Hi,
Glad I found this board. I’m 39 and in the middle of taking prereqs. Started this summer with Gen chem I as a test case and high aced the class getting the highest score by quite a bit that the professor had ever gotten on some sort of standardized (ACS) final. 97th percentile.
The premed advisor at the local 4 year seems very supportive and didn’t seem worried about the first 2-3 years of college since I’m tracking all A’s for all the recent stuff which she said was what most med school will look at. Also, I have 3.2 from law school which was cum laude at my law school. (about top 25%) . I had chronic jaws TMJ pain the first 3 year of college which was successfully treated and my GPA shot up to 3.8 the last year so it seems as reasonable an extenuating circumstance for a GPA as I can think of.
So fast forward to about 5 years I started trying to shutter my law practice. Made some progress on an internet business that has regressed. (still might get it working but it’s a slowburn project, very low hours.) Then mother got sick and passed and I ended up being responsible for overseeing a relative until early this year.
I also kind of lacked alot of motivation due to really thinking I’d be lucky to have a heart attack in five years given that my own physical condition was going steadily downward. In 2012 I had foot problems and was essentially semi-crippled all year.
So in early 2016 I started doing regular extended fasts and I’ve lost 200 pounds overall.
I had started blogging about it and have people message me for advice semiregularly and realized that to really do the diet guru thing successfully and responsibly I really needed to go to med school which is something I’d always thought about but couldn’t handle physically and I had doubts academically due to the first couple years of college. Also, even if the influencer strategy didn’t work out, I’d still be a doctor which would be a fun job from what i’ve observed. (like giving consults all day, my favorite part of being a lawyer.) Also, it’d keep me busy which really helps with the fasting.
I’ve started to get shadowing hours in with a doctor I did some regulatory related work on and am about to start volunteering.
On the good side I can devote myself 100% to this since I don’t have a family to support or anything. Meeting people seems like a great upside to med school.
I am most worried about not really doing anything the past couple years career wise. I wrote some and worked on some projects, but they really haven’t panned out. I think it sounds reasonable, but most doctors seem really high strung about always doing lots of stuff and I don’t know if they’d empathize with being in horrible physical condition. (I think the rigors of medicine self select against bad physical condition and chronic pain) Not just in terms of capacity but energy level. Today I can get up at 8 in the morning and go to 1 at night alert all the time. Before I’d be tired a couple of hours after getting up.
I haven’t held a job for the majority of my adult life (I’m 36) I was busy having and raising babies (5 of them). So that’s my excuse LOL. Honestly most Med School Applicants are very young and haven’t held any sort of special jobs. You have a law degree, which shows you can finish a rigorous level of course work which is really important to Med schools. The ability to finish the degree I mean.