Would it be very difficult to become something like a medical doctor if you had chosen to base your career on just that?

Question: Would it be very difficult to become something like a medical doctor if you had chosen to base your career on just that?
- Keywords:
  career,
  doctor,
  medicine
Asked by anon-193085 to Heidi on 2 Nov 2018.
- Heidi Gardner answered on 2 Nov 2018:
  
  There are a few people I know that have worked in trials and then gone on to train as Medical Doctors – having training in research would definitely help in terms of a future medical career. If you already had a degree in a relevant subject (e.g. medical sciences, biology etc) then you can do a ‘fast track’ graduate medical course which is 4 years rather than the usual 5 year course. The University of Oxford has some good information about this online here: https://www.careers.ox.ac.uk/medicine-as-a-second-degree/. In the trials world we work a lot with Medical Doctors – they’re often the lead on our projects because we still need clinical expertise. If you wanted to do both Medicine and research, I’d recommend going to Medical School and then taking a research track when choosing specialisations. There is a lot of focus on developing Medical staff into good researchers too – surgeons, nurses, doctors etc, everyone can get involved in research and helping to run trials.

Question: Would it be very difficult to become something like a medical doctor if you had chosen to base your career on just that?