Any Lawyers out there turning MD's?

[Ratty]

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Hello,

I was wondering if there are any JD's out there who are post-baccs--or anyone with a JD who's been successful in the admissions process. Adcoms keep telling me that I'll have to come up with an extra good reason to explain why I changed from law to medicine. They say that I'll always have to "explain away" my degree. Problem is, I don't have a good reason except that I really love diseases, being around patients, and getting my hands "dirty in blood and guts." I also feel that making a difference through healing is a lot more meaningful than helping someone with a legal problem, in my opinion. Dealing with documents and arguing with people all day is not my idea of fun. But I can't think up any good reason to tell adcoms. Adcoms keep saying that it's best if you have a "thread" to show your progression from law to medicine, such as helping the homeless with their legal problems or specializing in health law. I don't have anything like that--I just wanted to get out of law altogether, as fast as possible. Any other JD's out there who have tackled this hard question from adcoms successfully?

Thanks!

 

[mikestuy]

those sound like good reasons.

 

[ice_23]

Yea, I don't think that you should have a problem with your reasons. You sound like you really want to be a doctor, and that's really all that matters.

-Ice

 

[Shytown]

good to know there are some other hopefully "former attorneys" out there. I'm looking to leave the adversarial business of law for medicine as well, although, partly because I chickened out after undergrad. Anyway, Good luck to you.

 

[longshot]

dude....

i am sort of in the same boat as you. i am less than a month away from starting law school and i'm still thinking about going to medical school in the future. i feel like such a troll, frequenting these message boards.

jeez, i have so many questions to ask you....is it ok if I pm you with some of my queries?

as far as going to medical school, your definetely not the first lawyer to do so. i have a few med student friends who know some lawyers that are in their classes and apparently are doing well! Good luck, my guess is if you survived law school that itself is an indicator of your mental capabilities.

 

[PublicHealth]

How do MD/JD applicants justify their desire to pursue medicine and law? Use some of those reasons.

 

[juddson]

I'm a JD and I just fininished all my post-bacc work and applied to med school this season.

Your concerns keep me up at night. Your post is as if I had written it myself. I can't give any reasons for my switch from law to medicine that i would consider "compelling" to an adcom, but I have heard that people like you and I are viewed with special skepticism because we have law degrees.

PM me if you want to discuss more.

Judd

 

[Lara]

Just to let you know, the oldest guy in my class is a former county prosecutor who was recently elected president. 🙂

Best of luck! I think having the knowledge accumulated from law school should come in handy in life, even if you eventually become a doctor. I've wondered at times how interesting vs. boring I would have found it myself.

 

[Trying&Trying]

I work for a psychiatrist right now who was once a lawyer. He told me once that he was a medical malpractice lawyer, but since he didn't make any money out of it, he went back to school to become a doctor.

 

[link26]

Originally posted by Trying&Trying
I work for a psychiatrist right now who was once a lawyer. He told me once that he was a medical malpractice lawyer, but since he didn't make any money out of it, he went back to school to become a doctor.

how times have changed.......

 

[fun8stuff]

this is kinda of off topic, but this reminds me... does anyone else have pre-med advisors that really seem to push law if you fail to get into med school. Both of the advisors I had at first were always telling people, "well, if you don't get into medical school... there's always law!" psshh... I'd be a PhD before a lawyer...

 

[DD214_DOC]

Getting a Ph.D. is 10x more difficult than getting an MD/DO. I really wish people would quit referring to Ph.D.'s in a deragatory manner.

The easiest way to a doctorate is through a professional school. To get accepted to medical school, you only need to perform well in 6 semester's worth of 100-level courses. Remember that.

And "I want to be a doctor because I like to help people by healing them" isn't going to cut it. This is the most generic reason for going to medical school.

 

[OrthoFixation]

Originally posted by JKDMed
1. Getting a Ph.D. is 10x more difficult than getting an MD/DO.

2. To get accepted to medical school, you only need to perform well in 6 semester's worth of 100-level courses.

3. And "I want to be a doctor because I like to help people by healing them" isn't going to cut it. This is the most generic reason for going to medical school.

