Radiology

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
1

I am currently a freshman studying chemical engineering at the Univ Alabama. I admit I am struggling in ochem right now, but hopefully I can bring it back up with the final exam which I am studying my brains out for. But right now I am having a mini panic attack. I had previously thought that I could get my degree, with minors in german and math, then go on to get my MBA and get a job, but my dad is a doctor and he suggested I look into med school as a backup plan and thought I would be good at radiology.

Basically, I know nothing about applying to med school. I know nothing about radiology. I know nothing about MCAT and applying, and premed requirements and this weird premed advising health council UA has and I am very confused. I have been searching the internet on med schools and radiology and what to do and I have no clue what I am doing. So help would be nice.

Courses:
AP credit used: gen chem 1, calc 1, calc 2, US history 1, US history 2, political science intro type course(from AP GOPO), intro to geology(from AP enviro)
Taken: gen chem 2(plus lab), ochem 1, calc 3(multivariable), diff eq 1(ordinary), chem e calc, engineering fundamentals, 2 business classes(for the preMBA program I’m in), physics 1 with calc, english honors
To be taken: 22 credits in german, physics 2 with calc, a lot of credits in chem e courses, ochem 2, ochem lab 1, (6 more pre MBA business courses), diff eq 2 (partial), scientific glassblowing, biochemistry, an electrical engineering intro course, 400 level math course (integral boundary theorem or something), and bio 1(no lab).

I was planning on clepping the bio, but I’ve seen that most med schools don’t take clep credit.

Other Background Info:
current GPA: 3.6, mostly due to adjusting to college courses, but I’m steadily bringing it up.
somehow I am a colead on a paper in an undergraduate chemistry lab that will be written in a few years (which means I already know how to use equipment not used in normal teaching labs)
I hold leadership positions in two clubs/societies
I am involved with volunteer work/missions, 3 clubs/societies
In the honors college

I know I could cut out my german minor and minor in microbiology instead, and possibly double major, but I saw on alot of the admissions websites, they like diversity in courses. I don’t know much about this. This panic attack just hit me a few hours ago.
With all this known, how could I get into medical school(and still get my MBA before med school)? And what does a radiologist do? How exactly could I become a radiologist? Also, if I chose not to pursue radiology, how could I pursue oncology or hematology? Do med schools offer specialties like colleges offer majors? Are certain specialties only offered at some but not others? Could someone explain what the health sciences advising committee at my school is for and how do I contact them and how do I start planning for all this stuff? Is there like a book out there that explains all this?

Any advice would be appreciated.

2

http://residency.wustl.edu/Choosing/SpecDesc/Pages/DiagnosticRadiology.aspx

tl;dr A radiologist reads X-ray, MRI, CAT and ultrasound images.

You need to read up up required pre- med courses.

  1. not all medical schools will accept AP credit for Gen Chem and many of those that do will require an additional year of chem coursework (shouldn’t be a problem for chem eng)

  2. in addition to Ochem you will need at least 1 semester of biochem

  3. the new MCAT requires a semester each of sociology and psychology, plus statistics or biostatistics.

Pre med courses:

gen chem w/ labs, ochem w/ labs, biochem, physics w/ labs, bio w/ labs, soc, psych, 2 semesters of writing/English, Calc 1, stats/biostats.

Some med schools have additional required courses, such as genetics, anatomy, upper level humanities.


Med school does not have specialties like undergrad. All med students take the same didactic coursework in MS-MS2, following 2 years of clinical rotations. MS3 all med students do the same rotations (FM, IM, peds, OB/GYN, gen surgery, psych & neuro). MS4 you have some electives to explore fields you might be interested in as well required mandatory rotations specific to your med school.

During your 4th year, you apply for further training to specialize. This is call residency. Some specialties are very competitive, some less so. Getting into a competitive specialty requires getting high grades on your national standardized exams, getting high grades in med school and doing research in your particular area of interest.

Radiology is becoming less competitive because a lot of radiology jobs are being outsourced overseas. Hem-Onc is <em>extremely</em> competitive, even if getting into IM isn't.

Radiology requires a 5 year residency, plus and additional 1-2 years if you wish to further sub-specialize.

College graduation to actual first day of a job  = 9+ years.

