hi all
just joining this forum. So glad I found it. I start med school this month at age 47. Have been a Nurse Practitioner for the past eight years. I’m really excited about becoming a doctor as it is what I have always wanted to do. Never to old to pursue a dream!!
Hi Orla W! I’ll be the first to welcome you to OPM. I’ll second what you said in your post. I’m starting med school this month @ age 42; was working in research for the past 8½ years.
Cogratulations, i am confident that you are going to do very well especially years 3 and 4.
Do you want to share any insight on transition from NP to med student? How were your interviews?
Things you wish that you knew before applying etc?
Orla,
I’m a 44 year-old NP and would love to hear about your experiences as you transition from NP to med student…
Thanks!
I decided to go Oceania University of Medicine because if you have 5 years of more clinical experience as an NP they waive the MCAT and some of the pre-reqs. None of the schools here in the U.S. offer this option. It is a relatively new school based out of Samoa and focuses on classroom and distance based learning for the first 2 years and then years 3 & 4 are the same as other med schools where you are in the hospitals doing rotations. My friend graduated from Oceania and has just started her residency here in AZ. As it is a foreign school I will be required to take USMLE which is from what I hear is a fairly tough exam. Oceania accepts students from Samoa, Nth America, Australia and the U.K.
Thanks for the information. A friend once mention this school; but i believe the student needed to have a supervising MD, and it appeared that one has to be very disciplined for this undertaking. Good luck with your studies.
Hi Orla,
Now I feel like I am not alone in the world 
Like yourself, I just started Med School at age 47. Instead of Samoa, however, I hit the water in the other direction. I am currently enrolled in St. George’s University School of Medicine.
- Orla W Said:
I decided to go Oceania University of Medicine because if you have 5 years of more clinical experience as an NP they waive the MCAT and some of the pre-reqs. None of the schools here in the U.S. offer this option. It is a relatively new school based out of Samoa and focuses on classroom and distance based learning for the first 2 years and then years 3 & 4 are the same as other med schools where you are in the hospitals doing rotations. My friend graduated from Oceania and has just started her residency here in AZ. As it is a foreign school I will be required to take USMLE which is from what I hear is a fairly tough exam. Oceania accepts students from Samoa, Nth America, Australia and the U.K.
Maybe I have you to thank as Oceania just contacted OldPreMeds to exhibit at the upcoming conference.
- Orla W Said:
As it is a foreign school I will be required to take USMLE which is from what I hear is a fairly tough exam. Oceania accepts students from Samoa, Nth America, Australia and the U.K.
First of all congratulations and all the best to you!
Just to clarify.... all MD students/graduates take USMLE if they intend to become licensed and practice in the United States. USMLE Steps 1 and 2 are required prior to residency; Step 3 is taken sometime during residency.
Mary
Very inspiring stories. Mary, I was most inspiried by your decision to pursue medicine after a long career as an RN. I am debating the NP vs MD thing right now and would love some insight into how you made your choice. I want to pursue medicine, ( I am currently a med tech working in hematology at a local hospital) but my husband thinks it is more practical to go for the NP/DNP. I know when you thought about pursuing further studies, you must have come across this too, but you decided to pursue medicine anyway. My other concern is getting a residency spot in this area ( DC metro) as it is not practical to uproot my husband and my kids. I saw in a past post that you conquered this too and got a residency position here. Could you give me some insight into this? I’m debating all of this at the age of 40(which my husband thinks is too old for MD). Any advice would be appreciated.
I actually hadn’t worked as an RN in a clinical setting in many years… so when I considered going back to clinical work, I recognized that I’d have to take an RN refresher course, then would have to do a couple of years of clinical work and THEN would have to apply to advanced-practice nursing programs. So for me, when I weighed the time involved, medicine didn’t seem that much worse.
The main thing, though, was that I recognized I was mature and ready to step up in a way that had intimidated me before.
as for residencies… in my case, I did “audition rotations” with two local programs so that they’d know me when I applied to match. Depending on your eventual choice of specialty, this is more or less possible but you usually have extensive freedom in med school to arrange for stuff you want to do, especially early in fourth year. So it’s not as awful as it seems. But of course I chose a less-competitive specialty so that also makes a difference.
Mary
Thanks for the info, Mary. Since I am very limited geographically, I am a little hesitant about jumping into medicine (even though this is truly what I want to do). I’m not very clear on the match process, but I feel we have a good number of teaching hospitals in the DC/Baltimore/VA area where I could do my residency without having to move my family around. My interests are in General Medicine/Internist/Family Practice. Do you feel these residency spots are easier to get in this area?
Thanks for the help.
I can’t speak to the DC area specifically, but internal medicine and family practice residencies are both fairly easy to get into nationwide.
There are probably better links out there, but HERE is one that lists residency programs. Scroll past the first box (which lists fellowships, not your concern) and then look at the lists of specialties in the D.O. and M.D. residency programs. If you click on the desired specialty, the programs participating in the Match are listed. That way, you can find out what’s available in the D.C. - Baltimore area. It’s a start.
Mary
Washington Hosptial Center in DC also offers many residency programs.
Great information. There are more opportunities here than I thought. Thanks to you both.
You are a NP. Would you advise someone at 49 to get their LPN or MA. I really don’t want to be a nurse anymore because I don’t want to make the decisions that they make? Isn’t a NP very very close to DR? Sorry for questions and ignorance