1. To each his own. Difficulty is determined by passion or lack thereof.

2. A major mis-statement. I guess Org II is a freshman class at your school? All that other GPA stuff is insignificant. You probably got in w/o a degree too?

3. Totally agree with you here.


You past lawyers are making choices for the right reason. After 10 years of making good $$$ in biz, I found myself looking around for what impact I had made. There wasn't much, if any. I still remember making the decision to go for it. July 4, 2001, after discussing it for hours with my wife. She is great to be fully supportive of our path.

I'm sure to be asked about a half completed engineering masters degree. Can't raise any doubts in this process. Applying is random enough with out creating your own obstacles.

 

[Dr Trek 1]

I wanted to point out that many MDs go for other degrees (health care administration, teaching, etc). I have always thought that once I have experience in practicing medicine, think of how many malpractice suits I'd be able to win, understanding everything from the physician's perspective. Particularly in cases where a quack physician did something blatantly unethical, I'd get out a copy of the Hippocratic oath, approach the witness stand and say something like, "Can you read the 5th line for me please?" and then I'd say, "And you cally yourself a doctor??"

Just a thought. And there is much more to law than arguing with people all day.

 

[fun8stuff]

Originally posted by JKDMed
Getting a Ph.D. is 10x more difficult than getting an MD/DO. I really wish people would quit referring to Ph.D.'s in a deragatory manner.

hmmm... I never meant to make any reference to the difficulty of getting a Ph.D., however, since you brought it up I will have to add that it definately depends on what you are trying to get a PhD in. Both my dad and 2 brothers have PhDs and having grown up around a bunch of PhDs (my dads friends) I can guarentee you that some are a lot easier than others, and that getting a MD/ DO is harder than a large chunk of them. I wouldn't even go as far as saying 10x harder...

PhD: 4 yrs undergrad + about 4 yrs graduate (some times more, some times less). For the most part, very low stress (Except around orals or dissertation time)

MD/ DO: 4 yrs undergrad + 4 yrs med school + 3+ yrs residency. The first 4 are very comparable to PhD, however, the last seven of MD/ DO are 100x more stressful than the PhD route. This is probably why a lot of people who cannot get into or make it through med school get a PhD.

I was definately not referring to getting a PhD in a derrogatory manner, lol... I do not see how saying that getting PhD is one of my possible plans for the future is in anyway negative.... the only point i wanted to make is that I would dislike very much being a lawyer. I would go nutzo. There's too many anyways...

I also think most pre-med programs include a lot more than 100 level classes... just as many as most other majors and I know that I am taking for 3-400 level classes then most of my friends in other majors... orgo 320 & 321, physics 211 &212, Quantitative Analysis Chem 360 , anat and phys 320 & 321, calc 220 & 221, special studies in chem 490, several 400 level humanities, medical geog 490, .........and the list goes on... maybe you should look into pre-med requirements... one of the requirements is a bachelors
Plan:
#1 Medicine... if not:
#2 PhD

 

[judoka]

i mean, if you study something in undergrad, you can pretty much get a phD in it from somewhere. There are phD spots at every university in the country. However, only 1/3 to 1/2 of kids get into med school anywhere, because it is competitive and there are few slots. at cornell, most kids i know who want a phD get into a top program if they have a 3.2, but if we want to get into a top med school, we need like 3.8's. Its harder to get into med school. It's harder to stay in too, because it has alot more responsibility.

 

[DD214_DOC]

The high "standards" for medical school only show that there is more competition than Ph.D. programs, not because brighter people attend. The competition is only high because of the needlessly high salaries of physicians. If Ph.D. students made $150,000 or more a year after their post-doctoral work, then the admission stats would be just as high as med school.

Ph.D. graduates do post-doctoral work as well. The post-doctoral education of a physician is the only stressful part of the entire process. No oral comprehensive exam, no research, no writing of a dissertation, no dissertation defense. Med students have a lot of reading, memorizing, and one written comprehensive exam. Not to mention, entrance into graduate school requires more than just 32 hours of 100-level courses.

Why am I arguing all of this? I don't know, boredom I guess, but I do get tired of med students trashing Ph.D's.

 

[Dr. Xavier]

Lawyers suck a$$.

