<p>I am currently an ADN RN, and am ready to take the next step in my educational career. I know that in order for me to apply to either an MSN or an MD program I will need a Bachelor's degree. Since I am leaning more toward becoming an MD, I was wondering if I should even bother with getting my BSN, or if I should take a few more years to get a traditional pre-med major. It would take me a little over a year to get my BSN and finish all of my Med School pre-req's, and much longer to complete courses for a chemistry major. Would it matter what my actual major is as long as I have the requirements to apply to Medical School? For the Biology requirement, is Anatomy and Physiology I &II an acceptable replacement?</p>
<p>I only work three days a week and every other weekend, so going to school while working is really no big deal to me, what else should I do to make myself attractive to Medical Schools (besides the obvious high GPA and high MCAT scores).</p>
<p>You’re going to be a more competitive candidate with something other than your BSN. The general advice is to focus on academic disciplines instead of vocational majors. Econ is better than finance or “business”, biology better than kinesiology or athletic training. A BSN opens up a can of worms because of the ongoing nursing shortage in many parts of the country. There are people who are hesitant about taking an active, already trained/educated RN out of the workforce. It’s best to avoid those inclinations.</p>
<p>In most cases, anatomy/phys will NOT meet the bio requirement. It’d be better to focus on more broadly applied biology courses - things like cell biology, genetics (though some schools require this specifically), or general zoology. Also, anatomy and physiology are not considered core concepts for the MCAT. Even as I read over the changes to the 2015 MCAT, while I believe that there will be some physiology concepts covered, I don’t think that a typical anatomy/phys undergrad sequence will serve you any better than a good cell structure and function course paired with genetics and biochem. Certainly the anatomy portion will be a waste for the MCAT and since most undergrad anatomy courses go on a systems rather than regional approach, it won’t be as useful as you think it will for medical school anatomy.</p>
<p>Considering that I’m already a trained RN, is my nursing status going to hurt my chances regardless of what major I choose? I would really love to earn a BA in Chemistry, (it was my first love…but then life got in the way and I had to choose a more practical major) but doing so will take three or more years to complete, while a BSN with the pre-med pre-req’s will take 1 year. Even if I minor in Chemistry (btw, does your minor matter?), it will still take two years tops. So is it really that awful to have the BSN when an admissions committee is reviewing your file? Truly, I want to know if a committee would likely just toss my file because I’m an RN! I’d like to know what I’d be up against. Is a college of Osteopathic medicine more likely to accept a nurse than a regular old college of medicine, or are their admissions processes pretty identical?</p>
<p>I’ve already finished A&P 1 and 2, so I was hoping against hope that that would count for Bio, but it doesn’t hurt to brush up on Bio again, especially since it’s so important to the MCAT.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice Bigredmed. I really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Here’s my take on the Associates to BSN path. With you just having your associates, going back to school for your bachelors and to complete pre-med requirements, moves you in to that more familiar “non-traditional” role of someone who did one thing and then changed trajectory to be a doctor. Yes, it’s different than if you had been a teacher or whatever, but there are lots of other reasons why LPN’s/ASN’s go back to get their BSN - better pay/better jobs/promotion/responsibilities/etc. So you going back to get that, especially because it’s just a year, doesn’t change your trajectory, doesn’t signal the break from your nursing past and doctor future. </p>
<p>The big thing is that we’re talking about varying levels of competitiveness here. No application with decent stats is ever completely shut off, but if the ASN->BSN path puts you at a 65 out of 100 (on a completely arbitrary, made up scale) and an ASN ->BA in English puts you at an 72, then that’s the better path only so far as how it directly relates to you getting into med school. It’s not that the BSN couldn’t get you in, just that your chances are better in the other path. There may be other variables that matter to you though. You know your life right now and there is more to this decision than merely affecting your med school chances. I don’t know if you have kids or a spouse or an ailing family member. You may need to keep working your same hours to pay for all those things and spending two years to finish out the bachelors isn’t reasonable for your finances, I don’t know. That’s the part that always makes it tough to go back to school and change careers. </p>
<p>the other thing I would posit is that even though you could be done with the BSN in a year, are you ready to actually apply for med school right now? I’m pretty certain the answer is no. So if you started back to school this year, it’s only going to put you on track to start applying to med schools next summer (assuming you took the MCAT next spring)…so you still wouldn’t start med school until the fall of 2014. If you took the 2 years to get the chem degree or whatever else, you’d still be on pace to enter med school in the fall of 2014, because you obviously don’t need to have your bachelor’s in hand to apply. You could get your Bachelors May 2014 and then start in the fall just like the college students who go from undergrad to med school. The other benefit would be that you would still have all coursework from year 2 to continue to improve your application should you not get in on your first attempt. Going the BSN route, and you don’t have all that in progress course work during the midst of your application cycle…</p>
<p>Again, this all just focused on the med school competition portion and ignores all the variables of real life. In the end you have to make the decision that’s best for you and your family.</p>