Hello,
Is it possible to work through med school, perhaps for the 1st 2 years? Has anyone done or know of anyone doing this? Thanks.
I’m just starting my second semester of 1st year, and I work 4 hours each weekend. I have a medical coding/auditing company, and I was fortunate to have a client in the state I moved from that gave me remote access to their medical records, so I do my work from home. There are certainly times I wish I didn’t have to do it, especially the weekend before an exam, but it’s only 4 hours - many of my younger classmates spend at least that many hours partying on weekends. I also work extra hours during breaks - for instance, I worked about 70 hours over our 3-week winter break but still had time to visit family and relax and started back to school today feeling refreshed.
I know of at least 2 classmates that also work - one is a traditional student (pharmacy tech) and the other is a nontrad (yoga instructor). I’ve also heard of several 2nd years that work, but I don’t know details about # of hours or type of work.
There is some downtime in med school and everyone uses it differently, so it really just depends on your particular circumstances. I don’t have other responsibilities - no children, low-maintenance husband, sold our house to move for school and so living in an apartment (no yard work, repairs, etc). It hasn’t affected my grades negatively, so I plan to keep working until end of 2nd year as long as that trend continues.
I worked 10-15 hours per week as a personal trainer during the first 2+ years of medical school, up until my surgery rotation.
I WOULD NOT do it again.
Medical School is a time for 95% time studying, 5% personal/relaxation time.
Hi jbirdst,
Depends how much and what kind of job. If you want to work more than 20 hrs/week,this would only be a good idea if you take courses part time and very few schools allow this. I think some do because I have come across people doing med school part time. Also, some schools list ‘part time tuition’ which makes me think that its not impossible for a some part of the program but i don’t think anyone should count on this.