Hi there - I am 28 years old this year and have begun considering a career (u-turn) to go back to medical school to become a physician. I would love some objective advice on weighing the pros and cons on this decision.
I have always been passionate about healthcare and majored in public health in undergrad with the hopes that I could have an impact on a grander scale. I took my pre-med prerequisites alongside my other coursework and did…okay. I had mostly B’s but got C’s in Orgo II and Gen Chem II. My science GPA is about a 2.97 and overall is 3.26 - not great. Like many of you, my premed advisor in college discouraged me my Junior year from pursuing medical school, so I heeded that advice and sought opportunities elsewhere.
My first job out of college was at a nonprofit. I enjoyed the work but felt frustrated at the lack of resources, support, and training we had to succeed in our mission of health behavior change. I began to find training on my own around marketing and advertising strategies with the hopes that I can incorporate them into a health setting. This eventually took me away from healthcare to digital marketing and tech consulting.
I have done fairly well for myself. I am in a stable job with a 6-figure salary. However I feel unfulfilled in my job and feel this calling to go back into healthcare. Through testing out different job roles and a lot of internal reflection, I have found that I need to be in a setting that allows me to exercise my creativity, care for people, heal/facilitate, and analyze and make judgement calls on decisions. Coupled with my interest in healthcare - becoming a physician met those requirements. I recently started to map out what I need to do and realized that I will need to take a few classes to be eligible to apply to a postbacc program, complete the posbacc program, take the MCAT, and MAYBE get into med school, which will then be faced by the challenges of med school itself.
I recently bought a home with my fiance and we are getting ready to start a family. He is very reluctant about my decision to pursue medical school as this means losing a source of income for potentially a decade, incurring more debt, and possibly forgoing a family in the near term until either I am in or have completed medical school.
Should I pursue this long path and risk my savings, my quality of life? What other alternatives would you recommend to someone who still wants to play an active role in healthcare?