RN to MD?

Nurses General Nursing

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Just wondering.........How do you go from being an RN to being an MD? Has anyone thought of going to medical school? Apart from the pay, will it be worth it, i mean considering the extra years?

Please help me out on this. Any input will be worth it. Thanks y'all.

It just depends on what you want to do and be. I was pre-med when I first went to college, and I decided that I didn't care that much about the cellular workings and the viruses and bacteria. I was more interested in people as a whole.

The other thing to keep in mind is the amount of responsibility and the amount of WORK. I'm just absolutely not willing to work that hard/long/LONG. Third year med students start being considered "meat" in the hospitals. You work 36 then have 8 off and then another 36 on. At least that's the way it was when I was paying attention. I can't remember how often you get a whole 24 hour off.

Taking the money into consideration makes a big difference. There is one school in Pennsylvania, that if you're accepted, they pay your medical school tuition. That would be great, because my friends who have been practicing physicians for about 20 years had an awful time digging out of the debt that medical school required (and that was a LONG time ago!). Yeah, doctors make more money, but I don't know if it's worth it.

One of the docs I used to work with was griping during shift change (he'd been in the nurses' station and had it all to himself and then he was kind of elbowed out of the way for report). He was grumbling "doctors NEVER have shift change...." and stuff like that, and I just told him "If you resent it, don't do it." Cut back on the patients or just quit. He looked at me like I was completely insane. One of my friends said he must be really dedicated but *I* think he's living up to his income!

The thing is, doctors are NOT like some kind of super-nurse. They have an entirely different education, an entirely different point of view, and entirely different duties and responsibilities.

Love

Dennie

Oh - Duhhhhh HOW you do it is to apply to medical school. You have to have a BS usually in some life science, with a very high grade point average. You also have to have really good references from people that would be impressive to a medical school, and you have to interview well.

Good luck

Dennie

You will need a Bachelor's degree first-hopefully something in the sciences, but that is not required. There are some undergrad classes that are required, and you may not have taken them as part of your nursing program. You need 2 semesters each of general chemistry, biology, physics, and organic chemistry ( you need to take the lab portion as well). Once you have these pre-reqs, you can sit for the MCATs. I took them way back in 1990 so they might have changed but I remember them as being quite challenging, although not impossible.

I think it is more important to decide what kind of profession you are most interested in. RNs and MDs think very differently, and thus interact with patients differently. You might want to also explore the Nurse Practitioner role and also Physician Assistants jobs. They are all very different and require different education, strengths etc. Good luck!!

i know a doc that used to be a nurse...he always said "nurses don't know what they don't know"

he did it to be an ER doc only...then he retired @ 52...about 10 years earlier than an RN...

I believe you have to really want to be a doc, and don't just do it for the money...I have a friend who just got out of residency (he's 30)...he owes 220,000 dollars...you do the math...

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

I know of two RNs who used their Bachelor's degree as a basis for Medical School. They then did the applications the same way anyone else would. One is a pediatrician, one is a surgeon.

Another one went to dental school and is now an orthodontist.

Just depends on what you plan to do with your life.

P

Specializes in Pediatrics.

I know a woman who was a RN for 15 years and at age 36 and a single mom of 3 girls decided she wanted to become a MD. I did a lot of babysitting for her whenever she was on-call. She's a pediatrician with a nurse's touch.:)

I knew a doctor who was a RN for 10 years and decided to be a MD. I say do what your heart desires. As you probaly read you won't get too much support from some nurses on this post. I would think you would have the upper hand as far as bedside manner and caring. Go for it. This is America there are ways of helping out with tuition and so forth. Don't let negativity stop what sounds like you want to do.

to teshie...

I reread all of the posts...Negativity??? Not too much support??

I don't get that feeling at all from this thread.

If anything, there is a good amount of well-wishing!

I've had the same thoughts as you, and I've decided to look at it when I reach the BSN level. I'll be filling in my prerequisites for either NP, PA, or MD. There's no reason to spend time pondering it until I've reached that level with my GPA intact.

I plan to work my way through to that fork in the road and as Yogi Berra says "take it".

Brad

Well, I hope *my* little posts weren't interpreted as negative or lacking support. I truly didn't mean them that way!

When I was young, the medical schools pretty much didn't even consider you if you were older than 30. Also you had to demonstrate that your entire life had been point toward being a doctor. Now... Not so much.

My aunt had been a SAHM for a long LONG time. She was a microbiologist (PhD) before she married and had kids. In a very interesting (to me) mid-life crisis, she divorced, estranged herself from her kids (which has nothing to do with the rest of it, really) and went to medical school!! She was close to 50 at the time. She changed her name (first and last) and has been a practicing psychiatrist... actually just retired.

So. There you have it. I've heard of people of even more advanced age getting into (and through!) medical school.

I can see how people who had been nurses would make great doctors!

Love

Dennie

Psychiatry?lol How ironic is that?

I didn't think you were being harsh Dennie. I thought you were just saying "duh" to yourself for not adressing the question of the origional post in your first one.

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