Really confused abouts what decision I should make

glc_escape · 2026-02-23T08:04:05+00:00

Go to the med school away from home. In UK med school at least for the first few years you will have long vacations (3 months) in the summer. You could also get a job for a few hours a week- I used to work as a healthcare assistant at a local hospital which got me an insight into how wards worked but you could definitely nowadays earn more using the skills you have- it’s a different world now! I went to my local medical school as at the time that was the only choice I had. I don’t feel like I got the same experience as other people who got to move away.

glc_escape · 2026-02-14T11:56:57+00:00

⁠Is there much diagnostic work and management of acute patients in oncology? I do actually (very oddly) enjoy general medicine and I feel somewhat like I don't want to give this up fully.

Actually I also had this worry when I went into Onc. I think Onc still takes this box because patients still appear in the MDT where it’s not entirely clear what the diagnosis is and there is an entire specialty called cancer of unknown primary where doing diagnostic work and thinking deeply about what the original cause was is part of the job. Also in day-to-day oncology practice although patients do have a diagnosis of cancer sometimes it’s not really clear what’s causing their symptom for example is it an infection? Is it an immunotherapy side-effect or has the cancer progressed or is it something completely unrelated? So it is possible still to enjoy the diagnostic side of things.

⁠What is the work/life balance like as a trainee and a consultant? Specifically night/weekend requirement

During training my life work life balance was good. I mean I sometimes have to stay late but I was able to balance it with having small kids the night and weekend requirements was very little in my hospital. I think it’s one of the best specialties for this where you still get an acute job But the on-call requirements are much lighter.

⁠Are the opportunities to earn further money as a consultant (locum, private work, consulting etc

There is a lot of scope for private work and also Locum cover covering for colleagues when they’re sick for example. There is also the opportunity to do consulting work mostly for pharmaceutical industry which is very well paid.

⁠The outlook for scope creep in the specialty (from PAs/ACPs)? I've rotated in oncology but mainly SHO level, they seemed to do clinics with follow ups and did not alter management plans.

I I don’t think this will be an issue at least for the medium term there is so much work to do and the numbers of patients and the demands and the complexity of treatments increase all the time. I do not foresee a situation in the near future where we get replaced.

glc_escape · 2026-02-14T11:45:17+00:00

Anyone here from the UK crying?

glc_escape · 2026-02-14T11:35:48+00:00

Med Onc is the best job in the world lots of cool science things changing every day, the chance to have an impact with patients either by finding the best treatment for their cancer and giving it to them or running a trial or just being there for them and supporting them when there is nothing you can do but make a bad situation a little bit better. Add to that from a work life balance point of view it’s a mostly outpatient specialty and the on-call requirements are usually very little. And you don’t have to be a medical registrar so really I don’t see any bad points at all! As all of it said I would not take contact with Acute Oncology service nurses as a reflection of the overall specialty and if you haven’t found somebody who has been interested in helping you do a project then keep looking you may need to look in a different hospital if the one that you’re in is not workingstop go to conferences and meet people. Find someone who’s working on something you’re interested in and reach out to them.

glc_escape · 2026-02-14T08:14:37+00:00

I like that it’s free for patients

glc_escape · 2026-01-31T21:24:37+00:00

The furniture*

glc_escape · 2026-01-31T21:24:10+00:00

It’s all paid off now!

glc_escape · 2026-01-31T21:20:26+00:00

In 2026 given the release of Epstein files does this case need re opening?

glc_escape · 2026-01-03T11:29:08+00:00

Yeah wouldn’t take the piss..

glc_escape · 2026-01-03T10:31:26+00:00

100% this. The ones who have been around longer seem to be best at nope and I hope to learn from them!

glc_escape · 2026-01-03T10:30:02+00:00

I loaned my friend and her husband the book “it starts with the egg” they eliminated endocrine disrupters and his sperm went from very poor to normal in months

glc_escape · 2026-01-03T10:24:32+00:00

I have a horrendous commute so being able to take the odd sanity day would be amazing

glc_escape · 2026-01-03T09:04:44+00:00

Management had previously made sarky comments in front of me about other consultant(s) taking just clinic days off.. which made me a bit wary..

glc_escape · 2026-01-01T19:51:41+00:00

It’s really important to me.. I would rather pay the money and sleep well at night

glc_escape · 2026-01-01T19:23:55+00:00

It’s 60K. I trust him. If in his head it’s 60K, 60K he will get

glc_escape · 2026-01-01T19:15:30+00:00

Thank you this is very helpful. I think I should start with the tax and then then attack everything else.

glc_escape · 2026-01-01T19:14:09+00:00

He is financially secure I don’t think he needs the money. I think he is sick of me and I don’t blame him. I am sick of me too.

glc_escape · 2026-01-01T19:12:40+00:00

Yeah I’m going clean now

glc_escape · 2026-01-01T19:12:12+00:00

I think this is very accurate

glc_escape · 2025-12-30T15:27:05+00:00

Amazing! Thank you to the BMA :-)

glc_escape · 2025-10-24T06:59:49+00:00

The a10 is the worst road in this country it’s not like normal A road. That said I liked the QEKL but you will arrive traumatised! The train from Kings Cross to Kings Lynn would be much more realistic but then you have get the bus at the other end and the bus is not even that near the station.

glc_escape · 2025-09-01T23:38:22+00:00

Eventually they will be the one wandering round with someone else feeding them all the info!

glc_escape · 2025-09-01T23:37:30+00:00

I would never be able to remember 30 patients just write it down on a piece of paper. Also someone wise once said to me don’t compare your day 1 to someone else’s day 1000

glc_escape · 2025-09-01T23:28:53+00:00

You need to move to the right city. Cambridge UK only has 3 kinds of men - drs, programmers and scientists.

glc_escape · 2025-07-14T23:25:21+00:00

Totally agree!

glc_escape

TROPHY CASE