<p>^ Thank you! That’s all I wanted to know. I get it now. So medical school adcom look for people who are well-rounded academically as opposed to people who are specifically trained in one field despite it being in healthcare. (So basically openmindedness is valued in medical school, right?)</p>
<p>I’m sorry if I seemed like a pest. I was just concerned because I would have to spend my first two years of college preparing for the actual nursing program. Oh well, I have to change my plans now.</p>
<p>If you work as a nurse for a while, and you had the grades and MCATs for med school, this could strengthen your application.</p>
<p>There is still, unfortunately, a bias against nursing within the medical profession. The same goes for a nursing undergraduate program vs the typical premed curriculum. So you may not get credit for the rigor of your education.</p>
<p>So, it is logical to do nursing if you want to be a nurse, or if you want to be in healthcare, but not necessarily medicine. A nursing degree could be a negative if you apply to medical school directly from college.</p>
<p>Agree with Mom2Boys and BlueDevil and others.</p>
<p>I don’t care if you major and delve into underwater basket weaving if are good at it and there is a reason. Many, many years ago when I was a student on adcom, we admitted a person from Berkely who majored in prestidigitation. He even did some on his interview. But, he majored in it because it wanted it (he was also all high As in the premed requirements including Latin then)</p>
<p>As we have said all along. adcoms like well rounded liberal art education and not specifically trained “to get into med school”. But we do take rocket scientists too.</p>
<p>Now, why not nursing. Perhaps a bias. It is a different field. One where you are trained to act and make decisions, but not one where you are trained to figure out the whys and red herrings. Yes, some nurses want to do more and go on with their training to become similar or go to med school. But, afan is totally correct.</p>
<p>But, if I saw you majoring in nursing, I would say, then be a nurse and then I would go on to the next applicant.</p>
<p>For better or worse, the whole committee does not usually see all applications. Just like college. They are weaned and presented by one person. The committee may vote on all, but you need yours to be special. </p>
<p>Some of you have seen “Legally Blond” and her application to Harvard. That is pushing it, but she stood out. You want your application to be the “this person stands out”</p>
<p>Your saying you like health care. Then make being a doctor your number one priority. (But do major with a plan B. If you don’t get into med school, then do become a nurse and go that route. It should not take much more courses)</p>
<p>Princess’Dad, my D saw your post about Latin being a requirement in the past. When did it stop being a requirement, and how much of it was required? D is a classics major and was curious about this.</p>
<p>Used to be Latin then Latin or German. All of the old “classical medicine” was written there. Now English is the language of medicine. Latin/German in the 70s</p>
<p>With health care reform, there might be a huge expansion in the role of people with nursing backgrounds as primary care givers. Nurse practitioners already do many of the things done by family medicine physicians. Since everyone expects a big increase in the demand for these services, NPs may be part of the solution. There are not that many NPs, and their utilization varies widely by region. If there is a national push to expand use of these professionals, this could be a high demand job, with much lower barriers to entry, and cost, than medicine.</p>
<p>For those interested in more specialized roles, but with a higher level of independence than is typical of nurses, nurse anesthetists remain important.</p>
<p>It really is a different profession than medicine, not a stepping stone to an MD degree.</p>
<p>Since about half the aspiring MD’s cannot get training,it is curious that vocational majors like nursing, pharmacy and engineering are frowned on by adcoms.</p>
<p>I don’t see the connection. Bringing them in would create further shortages in those fields and intensify competition* for medical school spots.</p>
<p>*Actually this would probably be a marginal effect, but it would exist.</p>
<p>I said “aspiring”. Aspiring to something is not the same as achieveing it. Particularly when the available opportunities are deliberately and callously limited. My reference was to pre-meds, not to graduated/graduating MD’s. </p>
<p>Every student that is intellectually capable of becoming an attorney, an acountant (CPA), or even an engineer is able to find some available training. This is not true of medicine.</p>
<p>My point was that medical schools seen to frown on students who prepare for the likely eventuality that they cannot get into medical school.</p>
<p>It is as if medical schools want students who are so affluent already that they can disdain gainful employment.</p>
<p>How is a Folklore and Mytholgy major better able to study medicine than a nursing student? I can see a more qualified (higher MCAT and GPA) F&M major being accepted over a less qualified nursing major but I cannot see the logic is dismissing a more qualified nursing student for a “soft, mushy” liberal arts major with lesser qualifications. </p>
<p>Do adcoms want the smartest, hardest working students or do they want students that fit an arbitrary sterotype?</p>
<p>By the way, I notice most of the new “Doctors” in my home area are foreign imports. They, by and large, were trained in countries that do not artifically restrict medical training. How fair is it to qualified US students who cannot get medical traning to bring these foreign professionals in to the country at the top of the socioeconomic pyramid?</p>
<p>BigG.
