If this should be in the Pre-Vet forum please move! I wasn’t sure since I’m discussing both veterinary and medical school!
So in the Fall, I’ll be a sophomore majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology and healthcare studies. Right now I’m pre-med, but recently I’ve been going back and forth about applying to vet school, along with medical school. Pediatrics has always been my dream, specifically emergency medicine or general surgery, but recently I realized that I still have a passion for animals as well. My dream ALSO used to be to go to vet school (when I was like 10), but as I grew up and gained exposure with doctors and a horrific medical tragedy that happened to someone in my immediate family, I started considering an MD rather than a DVM.
My question is, is it okay to apply to both? I’ve shadowed four doctors and have some more shadowing opportunities lined up for the 2017-2018 school year. My mom’s best friend is a vet, and she offered me the opportunity to shadow her this summer and gain small animal and large animal experience. The required classes are pretty much the same, and since I’m getting a biochemistry degree, it covers most of them anyways. The only main difference (besides shadowing/volunteering) is that the majority of vet schools I looked at require the GRE, but a few do accept the MCAT. I suppose I could sit for both.
Does anyone have any advice, guidance, or knowledge about this? I truly am passionate about both and not trying to just apply to both to have the “Dr.” title. I work with an organization now involving kids with pediatric illnesses, AND I volunteer with my mom at our local animal shelter and a rescue group she’s a part of. I’ve been around both types of degrees throughout my life so my question is if I can’t make a decision by junior year, is it okay to apply to both? I envision myself applying to more MD/DO programs than DVM, but I still want to keep vet school open as an option. My state has my #1 choice for vet school and one of my top 3 choices for medicine, so that’s definitely a positive for me since they tend to accept more in-state students.
Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it! 
I suppose you could apply to both, but I think it’s going to be tough to develop the expected ECs for both at once.
Med schools look for clinical volunteering as well as shadowing and community service to vulnerable human populations.
Vet schools look for clinical volunteering with animal/veterinary organizations as well as community service related animal causes. Many vet schools list an expectation of 400-1000 hours of hands-on vet experience plus and addition 400-1000 hours of hands on general animal experience. Top vet programs expect veterinary-oriented research done during college.
And you’ll need to check your likely vet schools (in-state publics, WICHE or any target schools), but a number of vet schools have admission requirements that are beyond what med school requires–like animal science, non-human physiology, microbiology, zoology, animal nutrition and public speaking.
See: http://www.aavmc.org/data/files/vmcas/prereqchrt14.pdf
And I’d imagine that having those animal/vet-oriented courses on your transcript is going to raise some eyebrow among med school adcomms.
(Anecdotally, there’s a poster on SDN who has been trying to get into med school for the last 5-6 years. He has a CLS degree with extensive research experience in animal science topics, including a first author pub in Laboratory Animal Science --a moderately high impact animal science journal. Despite decent GPAs and MCAT scores, physician shadowing and moderate amount of hospital volunteering, he simply cannot get any traction with med school adcomms because they doubt his commitment to human medicine. He’s been through 3 or 4 cycles of med school applications without a single II.)
BTW, securing a seat at a vet school is just as difficult as getting a med school seat. Both in terms of applicant/available seat ratio and stats (average accepted student GPA and GRE percentiles).
I suggest shadowing each career and committing to one or the other.
If you got into both, do you know which you would accept? If not, you might be in a bind at that point. You could consider taking a gap year to work at a vet’s office, or do this over the summer while in university. I think that when you get acceptances might be a bit late to take a gap year.
Also, I assume that you are aware of the financial challenges with veterinary school? It is not cheap, and not easy to pay off veterinary school loans with a veterinarians income.
It will also be more difficult to have student loan forgiveness with a DVM than it would me as a DO or MD.
@DadTwoGirls I think a lot of it would depend on which school I got into at this point. There are places I like more than others because of their location and combined DVM/PhD or MD/PhD programs. I’m hoping by the end of sophomore year to have chosen one. Yes, I am aware of financial challenges. My family is willing to pay for most of my graduate school, and I’ve been saving up since I was 10 for the future as well.
@livinginLA Yes, I do understand that. I won’t be taking out loans though. I am also trying to go to a state school if possible to get the costs down a little.
@WayOutWestMom Thank you for your post! It was extremely helpful. Yes, the vet schools I’m looking at now only suggest microbiology, anatomy, and a few other courses that are not animal-related specifically. With my biochemistry degree, I have to take so many biology electives that I could squeeze a few in. I do hope to narrow it down to one. My only main challenge I see with ECs is getting that number of required vet shadowing/experience hours in. I already have over 400 for medical school and it will be hard for me to do both at the same time.
pediatrics or geriatrics would probably be a nice way to split the difference 
That’s probably a much bigger problem than his animal science work
@iwannabe_Brown I’m interested in pediatrics if I do go to medical school, specifically emergency medicine or general surgery. However, there’s just something about animals that I love as well. It is hard having two passions lol! I guess I’ll just have to give it a little more time before I decide. No interest in geriatrics though aha.
