Been awhile since I posted here…I think last time I posted I was about 2 months into paramedic school and wondering if I should stay pre-med or finish medic school. Anyway, if that about sums it up, I’ve completed the 7 month classroom portion of medic school (and yeah medical training is far more brutal than undergrad could ever hope to be) and I’m doing my clinical rotations in the hospital now.
Ironically, a part of my paramedic program actually seems to have decided the great “MD eventually or not” question for me…I could only find one anesthesiologist willing to let me try intubating to get practice at intubations in for my medic program (we get 2 OR shifts to get in as many intubations as possible in addition to learning about airway management) so I basically ended up shadowing him for my 8 hour shift but from the unique perspective of a paramedic student so I was actually able to also try out advanced procedures under his guidance which was kind of an added bonus I suppose. I asked a hell of a lot of questions about his job since there wasn’t much else to do after the patient was intubated while the case progressed in surgery and both from his answers and observing him I’m pretty much sold on anesthesiology…that’s the dream job to me.
Fortunately doing medic school and UC Davis together at the same time for those first few months didn’t burn me as bad as I thought since I got a B+ in systemic physiology and upper division microeconomics and a B- in upper division macroeconomics so as of now I haven’t really damaged my grades by trying that stunt so that shouldn’t be an issue…I think I’m still at a 3.82 overall and the lowest grade I’ve gotten in any science class was a B+ in that systemic physio class so I guess just the rest of my application is what I should focus on providing I keep my grades where they’re at.
You guys’ll probably have me around for awhile though before I take that road though because both from a personal and financial perspective it makes far more sense for me to finish paramedic school and get a job as a medic and then go back to school to finish the pre-reqs and apply later. From a standpoint of being $30,000 in debt (yes I know I’ll be far more in debt and its a drop in the bucket, I don’t care), jobless, and having already done the equivalent of 5 years in school, I’d much rather take a break and just enjoy working as a paramedic for awhile before I worry about the next step.
Plus that way I can take the pre-reqs later so they’re not “old”, allows me to get fresh LORs at that time and it gives me the freedom of taking a break inbetween. I’d rather not be in school still when I apply to med school anyway, since inbetween that and having a $70,000/year job as a paramedic currently, I’m not going to be that stressed out if I don’t get in the first time around since I’ll already have an established career so I don’t have to scramble to find a way to pay the bills.
I do think I have a lot to be thankful for though as far as my situation goes even if I have to wait awhile since inbetween my future income and my fiancee’s current income, we’ll probably be able to save up enough money to pay for med school in cash if not entirely than over 70% of it. Normally I would say the opportunity cost of three to five years, which is how long I plan to wait before applying, would not be worthit just to avoid loans alone but 3-5 years of time away from school, vacations and not having any worries other than a job is definitely worth it to me. Anyway, I think this plan is sound but as always my ears are open. I’ll probably be more active on the forums now though I think since I’ve made up my mind where before I was uncertain.
Sounds like a stellar plan Tim. I wish you the best of luck w/ paramedic school. I know my first responder class although lecture easy stressed me when it came to testing boarding a patient. No second chances with a trauma patient. It makes me kind of nervous lol.
- LC2Doc Said:
Sounds like a stellar plan Tim. I wish you the best of luck w/ paramedic school. I know my first responder class although lecture easy stressed me when it came to testing boarding a patient. No second chances with a trauma patient. It makes me kind of nervous lol.
Yeah I thought my EMT finals were hard until medic school. Hell, our final written for medic was 320 questions long and the student had five hours to finish it. Then we did 8 different practical exams...if you failed any of the practical exams, you had one chance to retry and then you were done. If you failed the written by 2 questions (this happened to someone in my class), then it didn't matter what you did on the practical, you were done and failed. At least now with my clinicals, say I don't get enough intubations in the OR, I can just schedule another shift....a lot less stressful.
Hi!
I did an EMT cert back in 2006 and LOVED it. But I got pregnant shortly after, so never really got to practice. It’s wonderful that you’re a medic - I’ve been reading that BSNs/MSNs have upto an 85% acceptance rate the first time they apply to med school, so I would imagine it would be much the same for you. 
Good luck!!
- studentsandy Said:
Hi!