Do we get the vibe that you are upset as you did not get in?</p>
<p>Adcoms try not to pick sterotypes. We pick the people whom we think will do the best from OUR school. Those who we will be proud to say are our graduates.</p>
<p>The amount of medical school graduates is based on many factors including federal moneys.</p>
<p>As medical school financial aid has the highest percentage of any grad school last time I looked, it is obvious that the vast majority are not affluent. Lots of foreign grads here, yes but mostly in places that US grads don’t want to go. (and there are federal rules there too).</p>
<p>Most nurses are not up to doc standards. (most docs could not do the work that nurses do either).</p>
<p>Have no problem with “what are you going to do if don’t get into med school”, but answer is important</p>
<p>I am an old guy, never wanted to apply to medical school, and am very happy as an engineer.</p>
<p>This discussion was about why and even whether nursing is not respected by medical school adcoms. I suggested that “vocational” majors in general are “disrespected” by medical school adcoms. The concept that a History or Folklore and Mythology major is actually preferred to a nursing major of similiar qualifications seems to me to be wrong. I do not doubt this is the case and anyone interested in medical school needs to pander to adcom whimsy.</p>
<p>In almost all countries except the US, medicine itself is an undergraduate “vocational” major.</p>
<p>While no one can argue with the quality of individual medical care available in the US (if you have money and/or insurance), the US medical health system is a public health failure and getting worse. We have the worst infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation. Costs are spiraling out of control due, in part, to an artifically restricted supply of service providers. </p>
<p>The US grads don’t want to go to the areas in the US that are being served by foreign doctors beause they have an excessive plethora of job offers in other areas. This, in and of itself, is proof positive of a doctor shortage.</p>
<p>The AMA has quacked “Doctor Glut”, “Doctor Glut”, “Doctor Glut” for decades. Where is there a surfeit of physicians? Only in the highest income/most affluent areas. Many individual Doctors work long and hard to serve their patients. Doctors as a group have failed their duty to society in favor of protecting their social position and incomes.</p>
<p>As “medical tourism” increases, it will be interesting to see if insurance companies will start requiring their customers to seek treatment in India or other low cost venues. Ultimately a business that does not serve its market loses its market, or at least a big part of it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, US docs don’t go where there are vacancies, but where there is money - leaving the hills of kentucky to foreign docs. But we had an Indian from the Reservation in med school who "promised he wanted to go back to the reservation when he graduated. He went to Hollywood Calif.</p>
<p>The lowest infant mortality and the best infant survival rates of youngest and smallest birth weights. The infant mortality is the inability to get people to visit a health care worker when they are pregnant. Part of it is the hassels of doing so and part is the “I don’t need to see a doctor” and part of it is 10 kids with 10 fathers and continuing on drugs and alcohol and smoking during preg.</p>
<p>
. I totally agree. Part of this is induced by lawyers and the public who want to win the lotery with their “malpractice” suit.</p>
<p>Having medicine as a “vocational” major, I believe, is the worst we can do. We need docs who are other than Doogie Browns. Who are real people. Let me tell you that the boringest party is that of a bunch of surgeons.</p>
<p>Pary of my “turn off” to a person that gets a nursing major is that I don’t think it is as rigorous as an engineering or history or english,…</p>
<p>Just a caveat to my rant; you should hear me criticize my own occupation/profession.</p>
<p>“There is always some engineer willing to tell a politician what he wants to here about the safety of a bridge or tunnel. That is why necessary maintenance is always deferred until the next year/term/administration and people end up dying because of a lack of professional integrity.” I just quoted myself! How intellectually arrogant.</p>
<p>I seldom criticize lawyers because it is just not sporting. “Shooting fish in a barrel” is big game hunting with a bow by way of analogy. </p>
<p>Interesting how Bankers are displacing Lawyers as the target of country club cocktail hour verbal assaults. </p>
<p>Back to the OP; You have to sell yourself to the medical school adcom without appearing to be doing a selling job. That is tough.</p>
<p>and what if a nursing student also managed to get a BA in something like English or Film or German? Would you look at his/her case any different?</p>
<p>Bias is hard to overcome.<br>
That is an interesting question.
We have favorably seen many nurses who have decided to go back to school and complete the requirements for medical school and have successfully applied.</p>
<p>I would have to look, but I don’t think the requirements for nursing school are the same nor as in depth as the prereq’s for medical school.</p>
I get it now. So medical school adcom look for people who are well-rounded academically as opposed to people who are specifically trained in one field despite it being in healthcare. (So basically openmindedness is valued in medical school, right?)</p>