Hello, everybody! I am so relieved that I found out about this site. Perhaps most of you have been or are in the same situation that I am going through right now so I would love to hear ANY input.
I went to college right after high school. I attended a university in the Philippines. I majored in Biology and received my BS degree in 1998. Originally, I was suppose to attend med school in the Philippines, but came home here in the US (Yes, I am an American citizen) right after I graduated for family reasons. I had intentions of going to medical school here, but my GPA (2.75) was not good enough. To make matters worse, when I had my grades evaluated, they would not accept my bachelor’s as a four year degree.
Because my parents could not afford to send to send me to med school, they suggested that I go to nursing school. I thought okay, since this is still in the medical field, how bad could it be? I could get the patient contact experience and work my way to med school. I made straight A’s in my pre-requisites. However, as soon as I began taking my nursing fundamental classes, I didn’t do so well. I really wasn’t interested in nursing back then. Sorry for any nurses out there, but my mom and sister are nurses, so it’s not that I appreciate you guys.
So, anyway, there I was at 23, confused and discouraged about getting to med school. I had this philosophy that if I can’t make it through nursing school, I can’t make it through med school.
I decided to join the Army afterwards. (Don’t ask how or why I got to to that decision, but I did.) That didn’t go too well since I broke my hips. Furthermore, my hearing problem got worse. I’ve always had a minor hearing problem since I was a child, although it wasn’t so bad that I needed hearing aids, which I do need to wear now.
After getting my medical discharge from the army, I went to work as a nurse’s assistant. 
Strange, isn’t it, after saying that I wasn’t interested in nursing? I loved the patient contact, but frustrated at the fact that I was so limited in what I can do, and I was always curious to find out what was wrong with the patient. After getting over my depression due to my hearing loss, I decided to go back to school. This time I decided to take an associate’s degree in clinical lab technician (CLT). I am loving it right now! My grades have been excellent (a GPA of 3.75) and love finding out about the clinical picture. I start my clinical rotations in two weeks and will be graduating in the summer. However, in the back of my mind, I’ve always wondered if it’s possible to go to medical school. I am 26 years old, single, no children. I have not taken the MCAT or find out if I need to take any more pre-reqs…and I probably do. Part of me wants to take this chance but part of me says I should just forget it, get married, and have kids. Still there’s this nagging feeling even though I’ll be doing the “detective work,” I won’t be satisfied at the fact that I won’t be there to see the actual outcome of the treatment.
If any of you have some advice please let me know. I’d be glad to hear from you. Thank you very much. 
Still undecided
Hi there,
You have a couple of options. You can get a second bachelor’s degree here in the United States at a 4-year university and do very well, take the MCAT, and then apply to medical school. There would be no way that any medical school in the United States would be able to trace your grades in your home country. You would be in the same category as an older student with a first bachelor’s degree. You are going to need to take the pre-reqs for the MCAT anyway so you might as well go for the degree. The caveat is that you need to do pretty well. You should major in anything that you know that you can do well in. Your CLT is not going to meet the requirements for medical school so you could use your job in the laboratory to pay some bills while you attended school.
Your second option is to apply for a post bacc program based on your degree from your home country. This may or may not work for you as many of the post bacc programs require a 3.0 GPA. If you were accepted into a post-bacc program with the option to be picked up by a medical school if you do very well, you might be able to get in with that option. The down-side is that you would have to report all of your poor grades to the school that you applied to as a post bacc. They would end up on your transcripts and might be a negative for applying to medical school.
Think about what you want to do and go for it. Many hospitals will pay for your college tuition as long as you are working full-time and maintain a “B” average so you could even get some tuition assistance by being a hospital employee. Here at UVA, that option is available. Perhaps there might be something near you like that.
Good luck and let us know how you are doing.
Welcome to OPM!!! 
Natalie