QuoteOriginally posted by: CaesariaI know that doctors and even nurses have to take stats. I'm sure you have done some stats, atleast about sampling. Don't you try to predict the most likely cause of a patients illness based on a history of patients who were diagnosed with certain things vs what they actually had. My cousin is a cancer surgeon and he uses multivariate stats and some bayesian stats to figure out the probabilities of his patients particular illnesses conditional on their symptoms. So I am sure that you can do stats courses, with your current background without any pre-reqs.Its true that we have to know some stats to be able to interpret reearch papers, clinical trials, evidence base, epidemiology etc but we dont do hard core statistics in med skl. Regarding your uncle who's a surgeon-he probably had to learn the stats himself as a postgrad and again, this is all very basic stats. The question is to do an MSc in statistics, most universities require a first degree that has at least 50% mathematical content-thats certainly not the case for medicine. Doctors learn very little maths at uni-in fact none to a mathematician.

QuoteOriginally posted by: Caesariayea or do a masters in Biostatistics, there are many univs that offer it. you can use that as a route to get into finance or some quantitative job.thanks for your advice, ive sent a few e-mails round to unis, will let you know the outcome. cheers.

I haven't posted for a while (preparing for exams!) and just saw this topic so thought I had to reply.You're wanting to change careers from medicine (with now house training) to a quant job in the investment industry. I see no way this is achievable without having a degree at least to masters level in the hard sciences.You will also need to learn how to program along the way.All this would add another at least four years to your non-finance background with as yet still no industry experience (unless you're lucky to get some sort of internship at a firm).By this time you'd be almost hitting 30 or more and all the time competing against guys who've done the usual BSc->PhD route in physics etc.In todays market it's not gonna happen and with market conditions as they are at present the odds are even more against you moving to the quantitative area of the banking industry over the next two to three years.In the UK during the deregulation post 1986 as instigated by Thatcher's government,all kinds of graduates (and non-grads!) were finding positions in the newly set up banks in London.In one of my former banks where I worked (well before I joined) there was a guy who was a qualified physician (MRCP) who got a job as an equity trader in 1988 and over the years with further qualifications etc got himself into a research role by the early nineties.He's now assistant managing director of that group.Now to pull off the same feat today I reckon would be almost impossible just due to the maturity of the industry and the levels of competition.This industry is about greed - and let's not beat around the bush here.You are not expected to have any empathy for mankind and you live and die by the amount of capital you can directly/indirectly make for your employer which is a tough mindset to accomodate if you're in the healthcare profession.I know of one guy who upon completion of his MBBS got a job via the graduate milkround in 1996 as a cash equities trader at the then Natwest Markets (now part of RBS) and after six months returned to medicine as he just didn't like (or couldn't hack it - he wasn't specific) the job.In my case after getting a medical degree I went on to do five years of engineering which I completed in 1995 and manged to get industrial experience along the way so that made it easier to get a full time job on graduation.Since then I've gotten into quantitative roles which like yourself is what attracted me to the industry,but more so the money and my dislike for humanity in general.Yep I'm not a people's person by any means.Things are just too competitve nowadays and I definately wouldn't have been so lucky in this decade.To an employer switching at a late stage shows indecisiveness and that alone can throw out your application.I reckon in all honesty it would be better to focus on doing a part time maths degree (say from the OU) and keep your day job.Once you've finshed that degree you can then decide whether you still have the drive/gumption to carry on with the mathematical route with a view to finance.In reality you should do an MBA from a top school and try to get into an equity analyst role specialising in some area of the health care sector if you're still adamant in trying to get into the invesment industry.

QuoteOriginally posted by: AbhiJBeing a top doctor you can earn multiple times a Quant earns Definately not true in the UK as almost all doctors work for the NHS.In the USA this in some cases can be reality.It all depends on the business area,specific group, maco economic conditions etc..., so generalizations like the one you made are not applicable even in the US.But one thing is true the total average compensation for a bona fide quant in the UK > NHS doctor, and that applies for UK doctors at the post consultant stage.

the math in quant finance is maybe a tad harder than the math required for a medical degree so I don't think you missed out on much.

QuoteOriginally posted by: nov1cethe math in quant finance is maybe a tad harder than the math required for a medical degree so I don't think you missed out on much.In the UK no maths knowledge is really required to gain the MBBS.Almost all the standardised curriculum for medical undergraduates in the UK require some stats but only knowing the rudiments of a normal distribution and definately not requiring to do any elaborate calculations with requisite calculus etc.Knowing how to solve a quadratic equation is sometimes also required and knowledge of logarithms but nothing more.The assertion that math in quant finance is just "a tad" harder than that in a medical degree is just completely absurd. That's just like stating that in order to teach a physics class at GSCE level in the UK you need need to have like a PhD in QFT. Man I don't know where you got your info from!In the US it is standard practice to have a batchelor's degree in some science (or sometimes even maths) before entering med school which is why US med school grads are better at research than their UK counterparts since they already have a scientific grounding at the outset on starting their clinical studies.

im talking about the US...if you got in a med school you did some math comparable to the math needed in finance. He says he's interested specifically in pure math and there's none of that in quant finance. middle school geometry is more pure than the stochastic calc used in finance. I don't know if the med school undergrads in the UK are so ill prepared, i don't think they would lag the US by too much.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ThinkDifferent I hope another crises (a bigger one) will happen so that people will finally realize that quant finance is, in its most part, is a useless piece of intellectual garbage.What a choice of adjective "intellectual garbage".

How much of this is a) I don't want to be a medicor b) I want to be a quantThese are distinct motivations, and you need to be clear in your own mind how they play for you.meniscus makes several good points, and I lean to wards the idea of you being a medically-qiualified-X, where X is something that values medicine, but doesn't make you do it.The thought that keeps bubbling up in my mind is not MSc or MFE, but MBA.There's lots of these and your decent academic background means that you ought to be able to get into a respectable one.You then have a useful spectrum of choices, that vary from managing health business, things that set you up to work for a Pharma, maybe even start you along the route of being an equity analyst for medical/pharma firms that meniscus mentioned. An MD isn't qualified to be an equity analyst, an MBA MD would have a much better shot.That's not a cheap option, but finance MSc ain't cheap either.Alternatively there is the CQF, which is designed to fit around work, since you can choose a mix of classroom and remote/video learning. I teach programming on that, but of course, Dr. Wilmott leads it.It also means you don't have to abandon your current line of work, although I won't hide the fact that it will add to your work level quite a lot.The reason I mention not abandoning your current career yet, is that nothing you have yet said gives me ironclad evidence that you will be happy & successful in quant work, and it would be wrong of me to suggest you press the eject button whilst there is a serious risk you quit medicine to find yourself in something that's actually worse.