Combining Careers?

[deleted1160908]

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[battie]

I want to develop HIV and cancer medications. I have volunteered in these areas, and I want to do more.

You can be a wide variety of professionals in this case. Literally a huge variety of professionals are involved in drug development from lab technicians to doctors to patient volunteer coordinators etc. These are 20 year goals and so it depends on what part of the process you want to be in.

I want to help animals get a prosthetic tail, my Pomeranian had hers amputated and I wish to help her for cosmetic reasons. Shadowing at a vet has so many problems, what can I do to help owners and pets as it's such a sad situation that needs improvement.

Prosthetic tails specifically are a stretch in my opinion due to the aesthetic nature. That's a lot of money for the client for something with limited practical function. Even prosthetic limbs for small animals is rather a moot point unless the critter is missing multiple limbs. Prosthetics in large animals varies greatly and can be a contentions ethical discussion depending on the clinician.

I want to help painless dental treatments

Painless is also a stretch, but as pain reduced as possible is a great realm of anesthesiology in vet med. Pre-op opioid with dental blocks and post op anti-inflammatory and potentially opioids can vary greatly.

Advice to somewhat combine these careers or help me fulfill these goals?

These are vastly different areas of medicine, whether human or veterinary. And some steps of these areas don't involve the doctor directly at all. You may want to spend time across these different areas in human and vet med to determine where you'd like to find yourself

 

[Ryxndek]

To me, it seems like these are 3 separate career paths. One is pharm research-orientated, one is more mechanical engineering, and another is dentistry. I'm not entirely sure how you could overlap these since they are all so vastly different. My guess is that you need to narrow these things down. One problem is your GPA is too low for dental schools, you'd either need to do a post-bacc/Masters/SMP to try and raise the undergrad or get a better graduate GPA.

Pharm research could be more Ph.D. orientated, but again, GPA is most likely too low to get into competitive programs. (It may be okay for Pharm.D but unsure if that degree would get you where you'd want to be). Engineering is something you could maybe do, but you'd most likely have to go back and either enroll in an engineering program or find ways to get into courses that will teach you concepts and understanding of mechanics to make prosthetics. Or find a way into a medical lab that specializes in them and learn the trade and move over to animals once you have a greater understanding of the process that goes into it.

Overall, these seem like great areas to pursue, but some are very niche (animal prosthetics I think is pretty niche). I personally think you should do more soul-searching before committing to one thing as that commitment will mean you will, most likely, need to go back to school in some way or another before you can apply to the program that will get you to where you need to be. Dental schools want at least a >3.0 GPA, preferably a >3.0 Science GPA which is a little more difficult to do than overall since you can add a little fluff with non-stem courses. Since you are fairly close to 3.0 cutoff, it may be a good idea to try a 30 credit post-bacc that's heavy in stem courses to try and raise the GPA above 3.0. That could help you.

While you are doing some good experiences, unless they are helping you get into these academic programs, it may be tough to achieve these goals other than giving you some type of fulfillment.

 

[supershorty]

I have or I am currently doing research experience, shadowing experience, volunteer experience, and medical experience.

In which areas, for each of these things?

I totally get the feeling of thinking that a bunch of pretty unrelated things are super cool and you want to work on all of them - I felt like that in late undergrad/early vet school, and it's honestly really great because it gives you so many options to look into. A lot of what you're interested in sounds more like the research side of things than the clinical side - biomechanics, kinesiology, or medicinal chemistry, for example, would tick a lot of the boxes you mentioned above. And if your only real strong vet med interest is the one mentioned here, I'm not sure that this field is the best fit for you.

Agreed with bats that prosthetics are unlikely to be a big area in vet med - but if translational research interests you (or even purely working on the human side of things), you could probably combine cancer therapies with biomechanics research to work on better prosthetics. There are a number of cancers where some form of amputation is standard of care, and human patients very often end up in prosthetics.

Can you give us some more details on the specifics of your current/previous experiences? I think it will help us to give you better advice.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

My Background: BSc in Physics with a 2.965 GPA that needs improvement. I have taken biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, anatomy and physiology, etc. My interests are:

• I want to develop HIV and cancer medications. I have volunteered in these areas and I want to do more.
• I want to help animals get a prosthetic tail, my Pomeranian had hers amputated and I wish to help her for cosmetic reasons.
• I want to help painless dental treatments as my career goals.

Advice to somewhat combine these careers or help me fulfill these goals? I don't know what doctorate that I want. I have or I am currently doing research experience, shadowing experience, volunteer experience, and medical experience.

Being cheeky here, be like Elon Musk and fund many lucrative ventures, and brand your name with the projects. Just don't be Elon Musk.

So my first suggestion is to go get a job. Maybe in consulting if you can convince someone to hire you. You can survey all the different types of cool projects that investors could plop down a few mills on. The next is to get involved in intellectual property or patent law.

 

[supershorty]

2. I want to help animals in some form without breaking the bank of owners and helping animals.

You can easily do this without going to veterinary school and tbh, I would recommend that because it sounds like your interests are more suited toward research (either basic science or clinical) and human med than veterinary medicine. The cost of veterinary school is such that it's not a good investment if it's not absolutely what you want to do and can't see yourself doing anything else. You can always volunteer with various organizations to help out on the animal side of things

 

[supershorty]

I personally think you should do more soul-searching before committing to one thing as that commitment will mean you will, most likely, need to go back to school in some way or another before you can apply to the program that will get you to where you need to be.

I'll reiterate this advice as that's going to apply pretty much regardless of what you decide you want to do - but figuring out what that is first will help you to then target your work toward it.

You're getting some basic science research now - great! Keep at it for at least a year; what you experience in a few months in the lab isn't going to give you a solid foundation or idea if whether you like research or not when you're in the very beginning stages. Shadow lots of different types of doctors - different specialties in human med are probably going to be more up your alley than vet med, based on what you've said thus far. After you've had these different experiences, ask yourself which one(s) you were the most excited for each day. Were you looking forward to getting into the lab and seeing the results of your experiment? Or were you getting hyped up by the thought of what patients you might get to see that day? Maybe looking at rads really makes your day (those shadow magic people are out there...). Whatever it is, that will tell you what you really want to pursue. And I would gently encourage you to consider that you may not be able to work on all of your goals simultaneously - and that's okay!

 

[Goro]

My Background: BSc in Physics with a 2.965 GPA that needs improvement. I have taken biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, anatomy and physiology, etc. My interests are:

• I want to develop HIV and cancer medications. I have volunteered in these areas and I want to do more.
• I want to help animals get a prosthetic tail, my Pomeranian had hers amputated and I wish to help her for cosmetic reasons.
• I want to help painless dental treatments as my career goals.

Advice to somewhat combine these careers or help me fulfill these goals? I don't know what doctorate that I want. I have or I am currently doing research experience, shadowing experience, volunteer experience, and medical experience.

Go for a PHD and then head into industry