Hello! I am a dual-enrolled high school junior. Right now, I am currently taking college classes to obtain my General Education A.A. degree (60 credits). By the end of this semester, I will have 52 credits. I’m going to be applying to colleges soon and I have a sort of dilemma. Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to go into the medical field. Growing up, my dream job has been to become an OB/GYN (Obstetrician/Gynecologist). The reason being is that I’m interested in biology and science courses and ultimately I would love to help pregnant women bring their babies in the world. I’m thinking of majoring in either Biology or Biomedical Sciences. Recently though, I have also been thinking about becoming a nurse. I have thought about this because this is also a field I have been equally interested in. Also, I’m having pessimistic feelings about getting accepted into medical school and the cost of attending medical school if I do get accepted. If I decide to pursue the nursing path, I would become a Labor and Delivery Nurse or a Neonatal Nurse for obvious reasons. So my question is do you think majoring in nursing and minoring in biology is a good idea? I do not know what to major in between the two and I wanted to major and minor in two separate fields anyway and these are the only degrees I’m interested in. Since it seems I may have a few open spots in my schedule once I transfer to a university, I’m thinking this may work, but I know nursing degrees are very demanding. What are your thoughts?
Also, I am a Haitian-American male and going to be a first-generation college student if that matters.
Majoring in nursing, and minoring in biology with the intent of eventually going to medical school is not impossible, but will be very difficult for several reasons.
- The prerequisites for nursing and medical school are different and rarely overlap. The nursing curriculum will also rarely have classes (if any at all) that will complete medical school prerequisites.
Are you applying to nursing schools directly from high school?
If not, and you plan on transferring into nursing, you will need to take anatomy, physiology, and microbiology (at least). Some programs will require a few more classes, such as nutrition or statistics.
A minor in biology will most likely complete the medical school prerequisite of a year (or more) of biology. It may also complete the prerequisite of a year of general chemistry. However, most medical school prerequisites also require a year of organic chemistry, and a year of physics. Other prerequisites may include biochemistry, calculus, and statistics.
- Most nursing programs are full time, and between classes, studying for classes, and clinicals you may not have much time for completing medical school prerequisites and other activities to improve your medical school application.
Also, in order to become a nurse, you will need to pass the NCLEX, or the nursing licensing exam, and you may need to study for that too.
This is taken from the UCI Medical School’s website:
"…There is no formula used. Each applicant is unique. Our applicants are evaluated by their individual accomplishments and the activities in which they have been involved.
Our goal is to select a well-balanced, diverse class to which each student will contribute their talents and experiences to classmates, professors and eventually their patients.
Examples of factors we use in evaluating an applicant are:
Academics
Clinical exposure
Involvement in research
Community service
Extracurricular activities
Life experiences
Personal qualities
Communication skills
Leadership
Teamwork..."
Examples of these “factors” are:
- Volunteering at hospitals
- Shadowing doctors
- Research experience
- Involvement (as well as leadership roles) through organizations at their college
- Healthcare experience (perhaps as an ER technician)
Etc.
You will also need to take MCAT, or the Medical College Admission Test.
GPA and the MCAT score are considered to be the most important factors for applying to medical schools.
Nursing curriculum is typically not known to be easy, and may harm your GPA.
- The nursing model and medical model are also two separate models, therefore, while working as a nurse is considered healthcare experience, it may not give you an advantage.
Depending on when you apply to medical school if you do go through with majoring in nursing and minoring in biology, you may be at a disadvantage when applying as you will be competing against applicants who have tailored their application towards getting into medical school.
To summarize:
While I can understand being hesitant towards applying and subsequently attending medical school due to the high costs, getting into medical school is the first step. To do so, you need time to do well in the class, study for the MCAT, and do research, volunteer, etc to make yourself a competitive candidate. Nursing school may conflict with that as it demands a lot of time. I suggest you do some more research, and plan out your classes to see if your plan is feasible. Also, as you are taking classes for your general Education A.A. degree, I suggest keeping an open mind as you’re not in college yet, and may find other fields more suited to you and your interests.
Yes, I wouldn’t recommend majoring in nursing if you want to go to medical school. The prerequisites for nursing school are different (overlapping, largely - in addition to A&P and microbiology you generally also have to take chemistry, statistics, psychology, English, social sciences and possibly some other courses) and the kinds of ECs you have to do for med school admissions you won’t have time to do in a nursing curriculum. I also think you won’t really have the time or space to minor in biology, between clinicals and your nursing coursework.
HOWEVER. It sounds like what you really want to do is provide primary care to women and babies. So why not become a certified nurse-midwife?
