How do I know if I should switch from my current field to medicine? I'm 23 and not in college anymore

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
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Hi everyone, I’m posting here to gain some insight on whether I should even consider medical school (or not) at this point in my life.

For some background on myself, I’m 23. I graduated from UC Berkeley in December 2021 and have been working full-time in business since Summer 2022. I graduated with an economics degree though I started off biology/premed.

My science GPA (without completing any biology, physics, biochemistry, or any upper division biology), was around a 3.56.

My cumulative GPA, including some community college coursework I’ve taken, is a 3.79. I also P/NP-ed a lot of economics classes, but have never gotten below an A- in any economics class I took at Berkeley.

Here is a detailed breakdown of my grades in science classes. If there’s a star next to the course title, it means IDK if that’s a BCPM class or not.

  • General Chemistry - A
  • General Chemistry Lab - A
  • Calculus I - B+
  • Calculus II - B+
  • Statistics - B+
  • Organic Chemistry I - B-
  • Organic Chemistry I Lab - A
  • Organic Chemistry II - P (COVID-19 times, would have been a B or B+)
  • Physiology for Non-Biology Majors - A
  • *Research Methods in Psychology - A+
  • *Foundations of Data Science - A
  • *Biological Anthropology - A

Besides my awful grades, another red flag to medical schools, potentially, is that I struggled with mental health at Cal.

I earned A’s and B’s in my premed coursework, but I felt that many of my peers earned A’s effortlessly. I struggled heavily in organic chemistry and earned a B- in the course, but 3 people in my organic chemistry lab class rocked the first midterm and were in the top 10 scorers OF EVERYONE IN OCHEM 1 THAT SEMESTER, according to my lab GSI.

Overall, I felt that most of my premed peers were much more accomplished, resilient, talented, and intelligent than I was. I even withdrew from school in the middle of one semester over feeling so upset and stupid in classes but I got therapy, got life experience, and researched other career paths and came back strong, never earning below a B+ after taking a leave from school.

So you might be wondering - why am I still interested in medical school after being such a hot mess in premed classes?

Well, the answer is complicated.

From the time I was in kindergarten, up until graduating from high school, I could have not imagined myself in any other career besides being a physician, NP, or pharmacist. My parents suggested looking into accounting, finance, or tech because “I was too young to know what I liked.” But I had decided that healthcare was for me and nothing else, and by the time I headed off to Cal, I told myself that I’d try my hardest to be a physician, with NP school as a fallback plan.

Evidently, that changed because I failed so many premed prereqs, but I’ve been reflecting upon my job and my life now.

To be 100% truthful, up until last Sunday, I was content with my new life in business. I work about 55 hours a week and sometimes I do stay up late to finish stuff, but overall people are supportive and the work is very manageable. The culture is great and I think there’s a lot of good learning opportunities here. I’m fortunate to have gotten an offer at a place right out of college that is still fairly prestigious although not the most prestigious. I felt that if I worked hard and made the right connections, I could move up.

But literally, as soon as I moved out of my parents’ house and into a new city for work, med school just kept coming up again and again - in various conversations with new friends, seeing medical students walk around in their scrubs as I was meeting friends for a walk, and even with my parents, who made a random comment about the MCAT.

It just reminded me of all the hope and passion I had lost when I gave up being premed, and I stared at my work deliverables and asked myself if I could honestly do this job or something similar for the rest of my working career. The answer was no - although the job has been okay so far, it’s not something I feel deeply passionate about or like.

I wanted to become a physician to help people and make a positive impact and IDK, I just don’t feel like I’m getting that in my current job. In fact, we are literally kind of working with a nonprofit and I don’t even feel that’s impactful.

But IDK, is it even practical to aim for med school at this point in my life, after it’s been proven I’m heavily mediocre at science? I don’t know if I’d be okay taking out 6 figures of student loans, making barely enough to survive as a resident, all that, or even if I’d be successful in medical school or as a doctor.

This ended up being a lot less eloquent and detailed than I would have liked, so if there are any questions from anyone I’d be happy to clarify.

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A few questions:

A. why do you want to be a physician?

B. Even more importantly - what do you see yourself doing as a physician?

C. What do you imagine that you will be studying in medical school?

Then change your job. There are likely far fewer people in the business community who are dedicated to helping people then there are physicians.

A physician can, maybe, help one person at a time, while a person in business can simultaneously help hundreds to thousands of people or more. Who is more helpful, a person who manages to put together a successful plan for getting the money to build a hospitale in an area which has little medical service, gets the hospital financed and built, or any one of the 120 physicians who ends up working in that hospital?

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A) Because I’ve wanted to for years and it feels more right for me than business apart from ■■■■■■ grades. After my moment on Sunday I’ve just realized that I cannot be in this job for the rest of my life or any similar jobs. But then again, they all say that adults hate their jobs and just do it to keep the lights on!

B) Helping people with their illnesses?

C) anatomy, physiology, all that good stuff

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Like, do you think I’m just idealizing medicine too much and/or it doesn’t even make sense for me to switch because of poor grades / being removed from college?

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The first.