 

[mikestuy]

i'm wondering if the reverse has ever happened: MDs leaving medicine to pursue law (and I dont mean combined MD/JD programs).

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

Why an MD would ever leave the noble profession of medicine to pursue a career as a lawyer is beyond me. There is a glut of lawyers in the job market which explains why people with law degrees from lower tier law schools are unemployed. I've noticed that being "prelaw" is kind of a default track for those who couldn't hanlde the premed curriculum or the curriculum in the physical sciences/engineering fields. I know several people who transferred out of the College of Engineering at my school and are now history/political "science" majors (headed to law school). I also know a handful of premed dropouts (guys who left the molecular-cell biology major) who are now comparitive literature majors destined for law school. The only job security in the legal profession seems to concentrated for those who graduated from the top 15 or so law schools. And the job security for these lawyers isn't even that great seeing as corporate law firms routinely let go of their associates. In a way, I almost feel sorry for people in law school because they'll enter a job market which is already full of lawyers and they'll end up being like every other job applicant just whoring themselves out with a piece of paper (resume) to anyone who will take them. Reading the following article really sheds some light on the "glamorous" legal profession. The author of the article that I linked to below is a graduate of an Ivy League university and planned on practicing corporate law for the rest of his life...until he saw how utterly pointless his line of work was. He then realized that his life as a corporate attorney closely resembled the vapid, endless abyss that most of us would call "hell"... It really is a great article though and it does shed some light on the everday life of a lawyer in New York City.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_1_a2.html

 

[juddson]

Everything BerkelyPremed has said is the God's honest truth, in every way. Sad to say, but he has nailed it exactly. I graduated from a top five law school and waltzed into a 6 figure job at 25 years old. Corporate law is the vapid wasteland described in the article.

Yet, many MD's go into the law. In fact, lawyers, on average, are happier than MD's are. Job satisfaction, for some reason, is actually higher. I can't tell you why. maybe selection bias.

When I left my firm, EVERY SINGLE lower level attorney (all making six figures) told me that they wished they were doing what I was doing, and that they had never met an attorney that liked what they did.

judd

 

[gpannu]

Hey I'm actually defering my law school admission. I got into a top canadian school but for the same reason (become a doctor) I want to defer my law school admission. Anyhow, can you please comment on my post. Furthermore, I basically decided to apply to law school as an alternative to medicine. I thought patent and IP law would be good fields to ger into. But, I basically backed out because I'm not very passsionate about law thus my post. THanks for your help.

Ez,

So I finally gathered up so courage and decided to defer my law school admission until next year. For some reason, I just couldn't get excited about the idea of becoming a lawyer. It just didn't feel right inside.

Anyhow, I'm a bit blue because I'm unsure what my plans are for this year. In undergrad I was a science major and I always dreamt of becoming a physcian. In fact, i feel a bit jealous one some of my friends who are physcians discuss how much they are enjoying medical school. I applied once during undergrad but I knew I didn't have a good shot. Luckily my marks aren't too bad about a 3.54 Cad GPA. I think the American GPA is a 3.58. So I know I have a shot. Part of the reason, I couldn't commit to law was because I felt I was giving up too easily on medicine. It just seemed eveytime I tried to convince my self to go to law school some inner voice or something inside was holding me back. I believe it has something to do with not giving my MCAT a real shot. A few years ago, I took the MCAT without any preparation. I did real poorly because I didn't study for it. I think I was burnt out at the time and I couldn't force my self to study. Anyhow, i'm at a point where I think medicine may be my calling i'm just worried because I don't know where the hell my motivation has went. I've down a lot of soul searching lately and I've come up with the following goals that I want in a career. Based on these goals it seemed to me medicine or perhaps another health realted field seems like a better fit than law.

1. I want to become a professional. I really want a professional education because of the job security. If I ever decided to pursue another career or business venture, I could always utilize my professional degree as a back up in case those venture never worked out.

2. I would like to run my own business one day mainly because I do not like the structured routine life style of a 9-5 er. I preferably would like to set my own work hours. It appears to me that the healthcare professions have the most mobitliy in terms of creating their own work hours.

