Hi OPM community…
I’m 28 years old and have been trained professionally as a civil engineer. I completed my BCE at Auburn University with a 3.92 GPA, earned my MSCE from UC Berkeley with a 3.7 GPA, and my PhD from Vanderbilt, where I am currently in my second year of a tenure track appointment. I’m writing to the community because I am considering making a career change. Why?
I went through a really awful ordeal with my father during my graduate school days. He was diagnosed with carcinoid tumors in the small bowel and went through four surgeries to remove parts of his small intestine and colon and to debulk the tumor in his abdomen.
I hadn’t really thought about doing med school until I spent almost every day for three months in a hospital at my father’s bedside. I saw what good doctors and other health professionals do for sick people and their families and what bad doctors and health professionals do to sick people and their families. And I really understood how awesome what MD’s can do really is. I also came to understand that being an MD is not about you. It’s about the patient and doing what you can do to help the patient get well, or at least keep the patient out of pain. And at this point, going to med school is something akin to going into the priesthood. Dollars and cents wise, I would be giving up a very nice professor’s salary and taking on a lot of debt to go through it. But there is no price that can be put on waking up and loving what you do.
I took two quarters of chemistry as a CE undergrad (honors sections and got a B and an A in the lectures and an A in the labs) and took two semesters of physics (with A’s in both semester’s lecture and lab). I’ve dealt with nine years of highly rigorous math and science and done well, have a number of journal publications and a lot more in the pipeline, but I have no organic chemistry or life science background.
If I decided to leave the Ivory tower, what is the chance of me getting in to medical school, and what is the best way to prepare for it?
Many thanks…
Welcome to the group. Sounds like your academic history is very strong…I have a BS and MS in Engineering too, but I am missing Orgo 1 and 2 and Biochem.
What was recommended by the local Univ. AdCom to me was to take 2-3 semesters of full time course work to get those last 3 classes taken…plus some higher level science courses (Genetics, MicroBio,…ect) SO the Univ. can take into account recent coursework.
Talk to the College of Medicine Admissions office where you are…they should be able to give you an idea of what to do to apply.
Best of luck to you!