Advice Needed: Mechanical Engineer in Oil and Gas.

[tablemaker]

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Howdy all,

I am currently a freshly graduated (10ish months out of school) mechanical engineer working for an oil and gas company. I have a great job and program that I am in. My program is a "fast track" of sorts for oil and gas drilling. I work 14 days on and have 14 days off with some caveats, which allows me ample time to work on other things such as a potential medical school application. The reason I am posting here is that I am heavily considering going back to school to pursue medical school and becoming a doctor, and I would like to get advice to help guide me in this process. My current program will last around 15 more months for the field portion and another year for the office portion. Once my program is over, my goal is to commit to whatever path I decide on. I also do not want to leave my program now as it allows for me to save 80-90% of my salary and allows for me to set myself up in a great financial position which is very important to me.

Here are my current stats (they obviously need major work/additions)

GPA: (These need improvement. Since I have a BSME degree, I do not have all the needed pre-requisites for medical school so I would have to take a post-bacc. This would be how I would be able to increase my GPA. I also would hope that the difficulty of an engineering degree would look favorable on a medical school application, but I have read it largely doesn't matter).
BSME GPAc = 3.573; GPAs = 3.37

Research: Nothing medically related. I do have engineering research, but only one project that would not matter much. I would have to get research experience during a post-bacc.

Shadowing: I currently have 20 - 30 hours with an Emergency medicine doctor. I did have another shadowing opportunity with a pediatric doctor but personal reasons prevented the shadowing from happening.

Volunteering: Nothing recent. Engineering jobs don't really stress having volunteering.

MCAT: As I don't have the pre-requisite courses for medical school, I have never taken the test. I consider myself a reasonably good test taker, however, I would need to go through the post-bacc and study for a significant amount of time to do well.

My current plan is to continue with my program and use the time that I have to help me come to a decision while ALSO working on making a more attractive medical school application. Since I am already 22 years old, I don't want to waste any more time than I would otherwise have to get into medical school. I plan to use my time to work on improving the areas that I can. The GPA and research would be areas that would have to wait for a potential post-bacc to be improved (correct me if otherwise, and that there are ways to improve them now). So, shadowing and volunteering would be the areas that I believe I can focus on now. This would include doing more shadowing, non-medically related volunteering such as food bank volunteering (or something closer to my current skillset), and medically related volunteering. For the medically related volunteering, I would like to do volunteer EMS work but would be open to anything.

Lastly, my post may convey a wishy-washy stance on committing to medical school, but that is not how I feel. I genuinely feel strongly about pursuing medicine and have greatly enjoyed the shadowing that I have done, as well as the things that come with this path, however, I need to solidify my feelings on medical school so that I make the right decision.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I would love to hear whether or not this is even feasible. And I would especially love to know what I should be working on now so that I actually have a shot at doing this!

 

[petomed]

Welcome to the change, fellow mechanical engineer. The first thing that I would say is that research is not a prerequisite to medical school admission. If you want to be a 90th percentile applicant, then of course. Everything is fair game. However, if your goal is simply to gain admission to medical school and move on with your life, then research is certainly not required. It sounds like you already have some engineering-oriented research, even though this is not medical. I can tell you that this puts you in a better position than many others.

Secondly, it sounds like you have ample time on a regular basis to be dedicating towards night prerequisite classes. While it’s always ideal to take university > community college > distance classes, I think you could pretty well get by with night classes. Certainly do a double-check first at the medical schools to which you plan to apply to be sure the learning option you’re pursuing is acceptable. But I don’t think that you’ll have very much trouble doing distance classes, provided that they are from an accredited university.

Your GPA is very similar to what mine was as a mechanical engineering bachelor’s student. I believe by making all A’s in the missing prerequisites that I was able to boost mine to something like a 3.5 or slightly higher. The real delineator is going to be, of course, the MCAT. For this, I wouldn’t really consider doing anything other than a guaranteed minimum score course that is offered through one of the major test prep companies immediately after you’ve completed all of your prerequisite coursework.

The value of volunteering is often highly underestimated. The thing you need to understand is that this is a measure of your understanding of medicine, extremely important for someone who is switching careers into the field. You mentioned the food bank, and this is a good idea. What admissions committees are really hoping to glean from your volunteering experiences is introspection. That is to say, you’ve seen things and learned things, and how does that alter the way you think about medicine? How do your experiences in medicine impact the reasoning for why you’re choosing medicine, and furthermore, why you can do nothing else but medicine? So choose something that enables you to see doctors deliver care to marginalized populations at a minimum and do this for as many hours as you possibly can. And do it as soon as possible, all the way up through matriculation. For me, I had hundreds of hours in the same local ER by the time of application submission.

