combining premed and actuarial science

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I’m with I<em>wanna</em>be_Brown on this one. I can’t quite wrap my head around “I want to be both a surgeon and an actuary,” even though I can understand how the OP would be drawn to both.</p>

<p>Granted, I’m only a first year medical student, so I don’t know a ton about the medical field, but I imagine I know enough to have some insight into the life of a surgeon (I spent 200+ hours shadowing one). As far as I can tell, having a career as a surgeon and simultaneously having a career as an actuary would be impossible because the two lifestyles and careers aren’t compatible. Perhaps you could enter private practice, practice part time, and use the other part of your time to work as an actuary…but that seems like quite a headache (just my opinion though). It seems extremely challenging for most surgeons to balance their professional and personal lives, so I imagine adding an additional career on top of that precarious balance would probably not be wise. </p>

<p>Might you be more interested in business, and have mis-characterized that as an interest in actuarial science? The MD/MBA combination is quite common and seems useful, especially if one wants to open a private practice (where business savvy would be beneficial) or might want to dabble in the business side of medicine (eg as an administrator) in the future. You’d still need math, finance, econ, etc to go that route–so I wonder if that’s more what you’re describing.</p>

<p>I just can’t see how a career as a surgeon (ie, one who does surgery and runs a clinic as opposed to one who does exclusively research) is compatible with a career as an actuary (ie, one who works for a firm and has a nice client base). </p>

<p>As for taking the actuary exams so you have the option to have a job during med school to avoid accruing so much debt, I wouldn’t count on having the time, energy, or desire to have a real job during medical school. Exactly 0 of my classmates have jobs (except for an occasional babysitting gig) right now. Medical school is a HUGE time suck (a worthwhile one!) in both preclinical and clinical years. It’s not like an extension of undergrad where you have flexibility to schedule your classes around your work–you’re part of a program, and save for some electives, your school dictates your academic commitments. Just for grins, I’ll share with you that my typical week is 8-4 on two days a week, 8-12 on others, and 8-6 on days when I’m in clinic. On top of that, I have to prep for classes and study. Rarely am I finished with my work before 11PM, but it’s not miserable–it’s what I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. </p>

<p>The point is, med school (and medicine) is more than a full time job. It would be ridiculously challenging to fit something else on top of it.</p>

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<p>You could be right and like i said before my main goal is medicine …this is just my backup plan. I never considered MD/MBA program… not sure if i wanted to go exactly into business.</p>

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<p>It’s interesting that on this site there are many posts by high schoolers interested in medicine, but who are trying to carve out a “back up plan.” This is a rational thought process becuase medical school is very competitve. Based on nothing more than gut instinct, however, I think a resume that reflects a back up plan would be detrimental in the minds of many, many people in the medical school admissions process. They don’t care what you’ve majored in (so long as your science GPA shows you can handle the work), but I suspect they want to see a total committment to medicine, since that is what they ususally did. </p>

<p>To the OP, I’ve got a kid in medical school and one who just became an actuary. (Neither had any interest in the other field) The actuary took very little relating to his field becuase he didn’t make the decision until junior year. As a result, he got a masters in actuarial science and now has a very good job. I’d suggest you major in something you’ll enjoy and make sure to take all the medical school requirements. You can put together a resume for an actuarial job later in your college career.</p>

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This is a very good point which is often missed by those high schoolers or even premeds who are trying to carve out a “back up plan.” It is not a coincident that a word like “calling” is used to describe somebody who is going to this field.</p>

<p>Also, it is rumored that “what is your backup plan if you did not get into med school” is often a trick question asked during an interview. You do not want your resume to volunteer this kind of information: “hey…I have a nice backup plan in other lucrative career path.”</p>

<p>I learned from SDN a specific case: A relatively strong student double-majored in biochemistry as well as undergraduate business major (called HAAS, which I heard it is a quite prestigious program there) at Cal. It took him 3 attempts (likely in 4 years) before he had got into a medical school. He originally thought majoring in “hard” majors should give him some bonus points and he later found this is not the case. Some other student he knew who double-majored in psychology and sociology, arguably “softer” majors, got in the first year she applied. The lesson he learned was that his coursework and ECs speak loudly “I am not totally committed to medicine.”</p>

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<p>So in my case, what’s going to show the most commitment to medicine (if i’m going for stats major)?</p>

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<p>You can major in statistics; that’s no problem. It’s a math major which should be fine. The rubber will hit the road sophomore and junior years when it comes time to plan for the summer. If you want to become an actuary, it is important to try to get an internship in that field, or something insurance related. Many companies hire from their summer intern program, or at least want some experience in the field before hiring you. If, however, you want medicine, you need to put time in shadowing doctors and doing some research, and summers are a good time to get that stuff in. If you want medicine, an actuarial internship will look strange. </p>

<p>The good news is you don’t have to make up your mind now. Try to do some medical shadowing as early as possible, however. You need to do it eventually, and it will help you make up your mind about what you want to do. Remember that the majority of people who think in high school that they want to be a doctor end up persuing another path.</p>

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<p>I am no familiar about combining these 2 at UG level. However, I would like to point out that my D’s (MS1) Med. School class has several lawyers (yes, they already have a law degree).</p>

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<p>Haas is the name of the business school (analogous to Penn’s business school being named Wharton and MIT’s business school being named Sloan).</p>