@rvalover7 Brown is making a med student/doctor joke. It’s said practicing pediatrics is like practicing veterinary medicine because your patients in both cases are non-verbal…
And I hesitate to say this, but I have to—until you actually get into med school and do your clinical rotations. you really have no idea if you’ll like EM or surgery or pediatrics.
Btw, the demand for pediatric EM docs is low and their salaries are a good deal lower than regular EM physicians.
@WayOutWestMom I understood the joke. I’m trying to be serious though in reply to their comment.
I understand this, but out of the doctors I’ve shadowed- geriatrics, pediatrics, general surgery, emergency medicine, family practice, dermatology, etc. so for, those are the ones I’m most drawn to. I do realize that things can change once you get there. I have doctors in my family.
Yes, I am also aware that pediatric emergency medicine has a lower salary than regular EMs. I’ve done my research and shadowed all sorts of doctors. At this point for me its just trying to pick a career (DVM or MD/DO) and moving forward with the necessary things I need to do to be a competitive applicant.
You’ve told us a lot of your medical experiences. What are your veterinary ones?
@iwannabe_Brown I shadowed a vet in HS for a required project. That was about 6 hours a week for a month. I’ve also visited her a few more times throughout summers at home since my mom is close with her. My mom volunteers at our local animal shelter and a rescue group, and I try to volunteer with them when I can. Not “vet” experience, but animal experience. I also had foster animals in my home growing up. We own horses, so I’ve learned some about large animal care too. I’ve had more animal experience, such as hands-on interaction, rather than direct vet observation. I’ve seen some procedures done on animals, but I’ve sat in on four surgeries on humans. So I would say my pre-med experience is mostly direct patient care and operations, while my pre-vet experience is mainly animal experience.
I am not familiar with Vet schools as none of my family/acquaintances are in that field. But my instinct tells me that you do not have enough ECs for Vet Schools. You may want to read upon those postings in the Vet section on CC here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-vet-veterinary-medicine/
Perhaps that will shed some lights to your prospects in Vet Schools. Most of the ECs you performed in HS will not be accounted for in Graduate school apps, nevertheless.
@artloversplus Thanks for your post! The HS shadowing project is the only thing I’ve only done in HS. The rest of the stuff I have continued to do in college. I’m a freshman in college now so most of the stuff I’m doing/have done would be counted.
Well, keep up with both professions is not an easy task, you should evaluate your options and perhaps choose one and do it well, otherwise, you may have the risk of not being successful in both. Besides, you have to worry about your current major(s) in UG, that is a lot of work.
@artloversplus Well, of course, that’s what I’m trying to do; however, it’s not as easy as it sounds. I’m very passionate about both areas of work, and if someone handed me an MD or DVM degree today, I’m just not sure what I would choose. I’m hoping this summer will provide me the guidance I need to make a decision. I was just curious to see if some people actually apply to both.
“I’m a freshman in college now…”
Does your college offer “pre-vet” classes and activities? Do they have a farm and animals (and cows with windows on their sides so that you can reach inside)? There is of course a significant overlap between pre-med university undergrad courses and pre-vet university undergrad courses, so you should have some time to decide (probably at least until your applications to medical or veterinary school have to be sent out).
As far as I can tell (having a daughter who was pre-med then became pre-vet) you can experience a lot in university that should be a big help in making the decision. If you university doesn’t have pre-vet classes, you might want to look into taking a semester at a university that does (whether in the summer or otherwise).
@DadTwoGirls I’m transferring to a new university in the Fall, but no, they do not have a farm. However, there are some nearby, and I spoke to a student there when I toured, and he said that while there were more pre-med students rather than pre-vet students, he had no problem gaining admission to several vet schools. It took a little more work since opportunities weren’t nearby, but some of his teachers had connections/animal experience and set up shadowing for him, and they offer some animal-based biology classes.
Just my 2 cents about an area that I don’t know a lot about (but, hey, that won’t stop me…lol)
We’ve all known a gazillion kids that want to go the vet route, few make it. Personally, I’ve known 2 kids who’ve gone thru pre-vet/vet school. Both grew up surrounded by various animals. They lived it, they breathed it. They each grew up in rural/semi-rural areas where horses, pigs, lambs, cows, dogs, cats, abound. They didn’t mind that vets often don’t make the same $ as physicians, yet with still big loans to pay back. Caring for animals is in their blood.
If your background isn’t deeply steeped in raising//feeding/caring for animals, I don’t think vet life is for you.
@mom2collegekids While I did not grow up on a farm, I have been around animals my entire life. Maybe not as much as the two kids you have mentioned, but I grew up volunteering places, fostering animals, riding horses, etc. I think my experience is still significant enough for me to want to still consider vet school as an option. I guess the purpose of this thread wasn’t to help me find which is better for me DVM or MD (I have to do that myself) but to see if anyone does apply to both. I understand what you are saying though completely. Large animal experience (farm animals), is just as important as small animal experience and being raised in rural areas does help contribute to the passion for animals.