Can I pursue both engineering and medicine?

[russkiyximik]

Hey everyone! I am a high school senior matriculating into a state university for chemical engineering. I loved chemistry, math, and physics in high school. I was turned off by biology (last bio class I took was 4 years ago), but I'm feeling a lot more open-minded about it. I participated in chem-related extracurriculars in high school. The thing is, I am not sure what I want to do as a career path. The plan was to do some sort of engineering (leaning towards aerospace industry), but recently I've been drawn to medicine. I plan on getting EMT certification this summer. These are the questions I'm most concerned about:
Will being involved in cheme extracurriculars and societies in undergrad like AIChE (and competitions hosted by them) as opposed to their premed counterparts be detrimental to my med school application? Will the type/field of undergraduate research I do matter, or do med schools not really care as long as it shows tenacity, problem-solving and analytical skills, etc.? Can I get away with potentially having less clinical hours due to engineering ecs and activities?
I'm keeping in mind that as I get more experience in both engineering and health I'll narrow down the one I want to do as a profession. But assuming worst case scenario (50/50 split in extracurriculars and activities), would my med school application still be competitive? Thank you!

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[einvincible12]

No med school cares if you are a member of a premed society or a member of aiche, they both mean basically nothing. Also, what is drawing you to be a member of aiche? Again, your potential engineering employers also will not care. Do a personal project, make something new, that's worth leaps and bounds more than sitting in on a few meetings learning nothing.

Research topics don't matter much, feel free to do ChemE research.

You will not get any grace for less clinical or worse GPA due to being a ChemE. ChemE is hard, do not let the GPA slip during the first year and a half of easy classes, save a buffer zone for Heat/Mass transfer and Thermo.

I am a current ChemE, thinking of taking 1 or 2 gap years, not sure yet. Figure out what you want to do, but realize that medicine will likely require at least one gap year if you choose to explore ChemE more(i.e. Co-Op, internships etc.)

Also off topic, but why are you pursing ChemE if you want to work in aerospace? Not many jobs for ChemEs in aero.

 

[russkiyximik]

Thanks for the response. You answered pretty much most of my questions.

Also, what is drawing you to be a member of aiche? Again, your potential engineering employers also will not care. Do a personal project, make something new, that's worth leaps and bounds more than sitting in on a few meetings learning nothing.

What I meant is I want to do extracurriculars administered by my university's AIChE chapter; they have like 4 different cheme competitions. If I dedicate a lot of time to participation in these competitions, or even any other engineering ecs/competitions for that matter, would med schools not like the fact that they aren't, well, med-related? Because I would assume honors and awards in such competitions carry weight for the strictly engineering pipeline.

Also, how are there little jobs for chemes in aero? I was thinking jet propulsion systems for spacex or nasa or something...

 

[einvincible12]

Thanks for the response. You answered pretty much most of my questions.

What I meant is I want to do extracurriculars administered by my university's AIChE chapter; they have like 4 different cheme competitions. If I dedicate a lot of time to participation in these competitions, or even any other engineering ecs/competitions for that matter, would med schools not like the fact that they aren't, well, med-related? Because I would assume honors and awards in such competitions carry weight for the strictly engineering pipeline.

Also, how are there little jobs for chemes in aero? I was thinking jet propulsion systems for spacex or nasa or something...

These activities will not hurt you, and to some degree can help you with med school admissions. For example, I am currently on a 7 month Co-Op, sure this is not related to medicine, but it shows I can hold down a job with a relatively high level of responsibility as a college student. Honors and awards in these competitions(which I would assume to be highly technical), will not hold as much weight as you would hope in the job market, although they are definitely better than not having them. ChemE is a mostly solved field, new innovations that return profit are few and far between. It is mostly a field about keeping the plant running efficiently and profitably, you are a sort of manager to the plant, ensuring that things are running as they should be and fixing things when they are not. Or you are commissioning new plants with the same objective, profit. The typical day to day is managing contractors and operators and ensuring everything is going as planned. Highly technical ChemE jobs will be in R&D at a large company, or as a university professor. These jobs typically pay less than industrial jobs so you have to weigh this (also, R&D is quick to get cut during economic downturns for the company). Long term thinking doesn't always align with quarterly profit targets. This is similar to medicine, you are likely not going to be Dr. House, you are going to be treating hypertension, heart attacks, and dealing with insurance companies. In both fields there are edge cases where this is not the case, but this is the bread and butter.

Onto the aero discussion. The chemistry of rocket propulsion has been solved since the 60s. Oxygen is the best oxidizer(besides fluorine, but this is not safe), and methane or hydrogen are the best fuels depending on use case. Additionally, this is a small field. How many people build an engine for a rocket or a jet? Not many. Why would they hire a ChemE who is not educated in supersonic flow or similar propulsion topics when an aerospace engineer is? You will have more knowledge of pumps than aero/mechanical engineers, but the turbopump is a small part of an engine, where the materials and structural engineering to be able to hold 350 bar of chamber pressure is a much larger part. Also, flows are calculated using CFD for all non extreme cases(i.e mach 5+, and even at these cases you need a wind tunnel), any engineer can use a CFD software, regardless of educational experience. ChemE roles in the space industry are ground logistics, storing the fuels on site and rapid loading and unloading solutions for rockets. This is not a flashy job and most ChemEs would just take the job at an oil major for more money and less hours.

I don't mean to sound like a debby downer, but society and the workforce is not the flashy groundbreaking discovery every week type of place we all hoped it would be. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but I am probably in a very similar position to where you will be in 3 years. My advice, get an internship/Co-Op in ChemE, do some research, and get a job in healthcare. This is the best way to learn what each of these will mean to you and how you can be personally satisfied in the future.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Read

How to Engineer a Health Professional Career - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

You must do well in your biomedical science classes... still non-negotiable there.