<p>I have been thinking about looking into becoming a reproductive endocrinologist for a while now. I have a few questions:</p>
<p>1) I currently work as a RN with by bachelors degree in nursing. Would the classes I took for that take some time off becoming an MD? How many years of schooling would I be looking at? </p>
<p>2) this might sound crazy, but is it realistic to go to school full time and work full time? I am the breadwinner in the family and cannot afford to work only part time. If that wouldn't work, is it possible to do med school part time? I would prefere to do both full time. We have also been trying to conceive our first for a year and a half now, so I would have to consider the possibility of becoming pregnant and being a first time mother while doing all of this. I want to figure out a way for this to work so bad though!</p>
<p>3) how does the schooling to become an MD work? Study in all different specialities during school, and then specialize for a year or two or more?</p>
<p>Valerie, medical school takes four years of full-time study. Nursing experience might initially give you an advantage in clinical rotations, but it won’t take any time off the schooling.</p>
<p>In many medical schools, the first two years are classroom and lab work in the so-called basic sciences. Classes and labs run basically all day, five days a week, and you have to study. There is an enormous volume of material to be learned during these two years. The third and fourth years are mostly clinical rotations. How demanding they are, as you might guess, varies by rotation. When my wife was a medical student, surgery and internal medicine were more grueling than neurology or psychiatry. </p>
<p>Sadly, I think it’s almost never practical to work on the side during medical school. And medical schools don’t really cater to students who want to attend part time because, frankly, they don’t have to. They can fill their classes with full-time students and still turn applicants away.</p>
<p>Bad news for you all around, I’m afraid. Sorry. Sound to me as if a much more feasible path for you would be to gain additional nursing training and work as a nurse in a setting involving reproductive endocrinology.</p>
<p>agree. Part time job such as tutoring or babysitting is possible during 1st and 2nd year but 3rd and 4th year you could be at the hospital 12+ hours and you still have to study as well. Even my classmates who are married and have kids are in med school full time.</p>
<p>I highly doubt you would get credit for any of your nursing training (at least the one RN I know in my school didn’t).</p>
<p>With regard to question 3. The specialization does not begin until after medical school. Usually the 1st two years involve no customization whatsoever. 3rd and 4th year you have core clerkships you must do and then some amount of elective time to do clerkships of your choosing. To be a reproductive endocrinologist, after the 4 years of medical school you need to do a 4 year OB/GYN residency and then a 3 year fellowship on reproductive endocrinology. Depending on how long ago your coursework was, you may even need to do a post-bacc to redo the pre-med requirements and take the MCAT. This could easily be another 2 or even 3 years before you even start med school.</p>
<p>I agree that if you are the primary breadwinner I think your best bet is to become a nurse associated with such a practice as I imagine it will be a much easier and much shorter (the MD route is 11-14 years total) path.</p>
<p>Right. To become an endocrinologist, you’d have to do a three-year residency in internal medicine after medical school. During the first year, most months you’d take overnight call in the hospital every third night, and you’d work 90 or more hours per week. In following years, you’d still work way more than 60 hours per week, and probably take overnight call every fourth night. Following that residency in internal medicine, you’d have to do an endocrinology fellowship. It’s not at all family-friendly.</p>
<p>Endocrinology is a medicine subspecialty, but the OP is asking about Reproductive Endocrinology (“REI”), which is an ob/gyn subspecialty. So it’d be 4 years of medical school, 4 years of ob/gyn, then 3 years of REI.</p>
<p>I stand corrected. (Though, unfortunately, not in a way that helps the OP.)</p>