<p>Do med schools accept those who major in nursing? Like, isn't it smart to have nursing as a backup career in case you don't get accepted into med school?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, any major is acceptable. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have heard mixed things. I personally think its a smart idea, since you will be able to work in the health care field if you dont get in and gain more experience before you reapply. However, I heard some ADCOM dont really like people to major in nursing because you take away a spot to someone that actually wanted to practice nursing (since some school limit enrollment). Esp with the whole nursing shortage problem.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend being a nursing major just as back up for med school. Yes, you would have a job upon graduation. But… the required science classes for nursing majors are different than those that med schools want. The biology and chemistry sequences are usually not a full year and no physics is required. No calculus either. So you would have to find time to fit in all the pre-med reqs in addition to all your required nursing classes. Not always doable. Most nurses that I know that have gone on to med school have worked a few years after graduation and went back to school part time to get all the med school pre-reqs done. Then they applied.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At least at my school you can take the premed bio/chem classes to substitute for the nursing bio/chem.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Everyone that not a biology/microbiology/biochemistry major has to deal with that.</p>
<p>Echoing mom2boys here: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also, health science majors, for various reasons, don’t fare as well during medical school admissions as academic majors do.</p>
<p>In addition, you’re going to have to explain to medical schools why you went to college for nursing and then suddenly changed your mind and decided you’d rather be a doctor instead. This is not easy to do. It’s my impression that medical schools would be loathe to deprive the nursing pool of a new nurse and would rather admit a committed pre-med rather than a wishy-washy nurse.</p>
<p>I go to a school in Tennessee with a major nursing program, and I know many “nursing premeds”. What I see happening a decent percentage of the time is these students starting off by taking a nursing req like A&P alongside a class that fulfills both a premed and nursing req like G. Chem. After a year or so of the tough premed prereq, however, they warm up to the thought of a solid job with solid pay in only four years of schooling without the hassle of going for the full M.D., thus dropping the premed.</p>
<p>I am a biochem major, and the fact is that I really can’t do anything great with that unless I keep on chugging with premed. That is my motivation and my drive for continuing on the trek towards med school.</p>
<p>I agree that many other majors have to fit in all the required science classes but with a nursing major, it can harder to do. For one thing, once a student starts the clinical portion of the nursing curriculum, there is little flexibility in the schedule to fit in other classes, especially those that have a lab component. Clinical rotations can take up 8-24 hours of class time each week. Besides the clinical component, there are still the nursing course lectures to go to. Depending upon the university, clinical rotations can start either sophomore or junior year and at some schools, even freshman year. </p>
<p>It is doable, but can be difficult. </p>
<p>I have told other posters that have asked this same question that if you want to be a doctor, then pick a major that you are interested in and work hard and apply to med school. Nursing is not an easy major and if you don’t like nursing, then your grades will be affected. Being a nurse is a lot different than being a doctor. Decided which one you are most interested in and then go for it. I would advise the OP to shadow some doctors and nurses and get a better feel for what interests them the most. I wouldn’t advise anyone to pick a “major” because it is a good backup for what they really want to do.</p>
<p>NOT a good choice if you want to go to med school. Very little overlap in terms of course requirements, most nursing programs aren’t that flexible in terms of their requirements (NO nursing program requires organic chem or physics and most don’t require calculus), once you’re in the clinical years - there’s very little time to do much else…just overall not a good use of your undergrad career…and with more and more accelerated nursing programs arising, if things don’t work out on the med school front, you can go back to school and get your BSN in less than 18 months (during which time you can usually work as a CNA and make some money while in school…which is practically impossible in med school), so even if you apply to med school twice, you can finish with your BSN in the same time frame as getting your MD, but with loads less debt…</p>
<p>Most RN’s in med school arrive there as a result of a carreer change – that is, they first pursued nursing as a career. BRM’s comments on coursework is on the money.</p>
<p>See these comments from nurses and others at the “Old Premeds” forum for non-traditional premeds:
[RN</a> to MD](<a href=“http://www.oldpremeds.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/40895/]RN”>http://www.oldpremeds.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/40895/)</p>