Now or later

I am a 22 year old college graduate in Biology and am strongly considering medical school. I however also want to start a family before my 30s. So what should I do? I’m considering going to graduate school for Physical Therapy which I’ll be done with in 3 years (25 years old), working for a few years and then going on to med school when I’m 30, whether I have children by then or not. Is this a good idea or should I just go straight to medical school? If I wait until I’m 30, will I have to retake all the pre-med classes (biology, physics, chemistry, etc)? Please help me make a decision.

You have many things to consider to be sure. I will say that Inhad several classmates with children or who became pregnant in med school. All did very well. For me, doing PT so that I could practice only for a couple of years would not be worth the time or monetary investment. It would be very expensive to do both professional programs.


Good luck with the decision!

I think you may find that if you go the PT route, it will be that much harder to go back to med school (especially if you have kids between now and then). As pointed out above, you’ll incur additional debt with the PT graduate degree. Additionally, you’ll get used to life - house, family, job, debt. It’s infinitely harder to give up a well-paying, secure job to go back to school than to continue going to school, especially with a family.


Having kids in med school/residency is doable (maybe not ideal, but doable). There are several females at my school who have had kids during medical school, a few that had them before starting. I can’t even count the number of female residents I’ve run across that have had children during residency. It definitely takes some strong support from your significant other.

  • maybemed17 Said:
I am a 22 year old college graduate in Biology and am strongly considering medical school. I however also want to start a family before my 30s. So what should I do? I'm considering going to graduate school for Physical Therapy which I'll be done with in 3 years (25 years old), working for a few years and then going on to med school when I'm 30, whether I have children by then or not. Is this a good idea or should I just go straight to medical school? If I wait until I'm 30, will I have to retake all the pre-med classes (biology, physics, chemistry, etc)? Please help me make a decision.



Rule #1: take a breath.....

First question, since your brought PT, if your are sure you want to a physician, why the sideline into PT? (I am sure that will be a question at your medical school interview)?

Second question, and this quite presumptuous on my part, but do you have a good understanding of both the preparation of and the practice of medicine (and PT for that matter)?

If I sound confrontational, I do apologize but it is meant for you to confront yourself.

You seem to want to have life planned, yet many us here on OPM will tell life rarely works as planned.

If you think I am wrong in my tone here, please tell me so. There is a long list of women you can stand in line with on that fact




  • gonnif Said:
You seem to want to have life planned, yet many us here on OPM will tell life rarely works as planned.



Oof! You are not kidding, Brother! When I was 22, I knew I was supposed to be screaming overhead at Mach 2. God had other plans for me.


  • Ltap93 Said:


...When I was 22, I knew I was supposed to be screaming overhead at Mach 2....



Lol so was I!

I for one strongly feel strongly that if you think medicine is your ultimate goal, don’t wait too long. If you started by the time you were 24 (after shadowing/volunteering and making sure it’s what you really want) you could be done with your residency by your early 30’s. Plenty of time at that point to raise a family. I have to second the earlier poster’s remark about how difficult it really is to leave a life that you’ve grown accustomed to and start a completely new path, especially one as long and expensive as medicine.


I say this as one who was in your shoes 15 years ago. I had all my pre-req’s out of the way, a 3.6 gpa, and a (mediocre) MCAT. All I had to do was apply to some med schools. I feel like if I’d stuck to my guns I would have gotten in somewhere. Instead I decided to join the Army and be “hooah” for a while. Fast-forward to today, I’m squarely entrenched in another well-paying career, on the outside looking in. It is a very daunting view. People do it, but I wouldn’t recommend it to any 22-year-old, not if you know that you want to be a doctor ultimately.


FWIW.