Well, that didn't last long

So long story short, basically I decided to go to paramedic school instead of medical school because I love EMS and I’ve seen what medics do and I know I would enjoy that experience.


The issue is that 1) I’m suspicious of whether the care that paramedics provide is advanced and definitive enough to satisfy me over my entire lifetime as opposed to a few years 2) my shoulders and back aren’t doing so well in the past year or so and I know its from the job, so I don’t realistically see myself making a career out of this because my body is taking a beating and 3) I met a fellow diver, fell in love with her, and basically she’s a rocket scientist so she’s pretty understanding of intense school and work requirements and she basically told me that if I did want to go to medical school then she’d be behind me 100%


So as a result, I’m relooking at medical school I guess…the main issue is whether to just graduate with the classes my major requires, and take the pre-med reqs later, or just do it now. Realistically, I’m starting paramedic school on Nov 14th…already accepted to it and I’m taking the pre-paramedic Anatomy & Physiology right now. I guess part of what made me consider it was the fact that I’m coasting by with minimal effort at UC Davis and the A&P course is an entire semester worth of knowledge packed into 5 weeks and I’m coasting by even with that…lot of reading but I seem to retain a massive amount of information the first time around if it’s medical in nature.


My major doesn’t require a year of ochem w/lab…just two quarters and the first class doesn’t have lab. I actually was enrolled in the year-long sequence of ochem that the pre-meds take but I had to switch for another class because I had a question the TA could not answer (for that matter I couldn’t even understand her with her accent, she was a horrible TA in both explanations and misled us about what she would cover on quizzes) and the only office hours for the professor was on Wednesday and I’m in A&P lecture from 9 am to 6 pm on Wednesday so it was just a bad situation.


So speaking of bad situations, I have currently two options as far as I can see.

  1. Take ochem 1 (no lab) next quarter alongside bio 2 w/lab and another lower division class, maybe business law or managerial marketing (my major is a mix of science and economics) and hope to hell that it’s manageable with paramedic school added in (and hope that office hours aren’t on Tuesday or Friday which is when I’ll be in medic lecture from 9 am to 6 pm)


    To that end, if I’m going to do that, then I might as well take ochem 2 w/lab, bio 3 w/lab and the second accounting class I need for my major in the spring. Next year I will have finished medic school and I’ll be a medic so there will be nothing else outside Davis going on outside me working part-time as a paramedic.

  2. Just take classes required for my major, graduate, and then later on take a year of ochem w/lab and take physics w/lab.


    There’s plenty of advantages and disadvantages to both. If I take the classes now, I’ll have to apply sooner since there’s a shelf life on the pre-med reqs and a LOR can’t be too outdated if I recall correctly. If I take the classes later, I’ll have to take two quarters of ochem now and then three quarters later. And I’ll have to find another university to go to since I’ll be done at Davis and I’ll have moved. The upside to taking the classes after I get my degree is that I can decide when I want to apply to med school instead of having to apply within a few years of graduating. (which I’m not necessarily against since I just want at least a year or two of 911 experience as a medic regardless and a few years break is fine with me)


    So that’s basically my situation. Any advice, comments, etc. will be appreciated. Fortunately at least the rest of my app outside the “date-ness” of the pre-reqs and the LORs should be fine…I have a ridiculous amount of clinical experience and after paramedic school which requires hospital rotations, this will only improve, I have volunteering experience both in the past in a hospital and I currently volunteer as a Divemaster and I plan to do that until I no longer can since I love it, my GPA is like a 3.9 and so far I’ve taken 2 of my first 3 midterms here and I know I aced them so my GPA won’t change significantly, and I have a decent amount of ECs imo due to EMS experience and diving. Leadership experience will look great due to the Divemaster experience, and by the time I go to med school, I’ll probably also be a dive instructor by then so even more leadership experience. I just need to figure out the class thing.

