Hello ...
I was wondering if I could ask any non-trads who started med school in their 30s how they stay motivated about applying to med school, especially when they have "too much education" already (PhD in Public Health).
I am planning to take the MCATs early next year at age 30 and, if successful, enroll at age 31. But I am having this odd crises of feeling like, at age 30, I should already have been "done" by now. I floated the idea with friends and family, and they were 100% against it. A sister who is a doctor was almost violently angry at my even considering it; I was shaken.
However I feel like, without clinical knowledge, I only half know what I'm doing, and I cannot contribute as much as my colleagues, who can both provide obstetric surgeries on our medical missions and conduct clinical research with far more confidence, and of far higher depth & quality. (I currently work for an international foundation providing maternal health services in developing countries; before that, I was a research associate at a hospital.)
Essentially, I feel like medicine will make my qualifications for my career complete.
Many non-MD PhD students in my department felt the same frustrating lack of scientific knowledge in our major, reading all these studies containing obstetric terms & conditions that we didn't really know anything about. We pressured our professors for more science courses. A 2.9 uGPA Bio major, I avoided sciences during my MPH. However, as a PhD student, I took 3 hardcore science courses, feeling like I had to in order to understand what I was doing. But while I had access to general courses like Anatomy & Physiology, I didn't have any access to things like Obstetrics. I'm reading a reproductive biology textbook on my own right now, and each new chapter is like "oh so that's what that is".
What's more, I was so much better at the few hard sciences I took as a PhD student... well, 3 B+s in graduate-level biology classes, anyway, while my undergraduate sGPA was under 3.0. I feel like if I apply myself, and take undergraduate science courses, I can pull my undergraduate sGPA up (I totally regret not taking the three courses I took in grad school at an undergraduate level, but I didn't think, at the time, that I would do well at them, given my history).
But... I feel oddly rotten about being so old. I worked full-time for 2 years after my Master's, then so far for 1 year after my PhD, so it feels like I've never been out of school for very long, yet here I am thinking of going back again. I would probably have felt better if all 3 years of full-time work experience -- or four, by the time I apply -- would have "looked" better than 2 years here and 2 years there.
The funny thing is, when a 30-year old with a PhD in public health decides to pursue medicine, they are excoriated like I was by my family -- yet 3 out of 7 PhD students in my department were doctors in their 30s, well older than the rest of us. Less severe, because they are pursuing only 1- or 2-year MPH programs, are the sister who chewed my head off for bringing up the possibility of med school decided to pursue an MPH at 31 because she decided she no longer liked her job; and a cousin who pursued an MPH at age 32 and now works in the same office as I do. But... they both chewed my head off for wanting to be a physician, and they're not even treating people anymore.
How do people who applied to med school in their 30s feel? If they made it, how comfortable did they feel during the experience? If any of you have already done it in your 30s and graduated, did you feel like you put off life for way too long? I know one thing that my sister and cousin brought up ... they accused me of lengthening the time I would spend financially dependent & not self sufficient, but I have tens of thousands of dollars put away because I have a good full-time job & no dependents.
I was wondering if I could ask any non-trads who started med school in their 30s how they stay motivated about applying to med school, especially when they have "too much education" already (PhD in Public Health).
I am planning to take the MCATs early next year at age 30 and, if successful, enroll at age 31. But I am having this odd crises of feeling like, at age 30, I should already have been "done" by now. I floated the idea with friends and family, and they were 100% against it. A sister who is a doctor was almost violently angry at my even considering it; I was shaken.
However I feel like, without clinical knowledge, I only half know what I'm doing, and I cannot contribute as much as my colleagues, who can both provide obstetric surgeries on our medical missions and conduct clinical research with far more confidence, and of far higher depth & quality. (I currently work for an international foundation providing maternal health services in developing countries; before that, I was a research associate at a hospital.)
Essentially, I feel like medicine will make my qualifications for my career complete.
Many non-MD PhD students in my department felt the same frustrating lack of scientific knowledge in our major, reading all these studies containing obstetric terms & conditions that we didn't really know anything about. We pressured our professors for more science courses. A 2.9 uGPA Bio major, I avoided sciences during my MPH. However, as a PhD student, I took 3 hardcore science courses, feeling like I had to in order to understand what I was doing. But while I had access to general courses like Anatomy & Physiology, I didn't have any access to things like Obstetrics. I'm reading a reproductive biology textbook on my own right now, and each new chapter is like "oh so that's what that is".
What's more, I was so much better at the few hard sciences I took as a PhD student... well, 3 B+s in graduate-level biology classes, anyway, while my undergraduate sGPA was under 3.0. I feel like if I apply myself, and take undergraduate science courses, I can pull my undergraduate sGPA up (I totally regret not taking the three courses I took in grad school at an undergraduate level, but I didn't think, at the time, that I would do well at them, given my history).
But... I feel oddly rotten about being so old. I worked full-time for 2 years after my Master's, then so far for 1 year after my PhD, so it feels like I've never been out of school for very long, yet here I am thinking of going back again. I would probably have felt better if all 3 years of full-time work experience -- or four, by the time I apply -- would have "looked" better than 2 years here and 2 years there.
The funny thing is, when a 30-year old with a PhD in public health decides to pursue medicine, they are excoriated like I was by my family -- yet 3 out of 7 PhD students in my department were doctors in their 30s, well older than the rest of us. Less severe, because they are pursuing only 1- or 2-year MPH programs, are the sister who chewed my head off for bringing up the possibility of med school decided to pursue an MPH at 31 because she decided she no longer liked her job; and a cousin who pursued an MPH at age 32 and now works in the same office as I do. But... they both chewed my head off for wanting to be a physician, and they're not even treating people anymore.
How do people who applied to med school in their 30s feel? If they made it, how comfortable did they feel during the experience? If any of you have already done it in your 30s and graduated, did you feel like you put off life for way too long? I know one thing that my sister and cousin brought up ... they accused me of lengthening the time I would spend financially dependent & not self sufficient, but I have tens of thousands of dollars put away because I have a good full-time job & no dependents.
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After getting over that bit of laughter, I went back and have taken a years worth of post-bacc classes in the hopes that #1 I demonstrated my ability to handle 40-50 hour work weeks and taking 8 hours of classes a semester and #2 this will be a great way to study for the MCAT (before I study for the MCAT).
