<p>Hey guys. I'm going to be a senior in high school this year. I am really giving my future some thought. I am 99.9% sure that i want to attend medical school and pursue a career in it. I think that i want to become a forensic pathologist or medical examiner. I have heard that your college major does not matter for medical school, as long as you meet the requirements. But wouldn't majoring in a science field help one prepare for the MCAT? Im sure several humanities majors have gotten in, but wouldn't someone with a biochemistry background, ect have a better chance? So with this being said, what major would help the most?
Thank you!
xoxo</p>
<p>Forensic pathologist is not necessarily a medical specialty. A good many (perhaps even most) forensic pathologists are actually PhDs not MDs.</p>
<p>The science on the MCAT isn’t especially high level or difficult science. For the most part it’s intro level or just above. </p>
<p>AAMC has a table showing the GPAs and MCAT scores by primary undergrad major here:</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>The groups which scores highest on the MCAT are math majors, followed by physical science (physics and chemistry) majors. In fact except for specialized health science majors (nursing, exercise science, nutrition, etc), every group scores higher on the MCAT than do biological science majors–including humanities and social science majors.</p>
<p>Wowmom,</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure forensic paths/medical examiners are all MDs. It’s a fellowship you do after pathology residency. Coroners don’t have to be MDs though.</p>
<p>Medical examiners are MDs, but forensic pathologists don’t need to be. I know one forensic pathologist who works for the OMI (Office of Medical Investigations–the state office which investigates unexplained deaths and certifies cause of death). He is definitely not an MD, but rather a PhD. He cannot issue an official cause of death, only the Chief Medical Examiner can do that. (At least in my state–see below.) But my acquaintance can and does run pathological tests and contribute the final report. The CME has a whole host of non-MD specialists working under him.</p>
<p>Some states do not have state medical examiners. Instead they have coroners which are elected or appointed officials who are not required to have any medical training whatsoever. Coroners can and do assign cause of death and issue death certifcates. (And I know this from first hand experience.)</p>
<p>Adding to the confusion, the titles of medical examiner and coroner are quite often used interchangably. In many US jurisdictions, no medical training is required to be either a medical examiner or a coroner.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for your experience in this matter but unfortunately I believe you’re still mistaken. I studied this field extensively for several months as part of an academic project a few years ago (when I thought I wanted to be one). There are PhDs in forensic science, forensic entomology, forensic anthropology, and forensic psychology but a true “forensic pathologist” is an MD (or DO) who has done a pathology residency and then a forensic pathology fellowship. A medical examiner must be an MD. In no US county is a medical examiner not an MD although he may not be a forensic pathologist or even a pathologist. The majority of coroners are not MDs but some places require that they are. People probably do mix and match terms but that’s incorrect.</p>
<p>Your preparation for the MCAT will prepare you for the MCAT, not your major.
Taking upper Bio classes in addition to pre-reqs is beneficial.
Specifically about biochem, I do not know about new MCAT. When D. took her MCAT, she has not taken a single Biochem class.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Indeed, thousands of 'em every year. Moreover, Music majors used to have one of the highest rates of admissions, and bio one of the lowest. If you’ve taken AP Stats, think about it. (Hint: self selection.)</p>
<p>^yep, Brown’s classics department has a 100% med school acceptance rate for over a decade.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>There’s a few other schools that boast 100% MD acceptance rates for Classics majors…even some state flagships. Something about the type of student who does the Classics and premed prereqs…the right kind of thinking process???</p>
<p>That said, my ChemE son feels that his undergrad education taught him to process and use info…which he felt helped him on the MCAT (which he didn’t study for…bad boy!), but did well enough to get accepted to 3 of the 6 MD schools he applied to (another bad boy thing…only completing 6 apps!) </p>
<p>I’ve watched my son approach “real life problems” such as leaks in the plumbing (a recent home issue!) and he’s very methodical about finding the problem, eliminating causes, solving the problem, and then doing checks and rechecks.</p>
<p>I remember when I was applying to schools that many classics department heads cited similar stats.</p>
<p>My theory, based on very little evidence, is that the majority of classics majors had exposure to the field in high school and that high schools that have offer extensive classics classes are generally better high schools. So right off the bat, classics majors are enriched with kids from high performing high schools, and if you then isolate the classics majors who are also pre-meds, you’ve got a very select group of students who obviously have not only strong writing/language/communication skills but also good science/reasoning skills.</p>
<p>Of course many other types of students have all these skills too, but no other major/pre-med combo seems to attract such a universally strong subset of students on such a nationwide level.</p>
<p>I obviously wrote about the classics extensively on my applications and had two major themes that I featured a lot:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The fact that you’re trained to deduce a whole universe from small snapshots. In biology it’s pretty much impossible to ever see a whole system at play at once, and similarly ancient history doesn’t have the documentation that say 20th (or even any post renaissance) century history does. Both fields are about taking disjointed snippets of info and weaving them into a cohesive unity.</p></li>
<li><p>Greater appreciation of the significance of context. This was more with regard to my why MD/PhD essays but I focused a lot on experiences of reading poetry in translation vs the original language. There are many elements of style and creativity that really are just lost in translation or references and connections that are missed if one doesn’t have the adequate background knowledge of the era (more so for theater than poetry) and I basically said that doing scientific research as an MD or PhD was essentially like reading in translation or without the proper background. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>A PhD doesn’t provide adequate training in disease management or the greater workings of the human body and how the organ systems interact with each other while an MD doesn’t provide enough scientific exposure anymore since our scientific and clinical knowledge has grown exponentially for the last few decades and it’s just too much to learn in 4 years and once you get out of med school you have to learn all the nuances of your own field and without formal training in scientific practice there’s really no way to keep up anymore. </p>
<p>This is not to say that there’s anything bad or wrong with the kind of research that MDs and PhDs do just like there’s nothing wrong with reading in translation. You’re still going to learn something. It’s just not what I want. I want the richness of the full experience.</p>
<p>^I can relate to this. D.'s weakest section in ANY standardized tests in her life has been Verbal, while English / writing was the strongest. There is no way one can improve either. So, her scores were always pulled down by Verbal. The reason - she does NOT like to read for entertainment, she prefers writing, and writing skills has always pulled her grades up in every class. Yes, here I figure out, finally, why test scores might be consistantly behind the GPA…but lucky, Step 1 did not have a verbal section…and she did better, much more in line with her HS/UG GPA.
So, I can see why classics majors would do good in standardized testing</p>