You have very good grades in many subjects and the rest of your grades are better than solid. Leaving college to take care of your mental health was the right choice.

A) First, remember that you can always change your career. It’s easier than people realize.

B) I mean really doing. You are falling into a very common fallacy of young people. You are thinking “what do I want to be?”, rather than “what do I want to do?”. You are also making the mistake of thinking that the answer for both is the same.

By “what do you want to do?”, I mean “what sort of activities do you enjoy?”, “What sort of intellectual challenges excite you?”. Since you want to help people, “what parts of people’s lives would you like to change for the better?”.

C) Do these things (anatomy, etc) excite you? Do you prefer memorizing this stuff, or knowing about how they work?

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You could still do it. Looks as if you’ve done Chem and Orgo, and nothing else? Why not register to take Bio or Physics now, as a night class, at your local state 4 yr college, and see how you do? Also, start doing some med-related volunteer or paid work on the weekends, like EMT, and see how you feel about it. Or work as a med scribe on the weekends, and see how you like what you see in the ED.

You’re still quite young. You could do this, and assuming it takes you only 3 yrs to get the prereqs done (while still working) and get in, you’d only be 3 yrs older than your classmates.

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What/how much patient facing experience do you have?

Have you given any thought to how your days as a primary care physician (where you would most likely end up) would be? It can be difficult to feel like one is helping patients when the physician recommends a patient take care of their health (take their meds, lose weight, stop drinking/smoking, etc etc) and they don’t do what’s recommended.

It looks like you would need to do a post bacc program to complete med school requirements/get grades up, and take the MCAT. Have you looked into post bacc programs? They are pricey.

Are there other jobs that your interest in anatomy and physiology could be pursued? Jobs like NP which you mentioned, but maybe also physician assistant, physical therapist, chiropractor, etc?

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I would suggest you look at this site. There is a section on “health careers being right for you” as well as a bunch of other health care related professions you might find interesting.

In terms of your description…you really don’t have the necessary science GPA to apply to medical schools yet, as you haven’t taken most of the courses that would go into that.

You can do a do it yourself post bacc program and take the necessary prerequisite courses to apply to medical schools. See how you like those and how well you do.

I would strongly suggest you look at what is recommended for medical school applicants and start filling in those as well.

YES…you can switch careers into medicine, but do your due diligence on what you need to do to do so.

@WayOutWestMom

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If you were my kid I’d be encouraging you to look at Master’s programs in Hospital/Health Care management, public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, or even an MBA with a health focus. There are dozens and dozens of incredible careers which involve “helping people” in a medical setting which do not require an MD.

I have a neighbor who recruits and supports patients in clinical trials for a large teaching hospital. She has an RN. There are Statisticians who model disease transmissions (BS or Masters in applied math) which is what is used in developing the annual flu vaccine. There are people who run hospital systems (not just one site… but a few hospitals AND a dozen satellite clinics) with MBA’s. There are the people at pharma companies who are experts in logistics (they are working overtime now figuring out how to help Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida get the needed supply of medications/dialysis/chemo solutions with their health infrastructure wiped out) and they have Master’s degrees in Operations Research, MBA’s, or even just a certificate in supply chain management. There are people with Master’s in Nutrition who work on food policy- either domestic or globally, and people with Master’s in Econ (i.e. something you’d be competitive for TOMORROW) at NGO’s like Doctors Without Borders or the Gates Foundation working to cure malaria and wipe out polio.

Medicine is a huge field. You can diagnose one case of strep throat at a time- after years and years of education- or you can be in a high leverage health care field in two years…

Why not pivot?

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You have very good grades in many subjects and the rest of your grades are better than solid. Leaving college to take care of your mental health was the right choice.

Are you actually sure about this / are you familiar with applying to medical school? Apologies, definitely don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think a “B-minus” is a very good grade at all. Even a B+ isn’t that good. Isn’t the average GPA of people who are accepted to medical school around 3.7-3.8? I’m barely there with my cumulative and not even close with my science.

To reply to the other parts - specifically anatomy, you bring up a good point. When I took physiology for non-majors, I didn’t find all the details very interesting. In college, I felt I wasn’t very interested in science, nor was I good at it, so I switched. But I do enjoy the helping aspect of medicine and I don’t hate science.

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There are tons of careers that help people.

Helping people is the default bottom line for those who want to go into medicine, but there has to be something else beside wanting to help people that drives toward becoming being a physician.

Wanting to help people is a necessary, but not sufficient reason to go Ito medicine.

What specifically is driving you toward medicine? If you can’t answer that in concrete terms, you’re not ready to make the jump to medicine.

Have you done any shadowing of primary care doctors to see what their days are like? Since you are mostly likely to become a PCP (most MDs and DOs do primary care), it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into. The non-compliant patients. The drudgery of endless paperwork. Arguing with insurers over treatments and medications. The long work weeks that don’t end when you go home. The office politics. Heavy handed supervisors. Productivity quotas.

Right now it sounds like you have this idealized view of medicine. The nitty gritty is very, very different.

