Is medical school attainable?

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
1

Is there any path to medical school for someone who:

A. has been out of college for two years

B. spent the past two years working in business research

C. did serious scientific/pharmaceutical research leading to a paper abstract presented at an academic conference during senior year of high school;
did another summer of serious biomedical research at a university lab after freshman year of college (it was supposed to be leading to a publication…but since the research was part of ongoing work by the lab, it ended up packaged into some other work, so no publication came out of it);
and did some scientific research on my college campus during sophomore year of college

D. has a GPA between 3.1 and 3.2 from a top-ranked college (I double majored in a social science subject and the biological sciences, which was a very heavy load at my school, and took on leadership positions in many student organizations, one being science-related)

E. only knows one science professor from college well - many science classes at my college were huge, and professors and students usually didn’t get to know each other

F. has yet to take physics or organic chemistry lab. I do have the rest of my premedical prerequisites complete, though.

???

I won’t make more excuses for my college career, which has many holes in it. However, I dealt with serious anxiety issues in college which made balancing my coursework and working towards a professional goal difficult at the time.

Aspects of medical school currently intimidating me are:

A. the level of memorization required. I’m lucky that I’ve always had relatively strong facility with memorization tasks. However, I fear that a glut of medical information would displace much of the other information I’ve accumulated throughout life (in math and literature, for instance), which is information that I value.

B. the level of stamina required. I put in many, many, many late nights in college. Some research suggests that the effects of sleep deprivation accumulate over time, and I worry that I won’t be able to put in the long nights that are required of a medical student or a resident.

Like many, I think an ideal job would allow:

A. intellectual stimulation and the opportunity to keep learning while being surrounded by like-minded peers

B. the ability to help others in a meaningful way

C. just a little bit of personal time. I do have a few interests outside the sciences, like playing the saxophone, and staying active in those areas would be desirable.

So, my questions, dear reader, are:
-Is this path even attainable, given my resume?
-If so, what might the possible path to medical school be?
-Would becoming a medical student mean giving up six years of sleep, past learning and all hobbies?

I thought it would be best to solicit advice from those in the know.

Thanks a million.

2

Medical school is a possibility (though not a guarantee–not for you, not for anyone), but it will require years of hard work and preparation to get yourself to a point where you can apply.

Realistically speaking your GPA is too low to get serious consideration for a med school admission.

Your quickest route to medical school would be to retake all your C/D/F undergrad coursework and use osteopathic grade replacement to raise your GPA. While doing your retakes, you should use this time to update and expand your ECs. (Med school admission is all about what you have done lately. Listing things you did 2-4years ago isn’t going to cut it.) You need lots of clinical volunteering stat, plus community service and physician shadowing. These are more important than research for med school admission consideration. Adcoms want some evidence that you know what you’re getting yourself into and have the necessary traits/behaviors they select for.

If you’re not willing to consider DO programs, then you need to consider SMPs (Special Master’s Programs). A SMP is like an medical school audition. It’s 1-2 year long master degree where you take coursework on par with the first year of medical school, often side-by-side with actual first year students. Depending on the exact SMP you enroll in, you have about 5-30% of getting med school interviews when you’ve completed it. A SMP is last ditch option kind of thing–finish in the top 25% of your class and you may have a chance at med school; finish outside of the top quartile or with GPA below 3.8 and you’ve permanently destroyed any chance for a career as physician.

But before you apply to SMPs, you need to spend time getting your ECs in order because SMPs consider those just like med schools do. Right now you’re missing most of the crucial activities–physician shadowing, clinical exposure and community service–needed for a successful applications. You may also need to prep for and take the MCAT–since many of the better SMPs will require a MCAT score.

BTW, med school pre-reqs have changed. Besides, physics and ochem, you’ll need biochem, sociology and psych.

