Weighing in on this topic, I was accepted to an allopathic program at age 43. I applied as an early decision candidate, so it was my only application and interview. I was never made to feel my age was a factor. Prior to matriculation, I worked in a totally unrelated field (print and publishing), and worked full-time through the post-bacc process. Again, there was never a time where I felt my committment to medicine was questioned. That being said, I agree with Kate that you run the risk of having your efforts viewed as a “mid-life crisis” if you are not proactive in disspelling this impression when challenged with it. My undergrad GPA (BA in design) was 3.5 and my post-bacc work was 3.8. MCAT score was 32. For what it’s worth, I’m now a practicing MD and on faculty at my alma mater, Medical College of Georgia. I’m in the initial stages of a research project to investigate the career track decisions of non-traditional graduates of US and Carribean medical schools.
Allow me to present some evidence that yes, there is discrimination against older premeds, but it is possible for older (> 40 years old) to go to an allopathic school. I personally know two doctors, both of whom are relatively recent graduates of U.S. allopathic medical schools. One went to a University of California school when she was 50, the other went to University of Washington when she was 52. They both also got acceptances to osteopathic schools as well. Both are women, one white, the other Latina, and thus they represent an underrepresented segment of the medical community. If they were male, I believe their chances would have been far smaller.
Nevetheless, statistically, it is increasingly harder to get into any medical school the older one gets. Why this is so may be due to a variety of factors:
(a) the length of training
(b) the costs incurred by the medical school to train prospective doctors (~$100,000 per student).
© the idea that medical students should be “young” and that medical school is for the young. Consider all the references in the media and popular culture about “young doctors”
(d) the idea that an older med student is taking the spot that could be better filled by a younger applicant who would be practicing medicine far longer since they are starting when they are younger. This latter point (dare I say “excuse”) comes up occasionally on discussion boards such as SDN.
(e) the idea that older students won’t fit in to a medical school class dominated by under 25-year olds.
And I’m sure there are other reasons as well.
My own experience has been on the negative side. I’ve been volunteering extensively in the health care field for 20 years, all of it with underserved populations. I ran a free clinic for more than a decade, and started and ran several free clinics. Once a month, I go abroad to do medical work in rural Latin America. Therefore, while I got lots of encouragement and interest when I have discussed my case with premed advisors, their enthusiasm evaporates when they find out that I’m 46 and won’t be applying until I’m 48 or so. One top-tier medical school even told me to not even apply if I was over 45. Often times, admissions advisors and premed advisors will try to steer us older applicants into non-physician medical trainings, such as nursing, physician assistant, etc. on the assumption that getting into a medical career as quickly as possible is more important than what sort of career or field one actually does. This situation has happened to me several times in interviews for post-bacc programs; in each case, the advisors spent much of the time focusing on the age issue. Needless to say, I was put off. For the sort of medical work I want to do (international rural health in Latin America and Africa), a medical degree would be preferred and not having one would limit my ability to treat and diagnose and (I hate to say this) convince other doctors with whom I’d be working of those very same diagnoses and treatments.
Unfortunately, it looks like if my age doesn’t keep me out of medical school, my GPA will.
While I get the impression from people I’ve talked to that there is ageism in the process, I have personally talked to MD school admission reps, and they have told me that they embrace the older students because of the life experiences they bring to the table. My sister, who is involved with training medical students, echoes much the same, and has actually stated that a lot of the younger med students look up to the older ones with a lot of reverence. Both for their life skills, and I guess actual respect for taking on a rigorous task later in life.
I personally think that the matriculation numbers, as Richard said, have a great deal to do with the fact that this is simply damn hard to do later in life. I am unmarried, no kids, and just reversing a great deal of the life I’ve grown accustomed to having, money, free time, etc, in order to pursue this has been difficult. After a couple of semesters, I still find it difficult to focus at times. My friends with their established lives are out having a good time, and I’ve spent the last week studying stereochemistry and the endocrine system.
If I don’t get in though, it’s going to be because someone tells me that I just can’t do it. I’m not going to quit ahead of time and save them the trouble. I want this too much.