I am also a bit concerned by your mention of mental health issues. Medical school is a pressure cooker that takes a enormous toll of the mental health of even the most stable individuals. Meds students have significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation than their age peers. Suicide is the #1 cause of death among med students and residents.

You need to be wholly recovered from your previous mental health issues if you want to succeed at med school.

If you want to go to med school, you can. It’s not too late, but you need to really be sure this is what you want. Before you start taking classes and think about quitting your job–shadow some physicians and get a regular volunteering gig where you work with actual patients.

Right now it sounds mostly like you just hate your current job and you see medicine as being some sort of magical, special answer where everything you hate about your current job disappears. (HINT–medicine is a job just like most other jobs. It has its good and bad points and a lot of the same frustrations that every other job has.)

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Actually, you can get into med school with B- grades. You can get accepted even with C, D and even F grades. (D1 was a career changer who out right failed one of her bio classes–and right before she applied too. She ended up with multiple acceptances to med school.)

The mean GPA for matriculating MD students in the 2020-21 cycle was 3.74. The sGPA was 3.67.

For matriculating DO students, the mean GPA was 3.54.

And remember that stat means at half of those matriculating students had a GPA BELOW the mean.

But I do enjoy the helping aspect of medicine and I don’t hate science.

You have to at least like science to do med school because for two full years you will doing science, science and more science full time. And science at a very high level. Plus for the rest of your career, you will be reading and applying science. That’s what medicine is–applied science.

If you want to get some ideas about other helping professions, I strongly recommend the site @thumper1 linked above.

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One more consideration:

Physician burn-out is at an all time high.
A recent study conducted by the Mayo Clinic found 63% of physician displayed one or more symptoms of burn-out. That’s up from 44% in 2017. And less than 30% of physicians said they were satisfied with their work-life balance.

Emotional burn out in physicians is associated with an increase in suicidal ideation, more alcohol abuse, an increase medical errors and poorer patient outcomes.

Medicine is not a happy, feel-good profession.

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First off if you enjoy working for a large company and can be fired at will or replaced by NPs then welcome to medicine. Going into medicine is actually a calling. When you know it you know it. Having a job in business let’s me know quickly this might not be yours but… Combine your interests as @blossom suggested. As usual she’s right on. I personally think you can make a larger impact this way also.

Good luck.

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Okay, well, thanks for letting me know. Perhaps I’ll become an NP then.

I disagree with some of Blossom’s suggestions, however. I have no interest in getting a graduate degree in economics at all. I enjoyed my economics classes but would not want to become an economist by any stretch of the imagination.

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I am texting on my phone so that is what came up. I am not a great at texting. I don’t think by your grades your failing at anything. Not sure why you even say that. I looked at your answers above. Of course no one knows you here but I am not convinced. Your doing well at a really tough school. So I know your smart academically. But you asked for opinions. Your getting opinions. No one said we are correct but the people giving you advice have years of experience doing this. I am also in medicine.

But if you want to become a doctor then forget about the excuses and become one. There are many medical schools out there and some international. Many different paths. My daughter is doing a post bacc to go into speech pathology. This is a 180 turnaround for her.

Make it happen and let us know when you get in. Good luck.

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Okay, I’ve been there with autocorrect as well so I apologize for correcting you over something so trivial.

I was just really annoyed that you automatically went to “Oh you’re in business, therefore you’re sleazy and aren’t the compassionate person you need to be to succeed in medicine.” Or at least that’s how I read it.

I don’t think I’m making excuses? It’ll cost me $20k to do a post-bacc and a lot of time otherwise. I think I’m just considering what it’d take to get in and not making the decision lightly instead of being naively gung-ho.

EDIT: Like I don’t know about you and your daughter, but my parents absolutely are not helping me financially at all to pay for a post-bacc so I do need to think about this carefully lmao

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I’ve interviewed for healthcare consulting positions and don’t find “financial planning for hospitals” very meaningful, but whatever. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do.

Why do people somehow think that “Oh as long as if you work in a healthcare field that creates impact it’ll be okay; you can find a meaningful job there and you won’t need to go to medical school?”

I want to become a doctor for a reason? I don’t necessarily want to be a healthcare consultant or a hospital administrator? Like maybe I already do business initiatives for a living?

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It sounds like you want to have patient contact. Please please look at the site I linked above. There are many many allied health professions and other health professions beside doctor where you can do this!

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Maybe, just maybe, I want to be a physician and I’m stuck on that even if it’ll cost me all my money, my health, my youth, and my sanity :slight_smile:

I’m sorry, but why the heck would I want to be an RT or dietitian or???

Do people not UNDERSTAND, for Pete’s sakes, that the main point of my post was “I wanted/wanted to be a doctor but grades bad and me stupid, should I do this?”

Maybe I need to get off the Internet because I’m not even responding rationally to anyone anymore.

Maybe this is good practice for me keeping my cool with future patients as an MD/DO.

Yes, MD/DO. Not NP. Not PA. Not RT. Not dietitian. Not whatever “allied health professions” are out there!

Why do you think that NP = PA = RT = PT = OT = dietitian = doctor?

I may have only earned a B+ in every single goddamn math class I took at Cal but even as a dumb dumb I know that equation does not check out?