Rn/md

SmilingBluEyes · Oct 31, 2005

NEVER. I would not want to have to be at work as much as they do-----not to mention the mountain of debt I would accrue going to medical school. I never want to lose that ability to provide the intimate care a bedside nurse can, either. Dr's are usually WAY too busy to do much more than poke in, check their patient quickly, and leave. That is not for me.

Katnip, RN · Oct 31, 2005

Same here. For the very same reasons. Plus medical school itself takes way too much time and I don't want to take that time away from my family, even though the kids are nearly grown.

It just isn't worth it to me. Just my :twocents:

~Kat

1Tulip · Nov 1, 2005

Well, I went back to school to become a doctor. But not the medical kind. I got my PhD in physiology and pharmacology. So, it wasn't the rigor of medical school, nor the time involved that put me off.

I don't see medicine as some science that is ahead of or superior to nursing on some sort of health care credibility scale. (As in when people ask ... "why didn't you go on and get your MD?") Rather, to me they are very different types of science that have large areas of overlap. I've said this on other threads, so forgive me if you've read this before:

Nursing is a Rennaisance science in a way that medicine isn't. It involves a wide, wide ranging knowledge base and touches on almost all disciplines. It encompasses the whole patient, plus (many times) the patient's whole family. It focuses on health and how to get there again, vrs (in medicine) diseases and clusters of symptoms.

So, I guess you could say, I didn't want to become a doctor because it wouldn't have been enough of a challenge.

Oh,and btw: I never stopped being a nurse. I did/do research in areas related to clinical phenomena. And, even a nurse with a PhD can do bedside nursing. Believe it or not!

SmilingBluEyes · Nov 1, 2005

I used to work w/a PhD Rn in OB some years back. She was an excellent clinician whose knowledge base never ceased to amaze me. And she was darn good as a caring nurse.

Trauma Columnist · Nov 1, 2005

I get asked that all the time - since I've been in school for over 3 years already, going from an ADN to BSN to MSN and now doing a post-MSN APN. However, I already have enough debt and can't afford the time.

live4today, RN · Nov 1, 2005

Great thoughts presented so far. :)

When I was a little girl, I wanted to become a doctor...a surgeon to be more specific. Never once did I think about becoming a nurse. I knew the nurses my father worked with, or those my mom knew, yet I still wasn't drawn to become a nurse.

In the late 1980's, I became a RN. I enjoyed being a nurse for the first ten years of my career. I was out of the field for five years (almost six years), and returned with great enthusiasm because of the wonderful memories of nursing I recalled from my first ten years in the field. To make a long story shorter..........today's nursing is NOT the glorious field of nursing I left in 1997. My first year back in nursing was 2003, and it has not grabbed my attention the way it once did. I keep asking myself -- what on earth happened to healthcare...to nursing...and even to the medical field.

Today, if I were going to choose a profession in healthcare, it would be holistic medicine only. This could be a topic in and of itself, so I won't expound on it on this thread. :)

These are my own personal thoughts that I know others may not agree with, and I just want to say.......that's okay by me. :)

fergus51 · Nov 1, 2005

Nope. I love nursing. I also don't think I could commit to one area of medicine like docs do. I like knowing that I can go into any different specialty I want any time.

following_faith · Nov 1, 2005

I wouldn't mind becoming a physician assistant...but at this point in time I don't think I could take the time from my family for medical school. I also thought being a physiatirst would of been cool because of the personal level.

zambezi, BSN, RN · Nov 1, 2005

I would like to go to medical school for the learning aspect of it. The knowledge base is so vast, I think that it would be interesting. Of course, I can satisfy that desire by furthering my education in nursing as well. To me there is still something to be said about having that medical degree.

That said, I can soundly say that, NO, I would not want to be a doctor. While I enjoy most of the docs that I work with and have not had many bad experiences with them, I just wouldn't want that kind of schedule. On call at weird hours. Minimal time spent with patients. I only know one doctor that I can tell just loves his job for what he does- he is fantastic. The other docs that I work with may like their jobs but don't show is in all their actions. I don't know, the lifestyle of it just isn't for me.

GrnHonu99, RN · Nov 1, 2005

good points....If I went back to medical school, I think I would want to be surgeon.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Nov 1, 2005

I evaluated this question back in 1971. MD or nurse? The truth is I was scared to death I wouldn't make it through medical school. I wasn't even sure I'd get through nursing school either. However, I gavitated toward the pre-med students and ended up in many of the same science and math classes they did. I lived through their angst over taking the MCATs. My husband took the MCAT twice and just couldn't get high enough scores in all the subjects for a medical school to even look at his application, so he ended up in pharmacy school. I do, however, still have contact with many of these old college friends and two of them are doctors now. One went to an AMA school; the other to an AOA school when he couldn't get into an AMA school. For anyone reading this who might have some inkling of wanting to do med school I'd recommend that after you take your MCAT you apply to Osteopathic schools of medicine. Their approach is a more holistic one, they are more forgiving of MCAT scores that are a little lower than what is usually required, they will consider your background in nursing, and they are way easier on students during their internships and residencies--none of that being on call every 3rd night. Many of the residencies are done in office clinics. Finances are really not the problem you would think. Once you get a place in a medical class, the medical college will make sure you get your loans to get through. Once you're done with your residency you will find a good many physician positions where the employer will pay off your school loans if you promise to work for them for 3 years or so--not a bad deal. My AMA friend did just that. He got a job with a huge HMO at $150,000 a year to start (this was some years ago) and they paid off his $100,000 of loans over a 4 or 5 year period. He works Monday thru Friday bankers hours and only has to be on call one day a month. Not bad for an employee. He has no desire to open his own practice. Unfortunately, many go to osteopathic schools of medicine because they couldn't get into an AMA school and the osteopathic schools are aware of this and try to screen these people out, but some are very secretive and don't reveal the truth. Osteopaths are a better fit with nursing since they consider the total patient and his life situation. That is very different from the medical theory that AMA schools teach.