I’m happy i found this forum. I’m a 29 soon to be 30 years old nurse with over 9 years of hospital experience. I also have an MBA and MHA and planning on taking pre-med courses at a local community college this fall.
I’m wondering if they are other nurses who are now MD/DO or currently in medical school here. What was your experience like in med school. I’m curious did you find your nursing experience made/makes things a little “easier” while in med school.
Thanks a bunch!
Hi,
I’m a rn to md/do to be. I just wanted to welcome you to the forum. I know there are some rn to md/do people around here so hopefully they’ll chime in!
Hi and welcome!
I’m currently finishing up 2nd year in a DO school. I’d say it has helped alittle but not as much as you would expect. What helps is that a lot of the terminology is familiar (particularly helpful in pharm) and you have a broad knowledge. But in the overall scope of info you have to learn, it is not a big advantage. Have to study just as hard, may get 1 -3 more questions right more from nursing experience than studying/test. Occasionally get something WRONG from experience because you learned it one way and the answers have changed.
Kate
- Kate429 Said:
I'd say it has helped alittle but not as much as you would expect. What helps is that a lot of the terminology is familiar (particularly helpful in pharm) and you have a broad knowledge. But in the overall scope of info you have to learn, it is not a big advantage. Have to study just as hard, may get 1 -3 more questions right more from nursing experience than studying/test. Occasionally get something WRONG from experience because you learned it one way and the answers have changed.
Kate
Kate
Kate, don't you think, though, that your 3rd and 4th year will be easier due to your vast clinical experience? I would imagine, especially in the beginning of year 3, you will have a significant advantage simply because you are comfortable in the clinical setting!
I think about all my OPM colleagues who were nurses in a former life every time I volunteer in the emergency department. I still feel awkward and in-the-way sometimes, and I just bet you guys could run circles around anyone in there!
Oh, of course you’re right there! It will be a huge advantage in 3rd and 4th year. And I think my nurse midwife experience will help a lot with writing notes, differential diagnosis,etc in the office setting. It’s just that (except for the Reproductive System), I don’t feel I’ve had it a lot easier these first 2 years than most of my fellow students. Particularly year 1 - I had NO advantage in biochemistry or immunology or even micro, but a bit in pharm for sure. This year my old ICU experience made our EKG course a snap for me but everything else was different detail from what I needed to know as a nurse, plus as I said the details have changed a bit.
Kate
Hey there! Another RN to DO here, still doing pre-reqs.
Although, I don’t have a masters degree or decades of experience I feel that we are more familiar with the medical system and are more comfortable with patient H/P, rapport, etc. This alone helps us focus on what exactly it is that we are supposed to be looking for and can effectively lead us from a differential to dx to tx.
Oh! And we are no strangers to standardized testings, balancing clinicals with lab and lectures, and assimilating a hoard of information in a small amount of time. As a non-trad RN, I love it!
We are older and wiser, meaning we know effective time management strategies within the healthcare field, how to overcome procrastination (cause guess what, we’re not getting any younger…lol!), and a plus: we know that once we are in residency to be super nice to the RNs because they are the ones that keep the doctors from accidentally killing you, hehehe!
Cheers!
While your experience as an RN will certainly be helpful the one thing that you will find hard is to stop thinking like an RN. You are going to need to start thinking like a doctor. And since you have been a nurse for so many years, you may find that changing how you think will be harder than you believed.
As Gabe says, I think that the change from RN thinking to MD thinking will be a bit of a challenge. I’ve been an RN for 14 years, with 12 of those years being in ICU. In a code, I could run circles around most internal med docs (they don’t run codes except for maybe the first minute or two before an intensivist shows up), but codes are only a very small part of what any doctor does (even in critical care). Even the difference in roles between staff RN and charge RN require very different mental tasks…going from being the one who DOES everything for the patient to a role where you only DIRECT and FACILITATE care of patients (and the process flow in the entire unit) is a big shift. I can only imagine the change between that and the role of a physician. What I already know will definitely serve me well, but in the grand scheme of everything ELSE I need to learn, I think it will only be a drop in the bucket. The biggest advantage for me is that I KNOW - as much as it is possible to know - that medicine, and the care of patients, is what I want to do and is a goal that I can and will pursue wholeheartedly.