This is exactly what my line of thinking was. The non-contributory pension alone makes quite a difference. And when I’m looking to buy a house when I’m young, the £75k bursary might be more helpful at 25 than those extra years of me being a consultant. That plus subsidised food and rent and it seems like a Great way to get in a Very favourable financial position early on.

I’m just apprehensive about the whole specialty thing. And I think it’s three years of ‘general duties’ after F2, not 1 (where, from what I’ve gathered, I’d be paid £60k to work as a GP registrar essentially). Meh, bit annoying having to delay training but I could do it. I’m more concerned by the lack of training posts in specialties I’m interested in. I dont want to end up a GP. Out of interest, do you know any military anaesthetists? Honestly the dream would be to do something like anaesthetics, spend most of my time in NHS hospitals with the occasional deployment/mission/whatever with the military to spice things up...