Hematology-oncology is subspecialty of Internal Medicine. It requires a 4 year residency in IM plus a minimum of 3 more years in hem-onc. Most hem-onc candidates take time off from their training to do 1-3 years of research after their IM residency to make them more appealing to hem-onc fellowship programs. 

College graduation to first day on the job = 11+ years

Becoming a doctor takes a long time. Make sure you're willing to devote the time required before you decide to follow the pre-med path.

~~~

Med school admission is much, much more competitive than it was when your dad went to med school. Only about 40% of those who apply get a single acceptance.  Med school is lousy back-up plan for another career. Generally pre-med students are advised to plan for a back-up career because most of them won't be getting into med school.
3

Literally burst out laughing when I read that.

4

I get what you’re saying; I get mini panic attacks every so often when I worry about how I’m doing as a premed student. But I think you should take a deep breath, because you’re only a freshman. Focus on finishing out the semester strong, then use the summer to shadow in the fields you’re interested in; ask your dad to hook you up with some doctors if he works in a hospital.

And if you are actually interested in it and like it, and want to do it for reasons other than wanting to please your father or out of the fear of not having a job, then in the fall, make an appointment with the health sciences advising committee. If they’re anything like the pre-professional office at my school, they can go over how the application process works, and help you plan your schedule so you’ll be able to fit all the prereqs in. Then for me, I just check in every once in a while to make sure that I’m on the right path GPA-wise and not forgetting anything extracurricular-wise. They answer any questions I have (about summer courses, how to find shadowing experiences, etc.).

But don’t start planning until you actually know what you’d be getting yourself into. You’re already ahead of the game science-wise, at least.

And as for a website, most premed “Everything You Need to Know” guides make me antsy because it’s too much info, and they’re often very big and specific checklists (be interesting- check, get 300 hours of volunteering- check). For me, it’s better to have the broad overview and research on my own the specific things that I want to know more about. I found this on Google; and it has memes :slight_smile: (The only part that’s probably relevant to you now is “So you want to be a doctor”): http://www.georgefox.edu/academics/undergrad/departments/biology/medical-school.html

And if you actually end up needing it, a pro-tip that’s not as abrasive and sounds easier to do than, “Find something that makes you stand out, and be amazing at it, but don’t do it to check boxes; be passionate,” because you might start hearing this once you descend into premed land: http://premedrevolution.com/premed-to-a-t-the-most-interesting-applicant-in-the-world/

Also,

Maybe this is what you should be looking into to ease your anxieties, since this is what you want to do. Med school plans can wait until your heart is 100% in it.

5

Actually it was much more difficult to get into medical school back in the 70’s to 80 than now. There were only about 15000 or so positions and an acceptance rate of somewhere around 35%, not 45% as it is today. Moreover average admission GPA’s were around 3.5 while average University GPA’s were .3 to .5 less than they are now. Most of the Ivies average GPA’s were around 3.0 at that time. Cost of a Medical education was not much of an issue as Texas Medical schools had $500/year tuition, UC schools had $700/year tuition and most private medical schools had tuition around $10,000 or less. Georgetown and GW were the outliers with tuitions of 25K. Income for physicians was also higher. Medicine was a much better investment back in past in comparison to now. It has gotten easier to get into medical school from an academic perspective

6

yes, and the academic perspective is a much smaller part than it was. Back in the 70s and 80s if you had the GPA and the MCAT needed you got in, period. Not the case anymore.

7

Actually the academic perspective is no different than it ever was. Medical schools want to know first whether you can academically handle the rigors of Medical school. You are not considered unless you pass this hurdle. You could of course argue that once a certain GPA, MCAT and academic performance is reached that higher numbers are meaningless but we all seem to like to use higher numbers to a point. WashU especially. The expectation that one shadows a physician and has clinical experience before applying to medical schools is I think a good one to try to make sure that one knows what one is getting into. This “requirement” however only requires a relatively short time commitment. Research was a favorite way of getting into the top research schools and many applicants do this today although most of it is quite pedestrian and no one is under an illusion that most of these projects amount to anything more than checking off another box. Extracurricular activities that demonstrate leadership and commitment to excellence have always been important. Most of my medical school, residency and fellowship interviews were mostly about other topics than medicine. I agree that one has to jump through more “hoops” to get into medical school today but the basics have not changed very much.