Med school after nursing?

Ginger's Person · Apr 19, 2009

You can go to med school whenever you want, provided you've graduated from an accredited four year university with a great GPA, completed your pre-med requirements, have good MCAT scores, and have sufficient research and volunteer experience to impress a school enough for them to admit you. Being a nurse, especially a squeamish nurse, isn't going to give you much of a leg up.

Don't go into nursing just to be an MD/OD one day. They are different professions and have very different educational requirements and nursing school covers very few, if any, premed classes. You would probably have to spend at least another full year in school to take pre-med classes. You need a couple semesters each of calculus, college bio, college chem, organic chem and physics, as well as a few other classes.

A physician isn't a nurse who's had a lot of promotions, but rather, someone who's had a 4 year medical education, where as a nurse is someone with a nursing education. There's some overlap in what nurses and docs know and do, but they have very different ways of thinking about health and sickness.

god-is-love · Apr 24, 2009

Hello,

I have to completely agree with Hopefullyanrnsoon. If u wanna go to med school then u should go. I personally have always wanted to be a nurse and never wanted to be a doctor. There are many people in my program that originally wanted to go to medschool and decided on nursing instead. Nursing is not a stepping stone to become a doctor, it is a career in its ownself. I think some medschools may use that againgst u if u go to nursing school 1st, but then again I have no experience in that area. I have two friends in medschool. One is going to be a pediatrician, she went straight out of our 4 year university with a B.A. in Spanish & Biology. My bestfriend just took the MCAT & landed a 25,000 dollar scholarship because her scores were so high she has a B.A. in English & Accounting. She just woke up one day & decided she wanted to be a doctor. Now she is considering quiting bc it is too competative and difficult, she has thought of becoming a nurse instead (CRNA) not using it as a stepping stone to becoming an anestesiologist. Just My Opinion.

diane227, LPN, RN · Apr 29, 2009

Just go to medical school and skip the nursing part. If your goal is to go into medicine you should focus on that. You will be wasting your time because you have a lot of years ahead of you just to complete medical school and residency. You need to focus on your undergrad education. Then you apply for medical school and you have to take the MCAT in order to get in anywhere. Study because they look at your scores. To get into medical school they look for people that are well rounded so you might consider a double major such as biology and liberal arts. Once you get into medical school you are looking at another 4 years as a student. Do well because they look at your scores in order to find a medical school that will accept you for the residency program. You should apply for multiple schools ranking where you want to go. Then you will have to go for an interviews. After that they have the match and you will then see where you get to go. Nursing is a totally different career and if you want to go to medical school, because the training is so long, I would really suggest that you focus on that. And just so you know, there is gross stuff to deal with no matter what area you go into.

CharmedJ7 · May 6, 2009

If you're in high school and have not yet gotten a bachelors degree, I think nursing is a reasonable to good choice for an undergraduate degree. I had a friend who did this and found it extremely useful in terms of being comfortable in the hospital and around patients, basic assessment, patient interaction, administrative stuff, etc. He's doing extremely well in medical school, and is able to pick up an emergency room shift once a week while going through it. Of course nursing and medicine are different fields, but so are say biochemistry or history and medicine - you have to do an undergrad degree first no matter what, might as well do one that will give you a head start in the healthcare field, and who knows, you may decide nursing fits better with your personality and goals.

Sharingan · May 8, 2009

I think you should first do some research on nursing as a profession. From your post, it seemed to be that you had a very limited understanding of what nursing is. I'd suggest volunteering in a hospital and obeserve what nurses do on the floors.

Goingthere · May 8, 2009

In every profession therecare disgusting things. As a m.d intern you'll do what they call scud work. So you'll disinpact bowels, even as a MD. So, do more research, the medical profession is great, you'll find your fit somewhere.! Good luck.

Williamsl88 · May 17, 2009

Just go for medicine, nursing is a gpa killer; unless your experienced, it will drag down your gpa; and it will make it harder for you to go to med school. Why? because nursing is a new lanuage, you got critical thinking questions which sucks... but the professors are nice =/.

I wanted Nursing as a stepping stone, to know what the hospital is like, and now it's killing me.