~~

Looking at your description of your ideal job, I think you’re over-romanticizing medicine quite a bit. It’s not nearly so intellectual as you believe it to be, nor will you be helping people in quite the way you imagine it. You will have many, many non-compliant patients who won’t follow your advice and continue to engage in self-destructive behaviors no matter what you do or say. (A doctor friend of mine say he spends 80% of time on 20% of his patients who keep ending up needing his services because they engage in the same irresponsible behavior over & over.) The practice of medicine is often full of routine and mundanity, as well as crushing responsibility.

This is why med school adcoms want applicants to have sufficient clinical experience so they understand the kind of life they’re getting into.

I also recommend you watch Code Black (the documentary, not the TV series which is a terrible). It’s on Netflix or for rent/purchase on Amazon.


As for free time.

Medical school is all encompassing. The Dean of Students where D1 and D2 attended tells incoming med students to make of their top 10 things they want to do--and to include things like spending time with friends, sleeping, eating regular meals, pets, family, studying,  exercise, hobbies... Then cross off everything from the list except for their top 3. This will be what your life is like for next 7-14 years (med school plus residency plus fellowships)

Once you begin practicing, depending on your specialty and type of practice, you may well be working 80+ hour weeks for the rest of your career. The average length of a physician work week is closer to 60 hours than 40.

~~


[quote]
. the level of memorization required. I'm lucky that I've always had relatively strong facility with memorization tasks. However, I fear that a glut of medical information would displace much of the other information I've accumulated throughout life (in math and literature, for instance), which is information that I value.

[/quote]


You will lose pieces simply because you'll no longer use them or need them. Both of my daughters were math majors in college. There is no math in med school (well, there's statistics, but that's not really math) and your math skills will atrophy and potentially disappear. I'm not sure if D1 can even remember how to calculate an eigenvector now. Same will be true for literature.
3

Thank you, @WayOutWestMom ! Really appreciate the detailed response. I think it’s fair to say I do over-romanticize the medical path a bit – that’s something I should work on. I figure I should rigorously interrogate the idea of med school in my mind before making a decision.

I have been reading about SMPs and considering that option. Would doing a complete pre-med postbac also be an option? – or would my lackluster undergraduate grades outweigh a postbac, even if I studied hard and did well?

Also, if I may ask this, how much sleep per night would you say your daughters were able to get as medical students/residents?

4

Most post-baccs are for career changers or students who are missing all or most of their med school science/math pre-reqs. You’ve completed too many of the required science classes to be eligible for these programs.

There are grade-enhancing post-baccs, but I have no data on how successful they are in placing their students into med school. And it’s simple enough to do undergrad grade enhancement/grade replacement yourself without paying for a specialized program.

RE: graduate grad-enhancing post-baccs. The thing to remember is that med school admission offices often do not consider grad GPAs (except SMPs) when making decisions about candidates. Adcoms like to compare apples-to-apples and so look mostly at undergrad GPAs when considering candidates.


As for sleep--that depends on what part of med school or residency they're in. Were they able to get 7 solid hours during MS1-MS2 (during the classroom or didactic instructional portion of med school)? Usually. 

During MS3-MS4--it depends on what their hospital schedule was and what rotation they were doing. D2 is complaining about needing to be the hospital at 5am to pre-round patients before the surgical attendings/teaching residents show up at 7. (Her sister's comment: "Welcome to the rest of your life.") She will have some overnight in-hospital call where she'll be on 24 hours straight. Not all her rotations will be like that, but some (surgery, Ob/Gyn, IM, critical care) will.

D1 is finishing her intern year--and she has worked 36 hours straight, followed by 12 hours off, followed by another 36 hour shift for several weeks in a row. Not all of her schedule is like that, but there are months like that. It's exhausting.  Even when she's on a relatively normal 10 on-14 off-10 on schedule, there are times she can't leave on time since she has to wait until all her patients have been handed off to another physician's supervision. Sometimes--and she's at a top well funded Ivy program--hand off may take 4 hours past the end of her shift. Add in travel time to & from the hospital, the need to eat, do critical errands, bathe, exercise, study and mentally decompress, plus shift time changes that screw with sleep patterns and  all that sometimes makes it impossible to get 8 hours of sleep. Again, it's not always like that, but there will absolutely be periods when it will be.