Should I do physiotherapy? Would u do it if u came out w potentially no student loan
(sorry this is gonna be rly long) hi! I’m currently in the uk wondering what I should study. I’m in year 13 and had an offer for med but faced with the very real reality of missing my offer considering my exams didn’t go as well as expected. I’m hoping to work in healthcare I don’t think I’d be fulfilled if I didn’t, no matter how much money I earn I don’t think I’d be very happy doing some 9-5 desk finance job and tbh u have to work very very hard to get to a point where you are making a lot of money in that job and I do want to have a good work life balance and it’s a dream of mine to have kids in the future. tbh (tell me if I’m wrong) I don’t think physios make a particularly bad salary, it seems pretty decent. I’ve been looking into becoming a physio and it seems like a rly good career to go into if I didn’t do med. Ik the state of the nhs is quite dire at the moment but I’m hoping by the time I’m done it will have improved slightly or I don’t mind moving abroad. I just had a few questions:
how easy is it to do private work in physio? say if u worked in the nhs and worked privately for yourself outside to earn more money how easy is it to do or say u worked for urself full time doing things like home visits and sessions? i was trying to calculate it and it seemed pretty lucrative if u considered working for yourself or worked in the nhs part time and for yourself part time or outside of ur 9-5. (again I’m prob wrong about this but I thought I’d ask)
can u earn a significant amount of money if say u opened ur own private practice and how easy/hard is it to do that?
is it possible to live a comfortable life on a physio salary? I understand it’s not going to make u millions but I do want to be comfortable, so if I do have kids it’s manageable, if I save like crazy from the start possibly buy a house and not live paycheck to paycheck. the only career I see myself acc making millions is if I became a surgeon in Australia, a dentist anywhere in the world or smt in IT, finance. law etc. working for big private companies or firms but with the state of the job market its not very likely to go in those fields anymore unless ur superhuman and have some crazy high IQ.
on a side note if u did want to pivot into another career what options are available? I was thinking physio gave u a good foundation and ppl skills to do pretty much anything and cause its a science degree its viewed quite favourably?
what is the work life balance like as a physio? I’ve heard the work life balance is pretty great for a physio and was wondering how much time and energy u had outside of work for ur hobbies and family and side hustles?
I was looking into the idea of pelvic floor physiotherapy and it just seemed to be a rly interesting field to go into. like msk and everything seems interesting but I’ve always been rly interested in gynaecology and reproductive health and rhis seems to be the closest I’ll get if I don’t do med. how is this field in general?
I’m currently in a position where if I do undertake a physio degree right now, I could complete it with no student loans. id try and get into a uni close to home and tbh there’s one that’s quite near, it’s about 30 mins from home and I’d use the nhs grant for the tuition fees and i have a bit saved up and my parents r willing to contribute so when I do graduate I would do so with no student loans. if all things considered, u could graduate from a physio degree with no student loans as compared to a degree in maths or smt, would u still do it? ik student loans are a pretty big worry for ppl so I know how a big of a deal it might be to come out of uni with no student loans.
lastly do u enjoy ur career? do u wish u had done smt else? do u think in my position I should do smt else? like another nhs profession e.g. speech and language therapy? there’s a lot of negativity on this subreddit and I totally understand why but It has put me off the career slightly considering how many ppl r struggling to find jobs and how bad the retention rate is for physios in the future.
sorry Ik this is long but I’m tryna make an informed decision and I don’t want to make the wrong one!