PLEASE help me decide if this is right for me...

[phillips101]

Like pretty much every other pre-med out there, in college, I have ALWAYS wanted to be a doctor...and I mean ALWAYS, ever since I can remember. But then as I progressed throughout my college career, I had doubts after doubts- mainly because my parents were the people who always pushed DR. DR. DR. down my throat. I didn't want to go into a field simply to oblige to their wish. Nevertheless, I finished college having taken all my premed courses and was getting ready to take the MCAT.

While studying for the MCAT, I had a HUGE crisis in my career choice and after a lot of going back and forth, decided to pursue clinical research instead. A part of this was (again) I didn't know if medicine was truly for me, or I was brainwashed by my parents to think so, and I don't know if I'm honestly cut out to be a doctor (I'd never admit that, but deep down that's how I feel).

Anyways! A year and a half after, after working a clinical lab for the past year, I'm again having doubts, and this time I actually want to pursue an MD/DO again.

Okay, so here's the academia aspect:
I graduated from Johns Hopkins with honors, cummulative GPA is 3.57, science GPA is 3.37. My first 2 years killed me, as I seriously didn't know how to study. I have a very very strong upward trend, going from 3.1 GPA my first 2 years to a 3.8/3.9 my last 2 years. The only bad part is I crammed all my premed classes within the first 2 years, and I didn't do stellar on them. I got 2 C's and 1 retake. However, I took physics II in my senior year (skipped a year from physics I) and got an A, and pretty much made A's in all the other upper-level/graduate level neuroscience classes I was taking.

I also just recently took my GRE and got a 1500, 97th+ percentile in both math and verbal if that means anything. I know my GRE score won't matter for med school apps of course. I have decent volunteering experience from undergrad, but nothing like doing EMT or red cross stuff. Plus, I've been working as a research assistant at a clinical cognitive neuroscience lab for the past year and am doing very well.

Sighhh please can someone help me? I'm set to go as far as applying for PhD, I have no doubt I'll get in somewhere...but I also don't want to turn away from medicine until I've tried. I never did took my MCAT, but it's not too late now, so I'm thinking about studying for it. Plus, I'm leaning more towards DO than MD.

THANK YOU! Sorry if this was a long rant/post.

Edit: just a bit more background info, I'm having doubts about PhD vs. DO/MD mostly because after researching programs and schools, I find that I'm looking for programs where I can work with diseased populations in a clinical setting helping them...and uhh that sounds a lot more like medicine than research if you ask me.

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[aSagacious]

Have you considered an MD/PhD (or a DO/PhD)? You could have your cake and eat it too.

If so, I doubt you'd get in through the MSTP program directly, but you will probably be able to complete your PhD and then pursue medical school (or the other way around if preferred).

In any case, you needn't treat the two as mutually exclusive.

 

[Catalystik]

-I have decent volunteering experience from undergrad, but nothing like doing EMT or red cross stuff.
-Plus, I've been working as a research assistant at a clinical cognitive neuroscience lab for the past year and am doing very well.

Let's look at what else you'd need to do before becoming competitive for med schools besides the MCAT.

Obviously your one-year research background is good, but perhaps you could detail the other ECs and their timeframes you'd list on a med school application: clinical (volunteering or via research, if you interacted directly with sick people), shadowing (and acquisition of a DO LOR), nonmedical community service, leadership, teaching, hobbies/sports/artistic interests. Any pubs pending?

 

[phillips101]

Let's look at what else you'd need to do before becoming competitive for med schools besides the MCAT.

Obviously your one-year research background is good, but perhaps you could detail the other ECs and their timeframes you'd list on a med school application: clinical (volunteering or via research, if you interacted directly with sick people), shadowing (and acquisition of a DO LOR), nonmedical community service, leadership, teaching, hobbies/sports/artistic interests. Any pubs pending?

Okay, let's see... (all of these are undergrad)

Volunteer-wise:
-Service frat for 2 years, I was secretary for 1 year, and was project coordinator for a project but never ran for president or anything
-Volunteered at nursing home for 1 summer
-Volunteered with MS patient for 3 years, developed pretty close relationship with her
-Volunteer/interned at behavioral modification facility with children with autistic or other neurodegenerative disorders

Research-wise: (Note that I was NOT planning on going into research in undergrad)
-1 year research in neuroscience lab, no pubs and didn't keep in contact with PI since then
-My current research, been here for a year. No pubs, I'm seriously working towards that. Experience-wise, I'm running experiments independently (it's a human subjects lab, so I don't have my own "project" per se), training undergrad + graduate students, conducting screening interviews. On top of this, I'm also working to do so data analysis and hopefully get something published when I leave.
-Oh yea, I do have a publication, not first author, from a research lab I did back in highschool, but the paper was published while I was an undergrad.

As far as shadowing, if I decide to apply to medical school, I'll probably shadow a DO at some point this year.

Also, I taught Kaplan tutoring for about half a year before ending up at my current job.

See I feel like I don't have anything that STANDS OUT in my application. These are things that ANY serious premed has. Maybe the only thing that I THINK I stand out on is the fact that I'm practically running the show when it comes to running experiments at this current lab, and the whole lab is well aware of that. But then again, this will help me more when applying for PhD than for DO/MD.

For the PhD/MD combo degree. For various reasons, I'm not looking into that option. Mostly, I honestly don't think I'm competitive enough for those programs, and second...I want to focus on just either one or the other, I'm a woman and would like to have kids some day.

 

[Catalystik]

I think you have some pretty good stuff there, lacking only the shadowing. Relative to the average applicant, your volunteerism stands out to me.

The HS pub is fine to list if it was in a national journal.

If you want to stand out, maybe you could accomplish that with your hobbies, sport, or artistic endeavors. Some have done it with such mundane activites as becoming the master of grandma's dumpling recipe, knitting afghans for soldiers in Iraq, or making 1000 paper cranes for a kid in a cancer unit. Something as simple as these examples can make you intriguing enough that an adcomm wants to meet you in an interview.