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 know I'm late to the party here, but this thread is very interesting.
Rather than giving up on her ultimate goal, I encourage OP to take a look at DO schools. They are actually much closer to the nursing model... much more holistic and the end result is the same - physician. From my exposure (worked with a couple of them on CME programs) they also seem to be much more open-minded about the role of nurses and the need for a collaborative health care team.
There are also post-bacc pre-med programs, they can be intensive, but can really help you get into med school in many cases, some have upwards of a 90% acceptance rate into med schools and offer "linkages" med schools that sometimes don't require the MCAT!
Have you even given any thought to becoming an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner? ACNPs work in trauma/ER or as hospitalists. You work under the supervision of a doctor, but you get to do everything (e.g. prescribe meds, run a code, put in IJs, etc.). That might be a good solution to what you're looking to do.
I had always wanted to go to med school, but at my age (I'm in my 40s), I'd never recoup the investment of med school. I decided to get my RN (ADN program), just got a job as an RN in July. Now that I'm working, the hospital is paying for me to finish my BSN (it's a magnet hospital) and I am getting a ECCO certification for critical care nursing before transferring to a critical care unit. Our hospital employs NPs in the trauma unit as there is much greater patient satisfaction with the ACNPs vs. PAs. I have the choice to work in critical care (ICU) or trauma (ER). I still get to live my dream, only as an ACNP instead of a doctor. I think it's the best of both worlds.
Now that I'm a nurse, I *LOVE* being a nurse. I love the nursing model. I love how we care for our patients. To take that to the next level of ACNP is something to be proud of and I'm excited to get started down that path.
I'll be done with my BSN in October and will stay in critical care until I can apply for an ER fellowship in the summer. Once I have a year critical care/trauma, I will then apply to the ACNP programs I've been researching. There are many that allow you to do the program part time so you can work while finishing the Masters program for ACNP. I find that very appealing because I do not want to have to stop working.
Do some research and see if ACNP might be a fit for you, especially if you've decided to stick with nursing school.
I know I'm late to the party here, but this thread is very interesting.
Rather than giving up on her ultimate goal, I encourage OP to take a look at DO schools. They are actually much closer to the nursing model... much more holistic and the end result is the same - physician. From my exposure (worked with a couple of them on CME programs) they also seem to be much more open-minded about the role of nurses and the need for a collaborative health care team.
I was looking into some DO programs but I'll have to take my pre med reqs regardless. My main goal is to work in hospital setting or be able to get a decent job with my degree in 4 years. And again I'm not exactly sure if I'll want to become a DO. At least the ER I volunteer in, they've got a couple of MDs and 1 DO on call at a time and one plastic surgeon. The rest Pas and nurses do, like all I ever see the one doctor doing when he/she gets called in is paperwork since they're watching the whole floor, and I actually want to do stuff. But it's definitely still an option if I decide to get my post-bacc, but I may get an NP instead, I just want to actually see if I really love nursing.
There are also post-bacc pre-med programs, they can be intensive, but can really help you get into med school in many cases, some have upwards of a 90% acceptance rate into med schools and offer "linkages" med schools that sometimes don't require the MCAT!
This is what I'm looking into at the moment haha. If I keep my GPA really high which is hard as it is with nursing and far harder when u add 42 extra credits for pre med, and feel in the future that being an MD would suit me better than I can always keep that in mind. I just don't want to stop myself from being a nurse only to learn that I really love it. So in the future if I feel like medical school would be the best for me after being a nurse for a while than I can always get in JHU, or Goucher given I have a stellar GPA.
Well I met someone in my program who qualifies! He's getting his bsn in nursing, and taking 2 extra years for med school requirements because he "doesn't need the money." Our school is rated very well and he has a good chance of getting into an excellent med school as long as he makes the grades and volunteers although he thinks he can take the nclex before he takes the mcat and work as a nurse per diem before he graduates. I really thought you needed to grad first but I didn't correct him nor look that up, and I think he'll stay in school regardless. His scholarship is good for over 4 years. So that's another option to stay in school longer if you don't feel the burden of economic pressures.
Well I met someone in my program who qualifies! He's getting his BSN in nursing, and taking 2 extra years for med school requirements because he "doesn't need the money." Our school is rated very well and he has a good chance of getting into an excellent med school as long as he makes the grades and volunteers although he thinks he can take the NCLEX before he takes the mcat and work as a nurse per diem before he graduates. I really thought you needed to grad first but I didn't correct him nor look that up, and I think he'll stay in school regardless. His scholarship is good for over 4 years. So that's another option to stay in school longer if you don't feel the burden of economic pressures.
