Thankyou so much for your replies.

It makes me feel so much better to here that there are other people who drop out and go on to do other things successfully!

I was planning on doing this PhD as a route to medicine, but it has turned into something that I'm not at all interested in and it's just making me unhappy. However, I would feel really guilty just quitting so I think (if my supervisor will let me) I will prob try and keep going for another year to get an MPhil. Is there anyone who has changed to an MPhil? How "easy" is it wrt funding?

It's great to hear someone else thinking about grad medicine too! I'm having a bit of a night mare trying to get references (cos my supervisor probably wouldn't give me the best reference just now) but other than that Im so excited about the idea of just going for the application and getting into a place where I really want to be!

Cheers so much for your help guys!

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Hi guys,

I currently coming to the end of my 1st year in a Phd (about to do my 9 month assessment) and I've decided that academia is just not for me. My work has actually been going really well, I've got some good data and I've already written up the first bit of my thesis and some initial analysis....but I just really don't want to be doing this anymore.

If I'm honest, I jsut want to quit cold turkey, but I suggested that I stay and finish next year and hand in a thesis in June for an MPhil. I'm currently applying to study graduate medicine so I wouldn't mind continuing for another year if I got something out of it (although I'm not really that bothered either way). However, my supervisor said I should try and complete my PhD in two years (and write a whole load of papers) but this would mean I would miss the start of med school so its not an option....The whole research group are being really horrible now (I understand why, but at the end of the day, its my life, and life is short!)

Does anyone know what happens if you down-grade from a PhD to an MPhil if you are research council funded? or if you just quit?

Any help that anyone can give me will be really gratefully received!