3. I want to be financially secure. Preferably making more than 100K per year.

4. I am interested in ustiling my science background in my career. Preferably my biology knowledge. Biology and neuroscience are two areas that I found very intellectually rewarding. Especailly physiology and anything realted to sovling medical problems. I find the idea of uitling your scientifc language to solve a patients problem very interesting. In other words, the idea of someone walking in with symptoms x,y,z and then using your background and knowledge to solve that very rewarding.

5. I also want a career that makes a meanigful contribution to others lives. When I pass, I want to look back on my life and feel that I did something worthy. I think that may be another reason I didn't seem intrigued by law school. I don't think I would have been making an immeadiate difference in people lives if I was pursuing patent law or IP law. Rather, i'd be making some rich bastard some $$$$. Further it seemed to me that all the money in law was in the field of corporate law. I couldn't fathom doing business transacations for the rest of my life.

6. Obviously I think this goes hand in hand with #1. I want a career that has status and prestige. You guys can shoot me if u want but that's part of the lure to the professions. Obviously that's NOT my only reason for choosing a career otherwise I would have pursued law.

7. Lastly, the thought of spending the next few years of my life doing clinicals, working long hours, being on call never really bothered me. In fact, it did the opposite i thought of all the hard work as exciting and challenging.

8. My longterm goal is to eventually work in Canada. I think this is why I fear getting into medicine because I want to practice meds in canada and not anywhere else. I've thought about going overseas or the U.S. but if I do it would be extremley difficult to return and I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life in the u.s.. I guess home is home. To some extent that's why the law appealed to me because I could practice in Canada. I've also thought about dentistry lately but I don't want to add another option untill I gain some more experience.

Does anyone else have any suggestion as to how else I can gain more experince in meds

Anyhow, I plan on working with those two docotrs and I'm hoping my motivation for meds returns with a vegenance...otherwise i'm not sure what i'm gonna do. I'm concerned because taking this year off will mean two years away from school.

So anyone else why medicine?....guys and gals help me out...please repond i'd love to hear your comments

 

[Nolan]

To Judd,

From reading your post, I can sense your genuine interest to practice medicine. You are definitely going into medicine for the ??right?? reasons: a desire to better people??s lives and contribute something good to the society. I know a lot of premeds who are going into medicine for the money and prestige.

Your life experience definitely makes you an appealing candidate. I would suggest you start taking required classes and preparing for the MCAT. You will have to make the cut first before having the chance to sit in front of adcoms to explain your motivation. Shadowing doctors will also help you find out whether or not this is what you want to do.

If you have the passion and the right reasons to go into medicine, you will find this profession extremely rewarding. Best of luck to you!

Nolan

 

[Thewonderer]

1) I know of some fellow med students who are also pursuing a JD right now. 2 out of 3 do not plan to practice medicine later on. They will get their MD but forgo residency. Seriously, residency life style sucks.

2) Too many of your romanticize medical education a tad too much. So much of what you hate about law happens during your 3rd + 4th year of med school and throughout residencies (which last 3-10 years depending on whether you include fellowship or not). By the time that you are in total control as a attending over your schedule and having your "own" patients to cut, it will be at least 9 years from now (4 years of med school + 5 years of general surgery residency). During those 9 years, you will feel extremely incompetent for a good 5-7 years or so, will have kiss some asses, will have to deal with different personalities (and that's a big deal when you spend 80-100 hours per week with certain people and also every month or so you switch teams and work with different residents and attendings and nurses, etc.).
Trust me. Medicine is not all about being collegial; it is more about hierarchy than anything else.


3) Med school is hard than PhD. Spending hours and hours even into the nights memorizing requires a lot more discipline than running an 8-hour experiment. During 3rd and 4th year of med schools, whenever you are in an inpatient service, there is no weekend. You work 80+ hours and have to stand all the crap thrown at you, even from nurses. You have to stay up 34 straight hours. Every time you admit a patient, it is an ORAL exam in front of the whole team (and you admit patients almost every other day on medicine and peds). You are being scrutinized all the time. I don't see how anyone who really knows anything about med school would say that it is easier than a PhD program.

 

[juddson]

Hi Nolon,

Already done all of that. I'm in this season's application cycle. I made the big decision two years ago and hopefully it will all culminate sometime between now and next August.

Judd