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<p>Isn’t it quite possible that a student whose goal is to go into a private or small group practice as a physician would want to take business courses or even major in business, since a private or small group practice involves managing it as a business?</p>

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<p>Absolutely, those courses would be of great value to a future doctor (or future lawyer). But the simple fact is that med and law schools don’t see it that way (or don’t care). They have made clear (for many years) that they prefer a traditional liberal arts major over a major that is considered ‘vocational’. </p>

<p>Speaking of Wharton…don’t all of their undergrads end up with a degree in Econ – (albeit, a BS, but still close enough to a traditional liberal arts major)?</p>

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<p>If the premed path doesn’t work out, i’ve seen most students going towards the business route for accounting or finance. I suppose i didn’t look at the premed/actuary plan realistically but i’m glad i posted the question here and saw some great opinions …thank you everyone! </p>

<p>I guess i was more driven towards going for the big stuff but didn’t realize one big step was enough for a lifetime. Hopefully, i will get a better outlook on what path to take as i take college level classes required for premed or actuary. I am just looking to go into something that is guaranteed. In the business area, i want to work for corporations and perhaps a job that is on a high level of critical thinking so i was exploring management/analyst jobs and i came across the actuarial/financial analysts and it interested me when being a surgeon was my original plan. Because i have seen other successful physicians and surgeons who are also involved in the business department. And when i say combining these two, i dont want to do MD/MBA and get a job that pertains to just sitting at the table and doing management stuff. </p>

<p>So that’s why i wanted to see how you guys felt about taking this route and it obviously seems very complicated because if i worry about premed courses and mcats then i’l fall behind on actuarial courses… because you need internship/volunteering or some kind of experience for both meanwhile studying for the current courses i’m in… are there any other ideas for finance/math/business related professions i can look into along with premed besides actuarial science?</p>

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The summer EC activities were exactly what the applicant from Cal , who I referred to above, ran into the trouble. Not only he had a degree from HAAS (the business school at Cal, in addition to his other biochem major), he interned on that line of career path. Because of this, although his stats were good enough (I think it was 3.6/35 when he first applied), the nature of his ECs worked against him (speak loudly to med school that he is not fully committed to medicine), resulted in his failing to get into any med school multiple years.</p>

<p>In later years, he boosted his MCAT to 37, but still not successful because of the lack of commitment (still working on that line of vocation and the application timing was not right – well too late.) The next year, he forfeited his lucrative career and got back to the academic environment. He got into UT-SW but still not to many med schools because of his “fatal mistake” in the past: applying to med school without demonstrating a full commitment. Med school adcoms could be very unforgiving once you have made this kind of mistake. He said the only difference between his final successful year and the previous year is that he finally understood he needs to distance himself from other careers and be a committed premed (and get the application timing right). (He did not improve his stats a bit between this last two attempts — The only thing he did was to quit from his consulting related job and became a low pay or even no pay “research assistant” in the academia circle.)</p>

<p>The lesson here: You can not have the cake and eat it too. Med school has much more qualified (e.g., good enough GPA/MCAT and good enough ECs.) applicants than those they can accept; why would they take a risk on you?</p>

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<p>Hmmm, would it be amusing if the answer were:</p>

<p>“I will work as an actuary for a medical insurance company coming up with statistical models of the cost effectiveness of various medical procedures in order to ensure that medical care dollars are not wasted on cost-ineffective treatments.”</p>

<p>(As opposed to: “I will use my biology bachelor’s degree to become a low paid lab technician taking temporary jobs with no benefits for the rest of my career.”)</p>

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<p>^^Nope, the correct answer is: I will retake the mcat (if score is low); I will take additional upper division science courses (if gpa is low); I will get involved in research; I will volunteer more; I will shadow more…</p>

<p>Any and all of the above, and then re-apply to med school.</p>

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<p>@bluebayou Doesn’t that sound like you’re sucking up to them? Like trying to be a goody-two shoes? I mean of course they want to hear that the student who failed should try again for med school. But look at it this way… if the person wasn’t getting into med school because of low gpa or low mcats and was required to take them again by going back to college and taking higher level classes, that’s a lot of time wasted. </p>

<p>But if someone wasn’t getting into a med school here because of low scores, they always go to an island and do first two years of med school and come back to US for clinical. Or go into podiatry which doesn’t even require mcats</p>

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<p>That’s one way to look at it. The other way, and how the profession views it is to demonstrate commitment to the cause, aka, ‘if I don’t get in this year, I’ll address any weaknesses and reapply.’</p>

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<p>Only for the uncommitted. btw: DO schools have grade replacement. If desiring an allopathic med school, boost the gpa by taking additional upper division science classes. But if a low 3, enroll in an Special Masters Program. Again, only for the committed.</p>

<p>Better to be an Actuary than go to the Caribbean, IMO.</p>

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<p>True. But at that point, if you decide to be an actuary, wouldn’t that be like starting all over again?</p>

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<p>not all over again since the road to an actuary is much, much, much shorter/easier than that of an MD.</p>

<p>Again though, there are plenty of MD applicants for whom being a doctor is pretty much all they’ve envisioned for themselves, and the thought of doing something else is crushing. A single round of app rejections shouldn’t be enough to completely crush your dream of being a health professional. If eventually you have to give up, the thought of “starting all over again” shouldn’t be what’s going to bother you, it’s the thought of failure/realizing you will never be the doctor you dreamed of.</p>