That's actually another reason why I became iffy about doing pre med with nursing b/c I don't want to lose since it was a merit one and I have to keep a pretty good GPA for it not to get terminated.
Actually I'm not sure if the colleges themselves just want you to take the NCLEX after you graduate because you'll do better, therefore raising their avg NCLEX score, if it's not allowed at all. I know Ia asked my adviser that earlier this year and she said we weren't allow to register for NCLEX test date that'll be before graduation.
And definitely, if I feel like med school is the route to go, and I don't get accepted to any post-bacc programs I can take the credit myself which will be easier to work with since post-bacc programs are quite demanding. Thank you again!
i actually think this is a good way to go. I'm finishing up my nursing school and start medical school in the fall. I think a big reason as to why many people see this as a bad idea is because being a nurse and being a doctor requires a completely different skill set. Nurses generally think in more abstract and subjective ways while doctors are more concrete and innovative. The biggest struggle for me in nursing school has been the subjective abstract thinking. Nursing requires you to critically think about priorities while managing the psychosocial, emotional and physical effects of your patient. Nursing is more hollistic and requires a vast majority of factors to manage a patient while being a doctor is more specific to objective aspects of science (chemistry, micro/biology, A&P) and application in order to treat a patient. Growing up I knew I always had a more advanced development of learning in areas most people do not acquire which is that of how doctors are taught to think. I excelled in math and science classes without having to ever lift a finger because of this skill set however, the classes that I actually found to be difficult were those that others breezed through (ex. english, psychology, psychiatry) partly due to the fact that these classes required more common sense and subjective approaches, skills that I obviously lacked in. I also struggled with socializing and was very bad at reading body language and such. I had to teach myself how to interact with others and how to be socially appropriate because of this impairment in my ability to think in a more abstract, subjective way but I did overcome it because I saw it as a learning opportunity just as I view nursing school. Going to nursing school first gave me a firm foundation and understanding of the multidisciplinary factors that make up the medical field and medical team. The content in nursing school is not hard at all because it basically just goes deeper into the anatomy and physiology of the human body with connections to medical diagnoses, pharmacology and procedures/devices. I think nursing school did a great job of showing me the big picture of the hospital setting and also build on my ability to think more abstractly so that when I go into the medical courses I will have a better understanding of ALL factors involved regardless if I am just diagnosing and treating the illness of the patient.
"Growing up I knew I always had a more advanced development of learning...how doctors are taught to think"
Would that be their arrogance?
And actually no. The reason it's difficult to do nursing plus premed is because it's a very large course load, and equally hard course work. Try biochemistry, organic chemistry2, pharmacology, medsurg, and calculus in one semester and tell us how your more advanced brain handled it, plus don't forget volunteering. Many on here also need to work.
I don't argue that nursing classes are built on anatomy and physiology, and that to me at first I thought this was easy and boring. I felt at first like nursing classes were dumbed down from my bio ones. It's actually that nursing students need to be more autonomous in their nursing classes than the science ones, and you'd realize how hard they can be.
I dont get why you're trying to be rude for no reason but I will add on to that and definitely admit that a lot of doctors are arrogant and one thing that I have taken from nursing school is to be compassionate and work with the other professions in the hospital as a team. In response to your choice of lines to quote me on... Yes, I do believe that I naturally process information in the way that doctors are trained to think. I'm very analytical, objective and concrete in the way that I learn which is infact a hard skill set for alot of people to achieve. I'm simply recognizing my strengths while I also noted afterwards my weaknesses. I struggle with subjectiveness, socialization and even some common sense. I'm not saying that I am any better than another person I am simply saying that I have different cognitive strengths and weaknesses than most people. It's great in some aspects but it also puts me at a disadvantage in others.
I did take all of those classes in one semester while also being a single mother, dealing with multiple family deaths and still working a full time job. I don't think that the content in nursing school is hard because it builds on a foundation of previously acquired knowledge. The challenge is managing school, work, and family. I never said to do nursing a med together. I advised finishing nursing school then jumping into med.
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HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD
9,051 Posts
I know I'm late to the party here, but this thread is very interesting.
Rather than giving up on her ultimate goal, I encourage OP to take a look at DO schools. They are actually much closer to the nursing model... much more holistic and the end result is the same - physician. From my exposure (worked with a couple of them on CME programs) they also seem to be much more open-minded about the role of nurses and the need for a collaborative health care team.