<p>I know this has probably been answered multiple times on the internet, and the most common answer is, anything. When I started my college research I wanted to major in Biology (that has the most pre req classes covered) with a Pre-Med focus to ultimately attend Med School and become a Sports Medicine Doctor/Team Doctor. But now I'm sort of leaning toward an Athletic Training major because I want my career to basically be taking care of athletes. But I still want to attend Med School! What major should I choose? :/</p>
<p>If you want to choose athletic training major, why are you asking about what to choose?</p>
<p>What’s better to get into med school to become a sports medicine doctor</p>
<p>Absolutely nothing that makes one major superior to another to be a specific type of doctor.</p>
<p>Make sure that Athletic Training doesn’t fall under the heading of a vocational or a specialized health profession major. Often these majors do not take the same sciences as do ‘pure’ science majors. They take sciences for the health-professions–which are not the same in depth and emphasis as those taken by science majors and do not meet med school admission requirements.</p>
<p>Statistically speaking, health profession majors fare worse on the MCAT and worse in the med school admissions process. Their rates of admission are lower than every other major both in terms of absolute numbers and in relative percentages of accepted applicants.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/2012factstable18.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/2012factstable18.pdf</a></p>
<p>Sports medicine is a specialized subfield within orthopedic surgery(extremely competitive), PM&R <a href=“less%20competitive”>physical medicine & rehab</a> or emergency medicine (more competitive). Since what specialty you’ll end up in is dependent upon what your performance is in med school and on your USMLE scores–there’s no major you can take in undergrad that will have the slightest influence on whether or not you’ll end up in sports medicine.</p>
<p>^Can also get to sports med from family med, for what it’s worth.</p>
<p>If you want to go to med school, then your best bet is an academic major. It is unlikely “athletic training” would sound like an academic major to adcoms etc. So, if med school is the goal, and I were in your shoes, I would pick bio. You could always get your “taking care of athletes” fix by volunteering with athletes (HS? Elementary school? Special Olympics? Local club teams?).</p>
<p>You might think about what you mean by “taking care of athletes” and whether “sports medicine/team doc” is really what you want to do. Do you envision being the guys that run onto the field when the FB player tears his ACL? That’s a trainer, not an MD. Do you want to work with the guys in the locker room, tape them up before games, work on them after games? That’s probably PT, not MD. Do you want the torn ACLs and labrums and ligaments to come to you, fix them up, then ship them back? That sounds more like MD (ortho). Or were your more thinking about taking care of kids that injure whatever joint, need some x-rays, pain meds, and recommendations about when to play next? That sounds more like MD (family). Maybe you’re mostly interested in musculoskeletal/joint injuries, and aren’t too set on the athlete thing; that could be PT, ortho, family, or PM&R, but probably wouldn’t be “athletic trainer.”</p>
<p>Just trying to illustrate that “working with athletes” can mean a variety of things that can be approached from a variety of directions, and that going to med school is not necessary for many of them. (Although a career as a doctor would probably be the most lucrative and provide the best job stability; on the other hand, it requires the most rigorous and expensive training of any of the aforementioned ideas.)</p>
<p>“Statistically speaking, health profession majors fare worse on the MCAT and worse in the med school admissions process. Their rates of admission are lower than every other major both in terms of absolute numbers and in relative percentages of accepted applicants.”</p>
<p>Would you say these health profession majors fair worse in admissions because of their lower average MCAT scores or because of med schools bias against these majors? Like is a student with a nutrition degree who gets a 32 on the MCAT going to be worse off in admissions than a Chemistry major with a 32 (also assume these two applicants have the same GPA, quality of ec’s, research experience, medical volunteering experience, erc.)?</p>
<p>Well, accepted health sciences majors also have a correspondingly lower MCAT scores than every other major. The differential in the medians is nearly identical (applicant MCAT is 25.6; matriculant MCAT is 29.6.) Both are ~2 points lower than the next lowest major group. GPA and sGPA are more or less identical in both groups (with health science marginally higher), yet the acceptance rate for health sciences is only about 33% while the next lowest group has an acceptance rate of over 41%–which is a significant difference that can’t entirely be accounted for just by lower average MCAT.</p>