With all this aside, I would definitely offer caution. You have what seems like a very high-paying career path that offers perhaps substantially more work-life balance than can be found in most areas of medicine. There are major, unpredictable disruptions that are becoming very active in medicine right now. Namely, artificial intelligence adaptation and mid-level proliferation. Getting board certified in a specialty used to mean you were set for life. However, talking to current residents, they’re nervous depending on the specialty. Additionally, it would be shocking if DOGE didn’t try to destroy PSLF during the next four years, or at least make it a horrific version of its current self for doctors.

I wouldn’t say that I would change my mind on having switched into medicine. But the game has changed in the past 5 years. Take these pieces of advice with a grain of salt, everyone’s experiences and CV are quite different. I’m personally loving every day having switched and can’t imagine still doing my previous job. Feel free to dm me.

 

[LindaAccepted]

Howdy all,

I am currently a freshly graduated (10ish months out of school) mechanical engineer working for an oil and gas company. I have a great job and program that I am in. My program is a "fast track" of sorts for oil and gas drilling. I work 14 days on and have 14 days off with some caveats, which allows me ample time to work on other things such as a potential medical school application. The reason I am posting here is that I am heavily considering going back to school to pursue medical school and becoming a doctor, and I would like to get advice to help guide me in this process. My current program will last around 15 more months for the field portion and another year for the office portion. Once my program is over, my goal is to commit to whatever path I decide on. I also do not want to leave my program now as it allows for me to save 80-90% of my salary and allows for me to set myself up in a great financial position which is very important to me.

Here are my current stats (they obviously need major work/additions)

GPA: (These need improvement. Since I have a BSME degree, I do not have all the needed pre-requisites for medical school so I would have to take a post-bacc. This would be how I would be able to increase my GPA. I also would hope that the difficulty of an engineering degree would look favorable on a medical school application, but I have read it largely doesn't matter).
BSME GPAc = 3.573; GPAs = 3.37

Research: Nothing medically related. I do have engineering research, but only one project that would not matter much. I would have to get research experience during a post-bacc.

Shadowing: I currently have 20 - 30 hours with an Emergency medicine doctor. I did have another shadowing opportunity with a pediatric doctor but personal reasons prevented the shadowing from happening.

Volunteering: Nothing recent. Engineering jobs don't really stress having volunteering.

MCAT: As I don't have the pre-requisite courses for medical school, I have never taken the test. I consider myself a reasonably good test taker, however, I would need to go through the post-bacc and study for a significant amount of time to do well.

My current plan is to continue with my program and use the time that I have to help me come to a decision while ALSO working on making a more attractive medical school application. Since I am already 22 years old, I don't want to waste any more time than I would otherwise have to get into medical school. I plan to use my time to work on improving the areas that I can. The GPA and research would be areas that would have to wait for a potential post-bacc to be improved (correct me if otherwise, and that there are ways to improve them now). So, shadowing and volunteering would be the areas that I believe I can focus on now. This would include doing more shadowing, non-medically related volunteering such as food bank volunteering (or something closer to my current skillset), and medically related volunteering. For the medically related volunteering, I would like to do volunteer EMS work but would be open to anything.

Lastly, my post may convey a wishy-washy stance on committing to medical school, but that is not how I feel. I genuinely feel strongly about pursuing medicine and have greatly enjoyed the shadowing that I have done, as well as the things that come with this path, however, I need to solidify my feelings on medical school so that I make the right decision.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I would love to hear whether or not this is even feasible. And I would especially love to know what I should be working on now so that I actually have a shot at doing this!

The first think you should be doing, which you are planning to do, is gaining clinical exposure and also doing some volunteering with the underserved in a non-clinical setting. Both activities will help you make your decision whether to leave engineering and pursue medicine or not. EMS work would be great. And, they will help you get accepted to both a post-bac program and ultimately medical school if you choose to go that route. More shadowing will also help, but given where you're at now, get the clinical exposure before you do a ton of shadowing. Again, it will help you make your decision.

As the previous poster noted, you don't need research to get into medical school. You do need clinical exposure and evidence of dedication to service in addition to the academic requirements.

