So I’m currently a junior biology major with an animal concentration and minor in chemistry. I’ve wanted to be a vet for as long as I can remember but recently I’ve been interested in attending medical school instead. My plan after vet school was always to specialize in small animal surgery so I would most likely stick with surgery if I decided to go the human route.
I’m currently working as a veterinary assistant and even taking some courses at the UF vet school but I have absolutely no experience in the medical field. If I do end up switching to pre-med, I’m just worried I’ll be too far behind to catch up. Either way, I think I would be comfortable staying as pre-vet but I’d hate to have any regrets or any “what if” thoughts.
@purplepixels
FOMO is real. The idea that the grass is greener on the pre-med side of the fence is pretty common.
To help settle your decision, I strongly suggest that you do some shadowing with a few MDs to get a feel of what human medicine is like so you can make an informed decision.
I’d suggest that you do NOT shadow a surgeon because you already know you like surgery. What you need to find out is if you like the rest of human medicine–the day-to-day primary care type stuff.
Why? Because surgery is a competitive specialty and there is zero guarantee that you’d qualify for a surgery residency. More than 50% of all med school grads end up in a primary care field–FM, IM, peds, geriatrics. Those fields are the bread & butter of medical practice. If you won’t be happy working in one of those fields–stay in pre-vet.
Also, please realize that getting to your end goal/ actual career is going to take longer in medicine–not only will you need to pick up some additional courses, you will also need the right ECs (physician shadowing, a couple hundred hours of hands on clinical experience, significant community service with disadvantaged populations) before med school will actually consider you for admission. Plus unlike vet grads, newly graduated MDs cannot practice right away, they must first do a 3-7 year long specialty residency often followed by another 1-3 years of sub-specialty fellowship. So the road to independent practice itself is longer.
This decision is one that only you can make.
BTW, catching up really isn’t an issue The majority of pre-meds now take 1-3 gap years post college graduation before matriculation into med school at an average age of 26. Med school will still be there whenever you’re ready.
Agree with w/ most of what @WayOutWestMom said. The only thing I would clarify is that to specialize in small animal surgery you do still need 1-2 years of internship and 3-4 years of residency to become board certified so the amount of time isn’t that different once you enter professional school. Like in human medicine the surgery specialty is very competitive and you have to do very well in vet school to get those limited residencies.
People in vet med say 'If you see yourself doing anything other than vet med do it." The reason for this is because income is much lower than human med. Vet school and med school are about the same cost and debt load is very high. It is hard to pay off those loans in vet med. Even harder when you are doing internships and residencies that are low paying. The job can be thankless and clients frequently say no to procedures that could save the animal because of cost. In human med there is insurance available to most. Very few pet owners have it. (We do - best investment we made!).
You need to shadow and as said above you need human med experience hours, all the prerequisites and need to do well on the MCAT. Good luck on your decision! (My S17 is entering vet school in the fall and his gf has just finished her med school applications so I have seen both sides.
“It is hard to pay off those loans in vet med.”
I do not understand how anyone can go into veterinary medicine unless they have a parent or two or three who can pay for a significant percentage of the cost of veterinary school.
“The job can be thankless and clients frequently say no to procedures that could save the animal because of cost.”
Every animal comes with a human. You need to deal with both the animal and the human. Of course if you have been shadowing vets you know most of this.
My suggestion is that you do as suggested above and try to volunteer in a medical environment for a while. Then decide.
You will also need to check carefully to figure our what courses you are missing. I do understand that pre-vet students and premed students take quite a few of the same classes.
@momocarly @purplepixels
Medicine has the same saying: if you can see yourself doing anything other than medicine, do it.
Part of the reason is the high debt load that only rises in the years of low income during residency and fellowship. Another is the hours in medicine are very long and make it quite difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance. During residency 80-100 hour work weeks are normal. (You are only guaranteed that you won’t work more than 80 hours/week when averaged over 4 weeks. Or work for more than 32 hours straight. But lying about hours is extremely common, particularly in surgical fields. There are no work hour caps at all during fellowship.) Even you are once in independent practice, the hours are quite long. The average work week for attending surgeons is over 70 hours/week. You will routinely be working nights, weekends, holidays both during residency and afterwards.
One other thing to consider–medicine is becoming dominated by large for-profit corporate medical groups. Independent practitioners and small doctor-owned practice group have all but disappeared. You will almost certainly be a salaried CMG employee when you finally become an attending. Your ability to prescribe treatments and procedures are large circumscribed by both your CMG’s policies and insurance approval policies.
Medicine also has its share of thankless moments. Doctors will be dealing patients and their families on what is often the very worst days of their lives.
As for insurance being available to all patients–as both my daughters will tell you- that’s true only in your dreams.