years experience in Australia is: $170,000 AUD. With overtime it's 200k+ and everyone does overtime.

Lifelong learning
Let's get something straight, if you do medicine and want to do surgery for instance:

25: Graduate
28: You can apply to specialise (No-one will get into surgery this soon in reality, some people even do a PhD to become more competitive in their application)
34: Finish your specialty (Less then 30% of people pass final exams first time, in reality, you would finish your specialty training at about 40).

Training for a speciality is crazy hours. Your life is the hospital. My friend's brother (radiologist) said it broke him down many times and he felt like giving up many times as he failed some exams repeatedly.


Contrast that to an Engineer:

23: Graduate
23-??: Work

Engineers are literally the most vibrant people on campus, always at the pub and genuinely enjoy life. In biomed, I look around and legit half the cohort seems depressed.

Regardless, I can't make this decision for you. I would, however, advise the following. Go to a hospital, ask to speak to a few doctors (5+) about whether they regret choosing medicine, whether they enjoy their job and any other questions you have.


Now, Biomedicine V Science, I will give an objective analysis here:

Biomedicine

Pros:

-The people in your degree push you to insane levels. You got 24/25 on that mid-sem test? Cool, half your mates got 25. You miss a class? Cool, your friends ask you where you were. First day of first year, people already hitting the books in the library. So if you want a good GPA, Biomedicine will help you. Also, people are very friendly and it is very healthy competition. People actively form groups for revision and people go out of their way to help you out.

-It does give you a better idea of what medicine/health science is than what science does. I can't be bothered arguing this point, but it does.

Cons:

-You are limiting yourself from day one. People say there are a lot of options with a Biomedicine degree, I find that hard to believe. Almost all the options you have in a Biomedicine degree are there in science + there are more.

-People are slightly socially awkward and think they are better than science students, which is annoying. Science and Arts students regularly take the piss out of this for what it's worth.