<p>partially copied from a previous post:</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I was wondering if nursing could be a good major for a person who wants to go premed. Its a good backup option because then I can go into nursing school in case med school doesn't work out, I'll still be involved with medicine, so I'm starting to think of majoring in it. Would you do it if you were premed?</p>
<p>thanks in advance</p>
<p>generally frowned upon. the nursing shortage is currently much more severe than the future physician shortage, so i've heard stories of medical schools rejecting candidates because they don't want to contribute to the problem.</p>
<p>Also, there's not as much overlap between pre-reqs as you would think.</p>
<p>There is in fact not much overlap in prereqs. However, back in the "dark ages", three people who graduated with me in nursing went on to pick up the prereqs and went to med school with 2 years.</p>
<p>sorry BRM, I didn't understand what you said. How does majoring in nursing contribute to shortages as physicians?</p>
<p>If I can speak for BRM, I believe he means that the nursing shortage is more of a crisis [than a physician shortage] and medical schools may not want to contribute to that shortage by taking a viable nurse out of the profession by admitting them to medical school.</p>
<p>^^^exactly.</p>
<p>Nursing and Medicine are radically different approaches to patient care; if you truly want to be a physician you would have trouble liking nursing well enough to survive it. I speak as a woman physician who trained eons ago and figured out how parallel, not one over the other, the two fields are. Do not take the place of someone who wants to be a nurse! That's one less nurse available, they are needed. You would not enjoy the classes, and would not get good premed versions of the basics. Different personality types go into each field, consider which one suits you and put your heart and soul into being the best you can. This said also remember there are many different types of each- eg the psych and surgical fields are radically different, MD and RN have similar traits within each, but also very different approaches to their role in patient care.</p>