I hope I was not misunderstood. I was not advocating that older premeds should quit their pursuit of medical school and medicine as a career. I was just trying to show that yes, ageism does exist. It is insidious, not easy to spot nor to prove. Perhaps the best advice is to decide for oneself about one’s chances and one’s desires.
For me, I realize that my chances are close to non-existent for any decent medical school, at least in the U.S. But I still have not capitulated; I’d like to see how I do on the MCAT and at least apply to medical schools even if I don’t get in due to poor science GPA. Most of the people with whom I work and volunteer have been very supportive; they don’t want to see me throw away decades of medical work just because of grades. They think I have a lot to offer. I [/i} am still not completely convinced . . .
Let’s say that there were a number of 40 year old’s that did interview and were not accepted. Is it because they were 40 or is it because it was a poor interview? It sounds as though there are schools that want OPM’s. They don’t know how to attract them and then their comparison to other application might make us not as competitive. Until we all go through the process, then get on that other side of the process I am not sure that any of us can say with certainty if it is agism.
I know that my first choice school is non-trad friendly. They call us “bent arrows”. They do like that we have a different experience that adds variety in ideas to the medical world. My husband is also working with a ED doc that is non-trad. The sad thing is she made it and claims to have felt like an outsider the whole time. Bah! Bad news for us if her med school professors picked up on that feeling.
My OB said that in her SOM class there was a 50+ year old woman who was a Catholic Nun. BTW, the Nun is still practicing medicine today and is well into her 70’s. Every school has it’s own culture. Some are proud of their traditional ways and methods. Other schools want to send a variety of physicians into the world. Apply extensively and then get on the board of admissions and make the changes you wish to see.
My post-bacc at UVA was NOT at all discriminatory based on age. What they are looking for is people with the personality qualities and motivations to be good physicians - demonstrated by a service ethic. Sounds like YOU! There are many med schools with the same idea. Among allopathic ones, Albert Eistein medical school in the Bronx and the rural physician leadership program at Univ. of Ky spring to mind (and those are just out of the 20 or so I gathered info on when I was deciding where to apply).
Kate
Would anyone else find interesting a list of allopathic and DO schools friendly to non-trad students? I know I would.
Maybe this has already been discussed elsewhere and I just missed the thread?
It has been discussed before (although not recently, I think). In general, DO schools are non-trad friendly. Allopathic schools tend to get a bad rap as not being as friendly towards non-trads, but the situation is not nearly as bleak as you might think. There are allopathic schools that actively recruit non-trads - from my own applying experience Wright State, University of Cincinnati, University of Toledo and Case Western are all “friendly” to non-trads. Ohio State used to have a rep as not being non-trad friendly, however, there have been at least 3 OPMer’s who have or are currently attending Ohio State and in every class there are a fair number of non-trads.
My point being - don’t base whether or not you apply at certain schools solely on whether or not they have a reputation for being non-trad friendly. Choose schools based on criteria that are important to you - location, curriculum, cost, “feel”, etc. If you get an interview at a school, you can usually get a feel for how you think you will fit in. Schools frequently choose to focus on recruiting different types of students and a school that has been known as not being accepting of non-trads in the past might have recently decided to recruit that group
This is only slightly related but I work with a doctor who did his UG at a school with a DO program, he applied to both the MD and DO program in our state. His father is a physician (MD) and he had extensively shadowed other MD’s but no DO’s. His first choice was the DO program but he got waitlisted. When he received his acceptance to the MD program he accepted. He felt like his experience and the fact his father was an MD weighed on the DO program’s decision to waitlist him. They hinted in the interview that he might feel like MD’s are superior to DO’s, which was not the case as the DO program was his first choice. He was 23 when he interviewed.
My point is that there are all sorts of prejudices whether it’s agism, sexism and allopathic schools seem to always be the ones getting the focus of that. Perhaps this was just that one school or that one group that interviewed him. I’d hate to think that we might be penalized for what looks like a preference to one thing or the other…however in this case that’s how several people who applied to this program were made to feel.