Best path to health care when you're not from any related science?

[Physicalisian]

Hi everyone !

I am currently in my undergrad and enjoy what I'm studying in terms of academia (math & computer science) but I don't really have a desire to work in the industry or to pursue grad school as these options don't seem fulfilling to me. I've always been attracted to the medical field and working in health care in some way is I feel the only thing that I could pursue and feel good about it if that makes sense. I most likely will not be able to satisfy much if any pre-requisites to health care for the remainder of my time at school so I wonder what the best path going forward for me is?

Should I pursue PA, RN, NP or even MD/DO? Or if you feel that I should never be allowed near a hospital in my life feel free to share that too!

Some more background on me would be that at this point I'd like to try to avoid a significant more amount of schooling as I'd like to be both in the hospital and have the free time to pursue my own interests in mathematics. In terms of the pre-reqs I find biology interesting enough, chemistry is a little dull and physics is kind of annoying. While I really love math I don't really enjoy the kinds of math that is required/taught to pre-healthcare. I don't really feel a lot of passion for the subjects themselves aside from some interest in biology but of course I'd have to be willing to get through them to do what I want to.

If you have any experience in anything related please share, or if you have some opinion on my character I'd also hear that out.

Thank you very much.

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[pamac]

To be perfectly honest, you sound like the perfect candidate for PA school. What you can do is do research and find a few programs that don’t place heavy emphasis on recruiting folks with any health care experience, or if they do, will accept folks with a bare minimum, like CNA work history or even scribes. Those kinds of programs constitute well over half of the PA programs out there. Many even accept volunteer work as something they will consider appropriate. Then, find the ones that have the bare minimum prerequisites. Most of the time you can be any major and just take things like anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, psychology, and other similarly associated sciences. One program near me literally has 5 or six prerequisites. Granted, one of the prerequisites is a course that has its own prerequisites, so taking all 5 isn’t as straightforward as one might hope. But that program primarily judges their applicants based on the GPA from just those particular courses. Make sure you ACE every prerequisites, and you are pretty much guaranteed to get in.

I’ve seen that approach to be successful for countless applicants to PA school. A friend of mine managed to spend a year taking classes and went straight into PA school, and he had a business degree right before he decided to change gears. The key was getting As in the prerequisites.

That’s your best and fastest route. Med school probably means 8 years of effort or more for you. Most routes to NP for you take 3.5 or more years. You are still in undergrad, so you can use your electives to take the PA program prerequisites.