Hi everyone, I’m applying to colleges this week but am having trouble deciding between premed and nursing for my intended major…I would like to have a career in pediatrics, and the areas that interest me the most are adolescent medicine and child abuse peds. I have always thought I’d just go to school and be a nurse practitioner, but they do not usually complete fellowships in these areas like those in med school do. I like the idea of less school and less money spent, but I also want to be able to practice independently. Spending time with patients is a huge factor for me, but I don’t picture myself working in a hospital, and I feel like in a doctors office I could do this with either major I chose. I am worried that if I become a nurse practitioner I won’t be able to specialize in these areas of peds I want to work in…the track seems so clearly laid out for MD’s to be adolescent medicine specialists, so I don’t want end up making it harder for myself to do what I want by becoming a NP…which is why I began to have doubts about applying to nursing school (even though I was condifent about nursing for a long time). Thanks so much for listening- any input at all would be super helpful right now!!!
This career decision is not something that needs to be made now.
There no such thing as a premed major. Premed is an intention. You can major in anything to go to med school.
The courses you take for a nursing major will also help prepare you for the MCAT.
While there is no such thing as pre-med major, the science courses required for nursing majors (and other vocational majors) may not fulfill med school admissions requirements.
At some colleges, nursing students take science classes designated for “health science majors”. These science classes are not the same as those taken by bio/chem/physics or other “hard” science or engineering majors and are not accepted as fulfilling admission requirements for medical schools.
How to decide?
Unless your college's nursing program has a separate science track for health sciences majors, you won't have to make the decision of pre-med vs. nursing before the end of your freshman year.
If you college does offer a separate science track for nursing and other science majors, you'll need to take the science-major version of bio & chem your freshman year. Those courses will usually still fulfill nursing program requirements.
Use your time between now and the end of your freshman year to shadow some pediatric NPs and do some informational interviews with NPs to see if a nursing degree can get where you want to be career-wise. Then you can more an informed decision.
FWIW, most pediatricians, general internists and family practice physicians only do out-patient (office, clinic) care. They do not practice in hospitals. (Should any of their patients require hospitalization, care is turned over to pediatric specialists or/and pediatric hospitalists.) Thanks so much for the responses! I know that premed is not a major, I guess I should have said biology since that would be my major but I meant premed track. The college I want to go to does have its own seperate four year nursing program, which I would need to apply to now if I wanted to get in…starting with the science classes freshman year is a good idea though I may go with that plan
Nurse practioners work in many settings, including in their own businesses. I used a NP for ob/gyn; she had her own free-standing practice; she also taught at Baylor Medical School in Houston. Most that I know work in private practice or clinics, not in hospitals. Many work for insurers or academia. It is truly your choice.
Try this on for size (NP scope of practice): http://www.apna.org/files/public/12-11-20-pmh_nursing_scope_and_standards_for_public_comment.pdf
I believe US health care is going increasingly to move to this model, for access and economic reasons.
I don’t consider NP care inferior; my NP was far better and better informed on evidence-based health and peer reviews than any OB/GYN I ever encountered. Most of my visits lasted around an hour with a lot of patient education. I would definitely take my children to a peds NP if available.
Also consider, besides just your wallet, your work-life balance both before and after school. Med school with specialty residencies make it very difficult to combine family and work. My children’s peds are part timers for that reason, but couldn’t start families until well into their thirties (they did Baylor PhDs before med school.)
My brother went looked at that model and went to dental school instead of med school.
Can’t primary care nurse practitioners go into pediatric after earning their degree?