A certified nurse-midwife (CNM, for short) is an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) that provides primary care to pregnant women and their eventual babies. APRNs are nurses with master’s degrees and usually several years of experience. So to become a CNM, you’d have to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing and then get a master’s degree in nursing in midwifery (most nursing schools have this). Most nurses work in-between the BSN and the MSN for a few years to gain experience, although increasingly these days you don’t have to.
CNMs do pretty much everything an ob/gyn would do - they give annual exams, they do patient education about women’s health and wellness, they give prenatal exams, they assist women in labor, etc. Experienced CNMs can also sometimes handle more complex cases with fetal distress and high-risk pregnancies, although those do tend to be handled either by MDs or in tandem with MDs. But if your basic goal is to help bring babies into the world, a CNM might be a perfect fit for you. Nurse-midwives do adhere to the nursing model, which is more focused on patient education and holistic care than the medical model.
- Essentially, the nursing model accounts for the whole patient, not just the disease or condition requiring treatment. It allows nurses to deliver care to patients using a systematic approach of assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating patient care - this is a cyclic nursing process with detailed guidance for each step of care.*
A lot of women these days are actually specifically seeking out CNMs for prenatal, antenatal and postnatal care because they like this model. CNMs often do things like help women make birth plans, educate them about how to take care of their body, interface with their family members, help them get access to other care if they’re poor, etc. (It’s not that MDs don’t do those things - but they are built into the nursing model). Studies also show that women get fewer interventions during birth like episiotomies and Pitocin - although that may be partially because of the nursing model and partially because CNMs work with lower-risk pregnancies.
CNMs don’t make as much as OB/GYNs - the median annual wage is around $93,000 a year for CNMs; I think it’s closer to $160-180K for OB/GYNs. However, they also don’t go to school for as long and don’t have as much debt as MDs. CNMs can also do their MSN part-time, which can lower the cost - since you’d have an RN you can work full-time while you attend school part-time, or you can work part-time and attend school full-time, and offset your living expenses considerably. You can also go to a public university and save some money. So while the overall salary might be lower, you’ll also have fewer loans to repay. And nurses have their own flexibility and achievement ladder, so if you eventually wanted to move up you could go into charge nursing, nursing leadership (aka becoming the Director of Nursing at a hospital), nursing education/faculty (maybe getting a PhD and teaching nursing to new nurses), consulting, etc. There’s a lot of things you can do in nursing.
Anyway, consider that. The unfortunate truth is that this is one of the times when you have to choose a path - if you want to do the MD you need to major in something that is not nursing and do the pre-med prerequisites. If you want to be a nurse, then you should major in nursing. But you can’t really major in nursing and hedge your bets.
The silver lining, though, is that there are lots of programs for people who have non-nursing bachelor’s degrees and later want to become nurses (and CNMs). So let’s say that you majored in biology and then decided senior year darn, I really wanted to be a nurse. You could go somewhere like [Columbia’s master’s direct entry](http://nursing.columbia.edu/admissions-and-financial-aid/how-apply/masters-direct-entry-mde-mdednp-mdephd) program or Yale’s [graduate entry program in nursing](Graduate Entry Prespecialty in Nursing (GEPN) | Yale School of Nursing) and get your RN and MSN in three years, and go directly into midwifery. Or you could get an accelerated BSN from one of the hundreds of programs that exist and then go do a normal MSN program after. (And similarly - if you majored in nursing and decided senior year you want to be a doctor - you could do a post-baccalaureate premed program and go to med school. Neither choice will be set in stone for the rest of your life; the barrier is the time and money it takes to switch after you’ve made a decision. So choose wisely, because it’s easier that way, but don’t feel like you can’t make any mistakes or change your mind.)
@ahuynh Thank you so much for your input! Very helpful.
@juillet Thanks for your input, information, and suggestions. I actually researched info about certified nurse-midwife and it sounds good for me. Can you give me more information on what they do and their education and all? I eventually want to help deliver babies, but maintain a relationship with the parents before, during, and after their pregnancy.
What more information do you want? I already talked about the basics of what they do
and their education
In the post above. It’d be helpful if you said what you wanted to know so I could point you to some resources.
@juillet Maybe the differences between OB/GYN and CNM? Hours? Any more general knowledge about CNM since I have never considered this or maybe even OB/GYN if you have it.
Google it. There is a wealth of information on such basic things on the internet.
@AuraObscura I’ve obviously googled about it already, but I get mixed answers. Hence, why I came on here.