 

[tablemaker]

Welcome to the change, fellow mechanical engineer. The first thing that I would say is that research is not a prerequisite to medical school admission. If you want to be a 90th percentile applicant, then of course. Everything is fair game. However, if your goal is simply to gain admission to medical school and move on with your life, then research is certainly not required. It sounds like you already have some engineering-oriented research, even though this is not medical. I can tell you that this puts you in a better position than many others.

Secondly, it sounds like you have ample time on a regular basis to be dedicating towards night prerequisite classes. While it’s always ideal to take university > community college > distance classes, I think you could pretty well get by with night classes. Certainly do a double-check first at the medical schools to which you plan to apply to be sure the learning option you’re pursuing is acceptable. But I don’t think that you’ll have very much trouble doing distance classes, provided that they are from an accredited university.

Your GPA is very similar to what mine was as a mechanical engineering bachelor’s student. I believe by making all A’s in the missing prerequisites that I was able to boost mine to something like a 3.5 or slightly higher. The real delineator is going to be, of course, the MCAT. For this, I wouldn’t really consider doing anything other than a guaranteed minimum score course that is offered through one of the major test prep companies immediately after you’ve completed all of your prerequisite coursework.

The value of volunteering is often highly underestimated. The thing you need to understand is that this is a measure of your understanding of medicine, extremely important for someone who is switching careers into the field. You mentioned the food bank, and this is a good idea. What admissions committees are really hoping to glean from your volunteering experiences is introspection. That is to say, you’ve seen things and learned things, and how does that alter the way you think about medicine? How do your experiences in medicine impact the reasoning for why you’re choosing medicine, and furthermore, why you can do nothing else but medicine? So choose something that enables you to see doctors deliver care to marginalized populations at a minimum and do this for as many hours as you possibly can. And do it as soon as possible, all the way up through matriculation. For me, I had hundreds of hours in the same local ER by the time of application submission.

With all this aside, I would definitely offer caution. You have what seems like a very high-paying career path that offers perhaps substantially more work-life balance than can be found in most areas of medicine. There are major, unpredictable disruptions that are becoming very active in medicine right now. Namely, artificial intelligence adaptation and mid-level proliferation. Getting board certified in a specialty used to mean you were set for life. However, talking to current residents, they’re nervous depending on the specialty. Additionally, it would be shocking if DOGE didn’t try to destroy PSLF during the next four years, or at least make it a horrific version of its current self for doctors.

I wouldn’t say that I would change my mind on having switched into medicine. But the game has changed in the past 5 years. Take these pieces of advice with a grain of salt, everyone’s experiences and CV are quite different. I’m personally loving every day having switched and can’t imagine still doing my previous job. Feel free to dm me.

Thanks for the reply!

I was thinking of taking some prerequisite courses during my time off. Anatomy was the one thing I thought would be reasonable to enroll in now as it lets me learn more about medicine. And I think it would be best to leave the harder courses like Ochem for during a Post Bacc at a university. Do you have any recommendations on where to take a course like this? Would a local Community College be my best bet? Or do some universities offer asynchronous courses that I would be able to enroll in?

Also, you mentioned you had done volunteer work at a local ER. Was this like office work or EMS-type volunteering? As for volunteering, I mostly just threw out food bank as a generic idea of volunteering -- not something that I was set on. Do you have any recommendations for more medically introspective volunteering opportunities?

Lastly, if you don't mind me asking, why did you transition to medicine from engineering? Did you want something more meaningful, etc?

Thanks again!

 

[tablemaker]

The first think you should be doing, which you are planning to do, is gaining clinical exposure and also doing some volunteering with the underserved in a non-clinical setting. Both activities will help you make your decision whether to leave engineering and pursue medicine or not. EMS work would be great. And, they will help you get accepted to both a post-bac program and ultimately medical school if you choose to go that route. More shadowing will also help, but given where you're at now, get the clinical exposure before you do a ton of shadowing. Again, it will help you make your decision.

As the previous poster noted, you don't need research to get into medical school. You do need clinical exposure and evidence of dedication to service in addition to the academic requirements.

Thanks for the reply!

Do you have any advice on volunteering at an EMS? Would I need specific certifications to volunteer, etc?

Thanks!

 

[LindaAccepted]

Thanks for the reply!

Do you have any advice on volunteering at an EMS? Would I need specific certifications to volunteer, etc?

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure you can volunteer in an emergency room without any specific certifications. You may need to attend a hospital volunteer training program, but that shouldn't take too much time. For any role more responsible than that, you would probably need EMT certification. But others may know more about the answer to your question if you post it as a separate post.