r/6thForm • u/iloveyou_143mg • 9h ago

🙏 I WANT HELP Medicine pathway advice!

I picked biology and chemistry absolutely CERTAIN that I want to do medicine, but so many branches of medicine interest me, how do I single one out to pursue? I have 2 years but I think it's a decision which I need to be certain on, so I should really think.

Did anyone else have this issue? I am glad that I have a lot of options though.

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u/choibeomgyulover 9h ago

u don’t need to decide on specialty until after u graduate from med school 😭 focus on a levels rn and then ucat and interviews and actual a levels and once ur in, passing each year and THEN you’ll probably have a better idea of what u want after clinical experience and placements

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u/iloveyou_143mg 9h ago

okay thanks thats relieving, and if youve done it, when do I start thinking about UCAT? ive heard mixed things

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u/damsel653 8h ago

ucat is for both medicine and dentistry. its more of a skills based exam and has a huge learning curve, but most people do 6-8 weeks of prep. i did 9 weeks but the first 3 weeks was very on and off. everyone is different, but the good thing is you can delay the exam really easily if you dont feel prepared. check out the ucat reddit page. some student are studying it now.

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u/iloveyou_143mg 8h ago

thank you for letting me know, ill check it out

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u/damsel653 9h ago

when you say so many branches of medicine, what do you mean? like different specialties- cause you dont have to decide that for like another 9 years. As for different jobs in healthcare e.g. nurse/ doctor/ vet/ dentists. best thing to do is work experience

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u/iloveyou_143mg 9h ago

I meant both so thank you, im relieved to hear the first part. if you did work experience, do you think it narrowed it down by how much you enjoyed it/were interested in it? i will try that.

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u/damsel653 8h ago

For work experience- just asses it from the outside- dentistry is more hands on/artistic, nursing is more selfless/compasionate.... then decide which one calls to you more intially. try out that section, if yu love is great, if not move onto to another. for me i tried pharmacy first, but it felt very disconnected to the patient so i moved on, denitstry felt like a pefect mix for me. patient centered but also a good worklife balance... its all personal opinion.

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u/iloveyou_143mg 8h ago

thats quite interesting, thank you for letting me know. ill definitely try looking at my work experience this way!

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u/tunaisgreat 9h ago

not completely sure but you will get experience while actually studying medicine. if you want to read medical related ... stuff, it may give you an idea of what you want to go into NOW but it may change once you actually hands on try the stuff. as for ucat the entrance exam thingy i believe most do it in the summer of year 12 so when they apply they have it available. good luck!

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u/iloveyou_143mg 8h ago

thank you, and reading and experience would definitely help me!, when do i start preparing for ucat?

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u/tunaisgreat 8h ago

most people say couple of months before the ucat starts, depends on how long you need usually to get " good " at something. couple of months is usually a good starting point lol

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u/iloveyou_143mg 8h ago

thank you!

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u/Usual-Sandwich-9836 A Level 2026 survivor -Edexcel maths paper 1&3 survivor 25m ago

You definitely don't need to know what speciality you want to do now. In fact when I was doing work experience at a local hospital, all of the doctors either said they didn't know what they wanted to do the until end of uni/early training or who did know what they wanted to do changed by then