Tim,


Please do not interpret this as curt or rude, but I “made my name” by being direct, honest & to the point. Frankly my friend, the first thing you need to do is to stop spinning your wheels. I think some downtime filled with honest, deep & sincere introspection needs to be in your immediate future. Yes, we all have thoughts along the way of, “what the hell was I thinking?” But you seem to suffer from from an ailment that plagued me for many years – working like hell with no definitive direction that yielded me digging out a pit instead of digging out of the hole.


I think you need to clear your baffles, do some serious thinking, make a decision & commit to it.


I apologize if I offend you, but you laid it our on the table & asked for objective perspectives.

Tim,


I have to agree with Dave on this one. From what you have said becoming a paramedic doesn’t seem to offer you much towards your end goal. Don’t get me wrong I am a paramedic and the experience and learning opportunities are great. I think however that if being a doctor is really what you want you should focus on getting the pre req’s done and doing well on them. Most schools want lab with Ochem so taking it without lab doesn’t really get you anything that I can see. My advise would be keep volunteering as an EMT-B, focus on your pre req’s and preparing for the MCAT’s. The time spent at this point on getting your paramedic certification just isn’t worth it unless you have another reason for travelling that path or plan to pursue prehospital medicine after med school.


My $0.02 for what it is worth.


Todd


NYS EMT-P

Tim,


Did we not discuss this last spring?


Sit down NOW and get yourself a good, well considered, flexible, orderly and WRITTEN plan, then apply to school (pay bills until school starts)… then GET GOING once again!


How am I to refer patients to you someday if you are still in school…


Richard

  • OldManDave Said:
Tim,

Please do not interpret this as curt or rude, but I "made my name" by being direct, honest & to the point. Frankly my friend, the first thing you need to do is to stop spinning your wheels. I think some downtime filled with honest, deep & sincere introspection needs to be in your immediate future. Yes, we all have thoughts along the way of, "what the hell was I thinking?" But you seem to suffer from from an ailment that plagued me for many years -- working like hell with no definitive direction that yielded me digging out a pit instead of digging out of the hole.

I think you need to clear your baffles, do some serious thinking, make a decision & commit to it.

I apologize if I offend you, but you laid it our on the table & asked for objective perspectives.



Awesome advice...though I know it was directed at Tim, I'm going to direct it at myself...hope that's ok.

Well, lots of good advice here…a concern of mine that’s been bothering me more and more over the past 2 weeks is the shoulder and back pain which seems to be damn near chronic at this point, which did not start until after I had been in EMS for awhile. I don’t want to get into a career that my body isn’t willing to tolerate.


Thanks for the input guys…guess I’ll just get started on ochem & physics next quarter and take the next bio class. I did plan to do it eventually anyway so I suppose I might as well get it out of the way now.

I will freely admit that my approach was a little more laid back then some of the others. Still, I did have a sense that - ok - the path to doctordom goes this way - so lets take step one and see if that works if it does, on to step 2 – many many steps later I am an employ doc -


do keep your eyes on the prize as it were - and keep taking the steps if you are reasonable sure it is a path you want to walk - I will not say I did a lot of intense soul searching I just kept moving and trusting that it would work out as it should.


Oh - and if your shoulder is bothering chronically go to a DO school… A little OMT to that shoulder might fix you up



“Do keep your eyes on the prize as it were - and keep taking the steps if you are reasonable sure it is a path you want to walk - I will not say I did a lot of intense soul searching I just kept moving and trusting that it would work out as it should.”


Man O Man, I have NEVER seen it put more concisely and yet eloquently: set an orderly step-wise plan for a long race and then keep on plodding!


“Oh - and if your shoulder is bothering chronically go to a DO school… A little OMT to that shoulder might fix you up”


I must say I agree with this one too, on the Wichita campus we have MANY KCUMB (DO) students, join us in our clerkships. I slipped an fell on the ice during the surgery rotation, my back was a mess! Thankfully one of my fine DO colleagues fixed me right up… on a table in the classroom (Thanks “Dr Steve”)!