I did an EMT cert back in 2006 and LOVED it. But I got pregnant shortly after, so never really got to practice. It's wonderful that you're a medic - I've been reading that BSNs/MSNs have upto an 85% acceptance rate the first time they apply to med school, so I would imagine it would be much the same for you. Good luck!!
I did an EMT cert back in 2006 and LOVED it. But I got pregnant shortly after, so never really got to practice. It's wonderful that you're a medic - I've been reading that BSNs/MSNs have upto an 85% acceptance rate the first time they apply to med school, so I would imagine it would be much the same for you.
Good luck!!Actually, nursing majors have one of the lowest acceptance rates:
http://www.knox.edu/statistics.xml
- ihopetobeado2 Said:
- studentsandy Said:
Hi!
I did an EMT cert back in 2006 and LOVED it. But I got pregnant shortly after, so never really got to practice. It's wonderful that you're a medic - I've been reading that BSNs/MSNs have upto an 85% acceptance rate the first time they apply to med school, so I would imagine it would be much the same for you. Good luck!!
I did an EMT cert back in 2006 and LOVED it. But I got pregnant shortly after, so never really got to practice. It's wonderful that you're a medic - I've been reading that BSNs/MSNs have upto an 85% acceptance rate the first time they apply to med school, so I would imagine it would be much the same for you.
Good luck!!Actually, nursing majors have one of the lowest acceptance rates:
http://www.knox.edu/statistics.xml
Yeah, I'm not sure paramedics really get looked at any better than anyone else when applying because a lot of people have no idea we're actually advanced level care providers...it's quite common for people, even doctors, to have no clue we can administer medications for instance.
However, once you explain what paramedics do, at the very least you have far more clinical and leadership experience than most applicants so it will at least help take care of some of the hoops for the application process. In my case, if your mind was somewhat on medicine at the time, you can also ask all the questions you want to doctors in your hospital time which also essentially is your shadowing time but from the unique perspective of a medic student since we can actually do advanced procedures as well during the shadowing time.
So it may not per se help that you're a paramedic, but what you're required to do to become a paramedic and what you do as a medic certainly helps your app process if that makes any sense.
Just in case a potential premed paramedic was to stumble onto this topic: The national average for paramedics is roughly $38k/year with only the top 10% of paramedics earning more than $45.6k/year. http://www.jems.com/resources/surveys/ind ex.html
Tim lives near the microcosm called San Francisco where the average salaries of many professions are the highest there (and correspondingly so is the cost of living).
- ihopetobeado2 Said:
Just in case a potential premed paramedic was to stumble onto this topic: The national average for paramedics is roughly $38k/year with only the top 10% of paramedics earning more than $45.6k/year. http://www.jems.com/resources/surveys/ind ex.html
Tim lives near the microcosm called San Francisco where the average salaries of many professions are the highest there (and correspondingly so is the cost of living).
Tim lives near the microcosm called San Francisco where the average salaries of many professions are the highest there (and correspondingly so is the cost of living).
Excellent point to make hope...this is indeed the case and in many parts of the country, paramedics make as little as 11-12/hour and EMTs make federal or state minimum wage. In fact, the only reason I went to paramedic school was with the intention of working in the bay area since paramedics are actually paid quite well here.
However, I would never go to medic school if I was 1) firmly pre-med or 2) going to work anywhere outside the bay area because the training is too brutal and unforgiving to do it for the wrong reasons. I would strongly discourage any would-be pre-med paramedic, even if they happened to live in my area, from going that route unless they honestly like EMS and aren't in a hurry.
Although I'd never live in San Francisco...paying $2,000/mo for a ghetto run down apt isn't my idea of a good time. I'd rather pay the $1,000/mo I do for a luxury apt in San Ramon which is a far nicer city anyway.
Hmm, that’s interesting about the nursing stats! I just read in Planning a Life in Medicine about nursing majors having a really high acceptance rate (85% in some cases). Obviously there’s some manipulation of statistics going on!
- studentsandy Said:
Hmm, that's interesting about the nursing stats! I just read in Planning a Life in Medicine about nursing majors having a really high acceptance rate (85% in some cases). Obviously there's some manipulation of statistics going on!
Well, it comes down to mainly that the schools don't want to contribute to the nursing shortage by taking a nurse out of the hospital by accepting her to med school.
Also, if you have little to no experience as a nurse then it looks like you just wasted a slot that could have gone to someone who really wanted to be a nurse and that doesn't look good to them.