Found these in ~10 minutes of Googling:
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/nurse-midwife.267360/
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/what-do-we-think-of-cnms.389734/
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/midwife-or-doctor.475825/
http://www.gapmedics.com/blog/2014/01/13/midwife-versus-obstetrician-differences-and-similarities/
https://careervillage.org/questions/1795/difference-between-an-obstetrician-midwife-and-physician-assistant
http://everynurse.org/becoming-a-certified-nurse-midwife/
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/midwife-or-ob-gyn.1095670/
https://www.google.com/search?q=obgyn+hours
http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/medical-school-admissions-doctor/2012/05/29/follow-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-ob-gyn
http://meded.ucsf.edu/ume/career-information-obstetrics-gynecology
http://www.obgyn.wisc.edu/residency/life-of-a-obgyn-resident.aspx
http://www.studentdoctor.net/2012/08/20-questions-angela-chien-obgyn/
https://www.google.com/search?q=cnm+midwife+hours
http://www.mothering.com/forum/16938-birth-professionals/1190348-schedule-work-hours-cnm.html
http://allnurses.com/certified-nurse-midwives/hours-cnm-work-502351.html?PageSpeed=noscript
http://www.rntobsn.org/careers/nurse-midwives/
http://allnurses.com/certified-nurse-midwives/life-of-a-150102.html?PageSpeed=noscript
http://allnurses.com/ob-gyn-nursing/midwives-schedule-125897.html?PageSpeed=noscript
@AuraObscura Seems like you just grabbed links and slapped it on your post to try and prove a point. Anyways, although helpful, not enough. Maybe we should leave it to juillet since she seems more knowledgeable.
I actually think the links that @AuraObscura provided look super helpful. They have a variety of different perspectives and offer some in-depth discussion of some of your questions. Some of the forum discussions especially are really enlightening because they have participation from current MDs and CNMs who discuss their work and life and such. I highly recommend reading through some of them. For example, the AllNurses and Mothering forums have several responses from CNMs who discuss how many hours a week they work and the variability in schedules based on where they work.
I am struggling to come up with responses to your question because it’s so undefined - it’s difficult to give “general knowledge.” I’m not a nurse-midwife or an OB/GYN so I can’t tell you what working the job is like; I can only give you the second-hand knowledge that I learned from searching the Internet and reading forums and chatting with gynecologists and nurse-midwives I know and met offline.
The basic differences between a gynecologist and a CNM (I addressed several of these in the first post I made):
-OB/GYNs go to medical school + a residency. CNMs are nurses with a master’s degree. That’s 7 years of training vs. 2, although most CNMs do have work experience between the BSN and MSN.
-OB/GYNs make more money but also tend to have more debt.
-OB/GYNs work under the medical model; it’s a disease-focused model that has an eye towards what’s wrong health-wise and how to fix it. CNMs work under the nursing model, which is more patient-focused, holistic, and values patient and family education. Neither is better; they are just different, and it kind of depends on what you want to do.
-CNMs tend to handle more routine pregnancies and childbirths - ones with no or few complications. OB/GYNs can handle pregnancies and childbirths that range the spectrum from very mundane to very complicated. If you think you might want to handle complex or potentially dangerous cases then the MD is the way to go.
-CNMs tend to use less intervention in their work. That’s partially because of their general nursing philosophies/model and partially because they have less complicated cases to work with.
-Both CNMs and OBs can have their own practices. But CNMs can also work directly for a hospital or for a doctor’s office.
-Although CNMs practice independently, some states require them to practice “in consultation” with an OB. Some malpractice insurers might also require this. (Note that malpractice insurance for working with pregnant and birthing women is very, very, very high - because these patients are probably the most likely to sue if anything goes wrong.) That may simply mean meeting with an OB colleague a couple times a month to discuss cases and get some insight.
Hours vary. One of the great things about the nursing profession is the flexibility. Some CNMs work regular 9-5 hours, 40 hours a week, in a doctor’s office or in their own practices. Some CNMs work part-time for practices, hospitals, or birth centers. Some CNMs work three 12-hour shifts a week at hospitals or clinics and that’s considered their full time work, but they can also pick up overtime here and there. Some CNMs combine roles - so for example, they may work part-time for a hospital but also pick up a few hours a week doing home health visits for homebound women, for example, or they may teach a few classes on the side for extra money. Some CNMs do what’s called PRN work (it’s basically variable schedule work, as-needed) and so their hours vary per week. It really depends. You can probably work as many or as few hours as you want.
I get the sense that more OBs tend to work more regular hours (40-60+ per week), mostly in private or group practices. Some OBs work for practices that are owned by hospitals. Most OBs do some rounding on labor and delivery floors occasionally or regularly. I don’t think there are many OBs that work part-time hours, but I could be wrong - it just depends, I think.
One thing to note is that both OBs and CNMs have a higher-than-average likelihood of working some irregular hours, since babies don’t know what time it is when they want to be born 
So the likelihood of being on-call at 3 am or having to dash into a hospital or birthing center at 11 pm or 5 am or whenever is pretty high.