Please Help RN to Med School Advice

[futurecaregiver96]

Hi,

Ok, I was hoping someone could give me some advice on becoming a registered nurse and then going to medical school but let me give a little background on my personal situation. It's a little long, but I really appreciate it if you read through it. If not, my questions could be found where it read "QUESTION"

I am a Senior in high school and I take care of my mother who is ill. Her hands do not function as well as they used to but she still does lightweight work at her jobs and she works because we need the money. While she can still manage personal hygiene, i do the things such as cooking, moving large things etc etc. I am there to translate for doctors, to do basically everything she can't because of her health.

I thought about going to a CalState locally and becoming an RN by earning a bachelor's in nursing first and then applying to med school. I would be able to be by her side and hopefully she would quit her job and I would work as an RN for a few years while we stabilize our finances. Then go on the med school hopefully

QUESTION

My questions is the road to RN to Med school difficult? I know that the prereqs for med school don't correlate within nursing but I know it is not impossible. I just wanna know how practical it is. My dream is to be a doctor and help many but nursing for me could be an opportunity to help others earlier while providing financial support for my family.

Please give me advice, Has anyone out there done this? Advice really appreciated!

P.S. I'm sorry. I know it was long and I'm sorry if I came across as if I'm doing nursing only for the money or using it as a stepping stone for medical school. In a way I am, but I hope you can understand my reasons why.

[algebra_demystified]

This weighed heavily on my when I decided to switch from sales to medicine. The bottom line was that I needed to make a living NOW rather than wait far too long to start my family. I'm in an NP program now.

As far as money goes, I can tell you something about that. There were three people I shadowed this summer in my advanced clinical assessment class. One was an NP, one was an MD, one was a PA. Guess who made the most money? It was the PA. He worked family practice like he was in a factory. He worked his nurse hard, and he gave her a year-end bonus that was the envy of the practice. He saw three patients an hour and busted those appointments out like an efficient professional. The NP spent a lot more time hand-holding. She did a lot of female exams, which I did as part of the rotation. It takes a few minutes to get a female patient comfortable with a male nurse who has a speculum in his hand. The MD was an extrovert in that he stared at the patient's shoes instead of his own.

If there's any doubt in your mind, go for the MD.

The PA made no less than 3x what the others made in a year.

[kdmf12]

If you really want to do MD it's fine. Just keep in mind:

- med schools nowadays are both competitive and expensive

- most schools prefer experience more than GPA. A student who has financial, family, and personal issues but still managed to pull off a 3.8 is considered to be well-rounded unlike a 4.0 student with no relevant experience at all. Med schools are used to having students with exceptional grades, but what they want is someone who can handle the pressure.

-you can major in literally ANYTHING as long as you do your pre-reqs for med school; a year of gen and org chem, physics, biology, and math (calculus). People who want to go to med school actually take psych as majors since they believe it is the "easiest". In my opinion, no single major is reletively easy. Some med schools even prefer music majors or english majors. In short, no major is exactly a path to MD.

Source: I attended a seminar for aspiring health professionals in my college. It was quite disheartening though, but knowing what's ahead was so greater than just knowing nothing about med schools.

[DadStudentPerhaps]

Have you considered a career as a NP? This would allow you to pursue your BSN first, then when things become a little more manageable, you could begin work on your MSN, then your NP...

[Qwinbee]

Have you consider being Physician Assistant, I think that's more in line with your desire to be a medical doctor. When I was in High school, I know I had never heard of Physician Assistants, I just knew of doctor and nurses, cna and medical assistant. do a little research on this field as you will learn that it is shorter than medical school, the pay is very good and you will also satisfy many if not all the pre-med requirements in case you still want to go to med school later on. The field of nursing is different from medicine, Physician assistant is closely related and will take about the same time as a BSN.. you can either have a bachelor's or master's. I would suggest you go to you local area hospital and ask to speak or shadow a physician assistant and they can give you more info on this field.