Please don't do this if you don't want to be a nurse, ESPECIALLY if your school has an impacted nursing program - It's not very nice to take up a spot someone else who really wants to be a nurse could have. And courses for premed are, as others have stated, different. If I wanted to go to med school I'd have to take a year of OrgChem, a year of Physics, and a year of Calculus after my BSN is done. You can major in anything you want - my cousin is going to med school with a BA in English, but nursing school spots are limited, so don't do it if you don't want it.
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you bring up a very interesting point. i have never thought of it that way myself. nursing schools do have limited seating even where i'm from. i read your post after i posted mine. now i sound very insensitive. sorry about that. i do take my nursing career very seriously and i'm thankful that i graduated from the courses i've taken.
Most people do not realize you can major in anything and become a doctor. As long as you take the "core" courses required of most medical schools. As a matter of fact, I once read that one of the most successful majors gaining entry into medical school was music. I will warn you, once I too thought it would be easy to become a nurse and then go on to medical school, but something very strange happened to me. I fell in love with nursing. The upside of your idea is when you are a doctor, you practice just one way, your way and usually your way is the best way. after being a nurse, you get to observe a variety of doctors and objectively pick and pan what you make your own. It is often like the best of both worlds. I asked one of the physicians I worked with to write me a letter for graduate school. She told me she sent the letter in but thought I was wasting my time because I should be applying to medical school. I laughed and told her that not everyone wants to grow up to be a doctor. Whatever you decide to do, have fun and do it well. You will never regret a choice you enjoy.
I agree with sofabsn here. If your heart is not in nursing then you are better off with going straight for MD. Start researching the medical schools you want to go to. a lot of times, if you get your undergraduate degree at the school that is also associated with a medical school, you have a better chance of getting into that medical school. Example, West Virginia University has a medical school that gives west virginia batchlors degree recipients first crack at thier med school. (i only know this because i attended WVU. You can check me out on this at http://www.wvu.edu). My point is RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. I wish you the best of luck!!!
Yes, you can be a nursing major and pre-med. You can be pre-med and any major, as long as you fulfill the pre-med course requirements. I've known a few nursing students that were also pre-med, as they didn't know what they wanted to do, or wanted the clinical experience. For the latter, I'd say just do CNA or EMT-B, and you can get clinical experience a lot sooner. Also, they may ask why you were a nursing major and pre-med if you don't intend on practicing nursing. I worked with one nurse that is now applying to med school, and his brother was a nurse and is in med school now.
From looking at many nursing programs, the science courses do not fulfill the pre-med requirements, or all of them. The pre-med requirements are:
-1 year of General Biology with Lab
-1 year of General Chemistry with Lab
-1 year of Organic Chemistry with Lab
-1 year of General Physics with Lab
-1 year of English
-some ask for a semester or year of Mathematics
Nursing programs typically do not ask for a year of General Biology, but a year of Anatomy and Physiology, which does not count for the General Biology requirements usually. Chemistry in nursing school also varies, and none require 1 year of general chemistry and 1 year of organic chemistry. Some will have a "general and organic chemistry" or "general, organic, and biochemistry" course for health students, and this does not fulfill the chemistry requirements. It has to be chemistry for science majors, and its a year of each type of intro chemistry. Some nursing schools will allow you to substitute the pre-med sciences for nursing sciences (such as General and Organic for the health science chemistry).
Also note that the nursing science courses, like patho and pharm, will not be included in your science GPA, as they will be counted as "allied health". You may get away with it if it's in the biology department, but usually it isn't.
nurse_clown
227 Posts
you bring up a very interesting point. i have never thought of it that way myself. nursing schools do have limited seating even where i'm from. i read your post after i posted mine. now i sound very insensitive. sorry about that. i do take my nursing career very seriously and i'm thankful that i graduated from the courses i've taken.