Granted not the most light hearted of subjects but there is a lot of useful and practical information which could be invaluable to you. Many thanks to Donna Pilkington and Lisa Quinn from the University of Manchester for allowing us to use this and for their hard work in getting this together!
Medicine is a notoriously long course and many students struggle to make ends meet using just the student loan that they’re entitled too. While some manage to hold down a part time job to help support themselves juggling a job and studies can at times be difficult, especially as you reach the latter few years of medical school. As a result it is important to know that there are other avenues you can pursue if you find yourself in financial difficulties. These include:
essay prizes, applying for hardship funds/bursaries and professional studies loans
Essay Prizes
Essay prizes are actually a good way of getting yourself a considerable amount of extra money, while at the same time giving you something to add to your CV. There are numerous essay prizes and scholarships offered by a number of medical/surgical societies and the Medical School itself and it is worth trying to submit something if you can. Quite often you have to write a report as part of your Special Study Modules so it may be worth submitting one of these if it is appropriate for what the essay prize asks for.
Here are just a few of the Essay Prizes /Scholarships you can apply for:
Undergraduate Essay Prize, The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland
http://www.pathsoc.org.uk and admin@pathsoc.org.uk, £500, Deadline – 30th June every year.
Wylie Undergraduate Medal, The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland Worth, info@aagbi.org or telephone 0207 631 1650 , £300, £150 and £50 for the best three submissions
MacLoghlin and Morris Scholarship, The Royal College of Surgeons of England
research@rcseng.ac.uk, Award is means tested, Deadline – 28th May every year
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists – Medical Student Prizes
rdeshmukh@rcog.org.uk or 0207 772 6263, £500, £250, £100 (3 prizes), Deadline – January every year
Brigadier Haywood Prize, Royal Society of Medicine – Clinical Section, clinical@rsm.ac.uk or telephone 0207 290 3859, £100 book token, Deadline – January every year
See the following websites for further lists of prizes/scholarships and keep your eye out for posters on your Medical School notice board. http://www.rsm.ac.uk/academ/awards/index.htm and www.bma.org.uk
Professional Study Loans
A professional study loan is essentially a bank loan, which is only offered to students on particular types of vocational courses, including medicine. However, some banks will only offer PSLs to students in their 4th year onwards: unless medicine is a second degree.
Before deciding to approach a bank about a PSL it is important to sit down and look long and hard at your finances to see if you really do need one. Whatever money you borrow from a bank will have to be paid back unlike a student loan, where repayments depend on your income.
If you decide that you need to take out a PSL shop around. While the loan has to be taken with the bank who holds your current account it isn’t too difficult to move elsewhere should you find that another bank offers a better deal than your current one. Different banks lend up to different amounts, with differing interest rates, which tend to be lower than those on bank loans that are available to the general public. Some charge an admin fee for setting one up, some deposit your loan in instalments over the years you need it while others give you a lump sum. However, if you need to increase the amount of loan you require a new contract has to be set up each time, which will include the amount you’ve already borrowed plus the new amount needed. So find out as much information as you can about the PSLs offered by each bank before deciding who to go with.
Some other handy tips should you decide to get a PSL:
- Spend some time sitting down and looking at your finances, how much you realistically need and whether you can earn a bit of money through a job before deciding on the amount of PSL you need. Prepare a spreadsheet of your finances, looking realistically at what you have coming in and what you have going out.
- Try and set up a PSL with a Student Finance Advisor or at least someone who has done one before. It is far less hassle to set one up with someone who is familiar with it because they are more complicated than ordinary bank loans. You cannot underestimate how reassuring it is to have someone who knows what they’re talking about and won’t mess it up.
- They are not common loans and often you will visit a bank asking about a PSL and they don’t know what you’re talking about or think you mean a Careers Development Loan (which it isn’t). For this reason it is important to have read up on them so you know what you’re talking about and you know what they’re not!
- Try and go back to the same person each time you need to arrange more loan: it makes the whole process a lot easier and quicker! It is very likely that you will need to return at some point to ask for more money.
- Any money you owe (eg PSL, Student loan) is taken in to consideration by a bank when they decide how much mortgage to pay you. A PSL of £20, 000 (amounted over 3-4 years of med school) can quite obviously decrease the mortgage they’ll offer you!! I know this is a long way away for most people to be thinking about but when you are in to your 2nd or 3rd year of work you might want to consider a mortgage. It is unlikely you will have paid off your bank loan by this stage (plus you’ll have money for the student loans company going out to).
- Don’t use a PSL as an excuse to get loads of money and live a bit more of a cushy life style in your last few years of med school (not many do this but some do)
But above all…. don’t stress too much about them. They do need to be considered seriously but once you’ve sorted one out, doing them again if need be (if you run short) becomes easy and not at all stressful. Quite a few medical students do end up taking out PSLs so it might help to talk to someone who’s been through the process and ask them what they think of their bank.
Remember you are guaranteed a job at the end of med school (despite all the current hoo har) so you will afford the repayments. There will also be a period of about 6- 9 months post graduation where you don’t have to start making the repayments. You can if you want but you don’t have to. This gives you a bit of time to either enjoy yourself a bit or save wisely so you can pay off the loan sooner!
