I have applied for a science PhD and am wondering if accepting it, if the offer is made, would be a mistake, as I have no scientific work experience and am afraid that merely having two degrees and no experience in a scientific occupation may render my degrees worthless. I am very aware of how I have no chance of entering a scientific job now with a BSc and no experience - is it reasonable to assume that having a BSc and a PhD and no experience would make me any better off?

Thanks for your reply, Jstar, I've taken your points into consideration.

Thanks for your reply. I applied for embryology and clinical biochem traineeships several months ago through the NHS site but I really doubt I've been successful as I don't have anything to stand out from the crowd, just a (nascent) degree (I tried to get experience in hospital labs during vacations but other students were taken on instead).

A main concerns here whether investing in a PhD is worthwhile in terms of career - am I really going to be raising the likelihood of entering the job I want to do.

Another concern is whether the subject matter of the PhD is important. I would imagine that clinical scientists' PhDs are related to their area of work in some way, so would a PhD that is only tangentially related or not related at all to the job I want to do be a point against me or would simply having the transferable skills from the PhD be the most important factor.

I'm coming to the end of a BSc in biochemistry, and am interested in a career in embryology.

I have also wanted to do a PhD since I found out what a PhD was.

Is it likely that the PhD would be an aid to securing a traineeship? And if so, how relevant should the PhD be to the job? I don't want to move from where I live so I'm restricted to a small number of universities, one of which has a lot of interesting biosciences PhD projects which I would enjoy doing.

If anyone has any knowledge in this area I'd be pleased to hear from them.