Nursing to med school experiences?

Nursing Students General Students

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I'm a freshman in college with a major in nursing. I'm also taking pre med requirements so I can hopefully jump into Med school right after or perhaps with a gap year. There is this hugeeeeeee stigma against it and my nursing advisers know very little about it, and the pre health office knows pretty much nothing when it comes to nursing students.

I know it's super tough, but has anyone done nursing w/ pre med? Or went to med school after/is in med school or is a prv nurse now doctor? Any expierence you went through or if you've known someone or any insight really on it would be super helpful.

(I'm aware it's tough)

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Nursing curriculum and pre med are two different curriculum's You can be a nurse and go to med school....it has been done but nursing instructor would know very little about it as they are nurses I would talk to the pre-med folks and go from there.

If you want to me a MD why not just go to med school?

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Specializes in Critical care.

I vote for choosing one or the other and not both.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

You must have a reason for this plan, which is quite convoluted.

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If you want to be a doctor, take the pre-requisites/pre-med program and apply to medical school. The undergrad program for nursing is too specialized and specific to a nursing career, and is not good preparation or meant to be preparation for medical school.

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The biggest factor is how statistics tend to stand against pre med students. And I'm aware the two professions are very different (the coursework alone shows that), but if I don't become a doctor I still definitely want to work an acute care environment especially a field in which I can further my education (whereas a PA really can't). I mean I have to major in something a BS in bio will really leave me no where in the chance I'm not accepted to med school, and definitely not in working with patients in a hospital environment. Also being able to afford med school and help my parents out is something nursing can help with. I feel like it's my safety net, but even then definitely not the worst case scenario. I want to be financially and happy with my career environment which nursing provides, but I also don't want to rob myself of any opportunities like med school.

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I'm taking both, with course overloads, and summer sessions (I finished lots of my gen ed pre reqs so I have about 6 credits each semester free and I use my elective space and the 6 credit space to take pre med pre reqs, while staying on track for both).

My pre med prereqs are for preparation for med school and the MCATS, but I still have to major in something and a BS in bio if I get rejected from med school will leave me with no job in a hospital working with patients which is a must for me even in the worst case scenarios.

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Specializes in NICU, telemetry.

The thing to consider is once you get further in to nursing school. When you start your clinical courses, you're going to be completely robbed of free time. Saying it's hard to keep up with that plus pre-med, is an understatement. I get why you have this plan...and it SOUNDS reasonable and smart, but people(and by "people", I mean advisors and such, who would know most) don't just look down on it and discourage it for no reason. You really do need to pick one or the other. Nobody wants to go to school and risk not coming out with what you wanted. Everyone wants a safety net...but you just have to.

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I think i sound very stubborn lol, but I do understand where yall are coming from since when people ask me now if they should (like some friends in hs) I don't recommend it at all, b/c of the lack of time and how much more costly it is.

But at the same time the majority of my pre med classes are in the summer sessions or in any elective space. And I should be done with Physics 1 & 11 the summer before my junior year, so clinical spaces would still be free. The only way I'd be put off course is if I need to withdraw from a class but even then My first clinical space we only have 1 clinical at 6 credits and another 4 credits class which puts me at 10 credits so I need to take another course to still be a full time student (they wouldn't let me core pre med courses as a freshman so I'm doubled up in nursing classes to hit 18 credits) so I'm sort of ahead in the program. So even if i need to take orgo again I have that free space and if I don't fail anything (which hopefully I won't haha) I can take a filler class like genetics.

I mean it's going to be tough studying around clinicals for the MCATS, but i think my rough draft is fairly okay. I go on different sites just about nursing to med school stories but their isn't much of them which I assumed just a handful since less than 400 students nationally apply w/ a nursing undergrad, but if you guys do know of anyone who took this path specifically or did so yourself ur insight would be incredibly helpful.

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Dont know if you watched this video are not but she gives some good advice

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Specializes in ICU.

I am taking my pre-reqs for med school right now, but I have been a nurse for about 2.5 years at this point. Just signed up for Genetics last night and I'm trying to sneak in a physics and gen chem next semester, too, if they'll just open up some sections! :)

I don't think it's doable to take med school pre-reqs at the same time as your nursing classes. Nursing classes are heavy on the studying - really heavy. I can't imagine taking another heavy class (don't forget all of the med school pre-reqs have LABS too, so each class is really two classes!) with all the nursing work as well. If I'd been trying to take physics, or organic chem, or biochem while I was in the nursing program, something would have had to give. And I'm a magna cum laude without trying type of person, and even I was a little overloaded at times.

Not to mention all the money you "waste" on nursing classes if you get into med school. The core nursing classes in my bachelor's comprised 62 credit hours (yep, just counted them on my transcript), and that's just the upper division classes labeled nursing. It doesn't count A&P, Micro, etc. because those were technically biology classes. That's 62 hours you have to PAY FOR! I don't know how much your school is per credit hour, but if your nursing school is expensive, you could pay for a year of med school easily with how much you'd pay for those nursing hours. It's just money down the drain.

Also, nursing pre-reqs and med school pre-reqs have very little in common, at least in my part of the world. The only pre-reqs they share are basic bio 1 and 2 and general chem 1 and 2. On top of those, you're going to need two o-chems, two physics, biochem, cell biology, genetics, and possibly calculus. It's not just one or two classes extra to apply to med school on top of what you need for nursing - it's multiple semesters' worth of credit hours.

Last point - every med school website I have looked at so far says they want the applicant to have extensive healthcare experience, either through volunteering or through working. How are you going to have time to get all of your volunteering done if you're doing a full course load of nursing classes PLUS many, many extra hours of med school requirements? I doubt med school counts just being a nursing student as extensive healthcare experience.

I'd say you lower your odds of being successful in either endeavor if you attempt to accomplish them at the same time.

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Thank you!

I see where you're coming from I think basing my freshman year compared to the rest of college is kind of dumb. I think I may opt to just take nursing courses during the spring and fall semesters, and in summer take pre med reqs (my knowledge is limited to just google searches, but it's around 10 extra classes I believe minus genetics but plus the math), so maybe apply to med school but a year later. And yup it's very frustrating how much more credits I'll have taken with pre med and that all the nursing bio classes mean nothing. I mean I definitely don't want to sound cocky but I had to make sure the scholarship money covered all my summer tuitions, so I divided all the courses I needed to take before hand b/c it's pre med itself is very expensive and I had to make sure I had enough saved for the many extra classes).

I mean i've been volunteering in the ER for close to 3 years now and it's just a couple of hours of Saturday and I try to shadow doctors (I'm not sure if that helps though), but that's a very good point. I wanted to be an EMT for some time beforehand so I guess I'll lessen my load during the semesters.

But thank you really I think more or less I'm starting to realize going back to school for pre med after I get my nursing degree (I'll only be 21 too so fairly young) isn't really as bad an idea I originally perceived it to be.

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