YOU’RE skint. You’ve paid the rent and your tuition fees, grudgingly forked out for an expensive textbook, bought a sensible pair of shoes for clinics and a travel card to get to them and spent your last fiver at the union – and your student loan hasn’t yet come in. Does this sound familiar?
Medical degrees are notorious for being among the most expensive students can sign up for. With the extra costs medical students face as a result of longer courses, the need for expensive books and equipment and having to travel to often distant placements, it’s no surprise that the average medic now racks up over £21,000 of debt over their time at university. And with this figure exceeding the basic salary for an FY1 doctor (coupled with harsh rumours of debanding being on the horizon for juniors), there’s more need than ever for hard-up students to root out the best ways of earning some cash whilst studying. Here are some realistic ideas for making some money at medical school.
1. Volunteer for paid experiments. Universities are all about research, after all, and they often pay subjects for their time – so keep an eye out for opportunities in your uni’s email bulletins and on noticeboards. If you want to be proactive, one idea is to contact your local psychology department – many of these offer easy cash for quick computer-based tasks; neuroscience experimenters often need normal subjects for EEG or MRI studies to act as controls. And there’s nothing like seeing your own corpus callosum and having a cross-section of your cranium as a desktop background!
2. As soon as you’re done with a textbook you’ve had to buy, sell it on via college email bulletins or online using eBay, Facebook or similar. Many bookshops also buy back textbooks, but you may not get as much as selling it yourself. The sooner you sell books on, the more they’ll be worth. If you buy books with online access in the first place, you’ll still have the benefit of the content.
3. Make the most of your holidays in the preclinical years. Finding work can be difficult, so sign up to several temping agencies at once and get posted to odd office jobs. If they know you’re a medical student, they will often make an effort to post you within the healthcare sector, often as a medical secretary. Improving your typing skills and dealing with patients over the phone can also be an asset to you!
4. Apply to work as a healthcare assistant at your local hospital, or with an agency. This may require some persistence and a willingness to be trained; but as well as soothing your finances, it can provide an excellent opportunity to see medicine from a nursing point of view and learn some practical tips about patient care.
5. Join a casual shift work company for term-time – the catering industry has many of these and often a large proportion of their waiting staff are students. The work is simple and flexible.
6. Consider tutoring A-level students – this work may require more planning and commitment, but pays well!
8. If you happen to speak another language, contact your hospital’s translator services – this can be a good earner without having to leave the hospital!
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