Clinical Lab to Med School

[LabStudent]

I apologize if this is formatted incorrectly; if necessary, I could delete this and reformat. I typed this up before I read the formatting advice thread, there is a lot of information to digest here!

I'm a non-traditional student, who is planning to apply to medical school in two years. I had attended community college, got a couple semesters of A's, then a couple semesters of D's and F's (Frankly, due to developing a drug & alcohol problem- I have not disclosed this to any of my academic contacts). Leaving community college, I got a 2.11 GPA. Worked non-productive food-industry jobs for a couple years, nothing to really show for it other than gaining some maturity and a greater sense of work ethic.

I got sober, and was accepted into my state university. Went for a total of three years, acing everything except for getting a B in genetics. Took some fluff courses, TA'd for a micro lab, and took some upper division micro courses, while waiting to attend the next cycle of a medical laboratory science (MLS) program. Got my GPA up to a 3.6, without grade replacements (it is currently a 3.69 with grade replacements). I am currently attending a hospital MLS program, and will be a licensed MLS in the spring. If all A's are achieved throughout the 30 credit hour program, I will have end my bachelor's with a 3.70 GPA and 150ish credit hours. I should have plenty of clinical hours, but no patient contact hours, due to the nature of working as an MLS; I volunteered approximately 250 hours during my last year of on-campus undergrad, and will receive an excellent LoR from the executive director of the organization I volunteered at, and I'm hoping this may help offset the lack of patient contact.

I plan to work full time weekends or evenings as a hospital MLS for the year following my graduation, and hopefully shadow a pathologist & at least one other doctor for some amount of time. I still need to re-take physics I & II (I did take them, but got a D and an F, respectively, while I was attending community college). I will probably also take a statistics course, and another biology w/ lab course, while I prepare to take the MCAT.

My questions (I apologize if I should have been able to answer some of these myself, MLS school is starting to pile on):

• Does anyone see somewhere I could improve my chances for acceptance?
• Does anyone have any advice for how to be the most productive in my 'gap' year?
• Does a physiology (with a lab) course count as a 'biology course with a lab', or is this an institution by institution issue? It is coded as a biology course by my university.
• Would it be a red flag if I re-took physics I & II at the same community college I previously, or should I just head back to a university?
• Any comments or details I should expand on?
• What are my chances for admission to MD and/or DO school?

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[brockhamptonfanacct]

Just to clarify -- what is your MLS position? If it's not patient contact hours, it won't be clinical hours, and an app with zero hours of patient contact will waste a lot of your money. I'm not an adcom, so I'll let people more versed in admissions confirm.

 

[LabStudent]

Okay, thank you for your reply and clarification! My interest in attending med school is new, as I learn more and more about the clinical side of things in my program. As you can see I have a lot of research and preparation to do, but I know this.

Some MLS positions will feature patient contact, in the form of drawing the blood to be tested, but those positions are found pretty much solely in rural hospitals, as those hospitals may not employ phlebotomists (or can't retain them). I will not have patient contact as a part of my job, as my hospital lab is in a metropolitan area, and employs a large team of phlebotomists.

It is possible that I could either volunteer, or find part time employment, as a phlebotomist to acquire patient contact hours. Phlebotomy is not my strong suit, nor is it meant to be in my current role, but I'm sure many institutions wouldn't mind having a student phleb who would defer to experience. Does this sound like a reasonable way to address my lack of patient contact hours?

 

[candbgirl]

There is no grade replacement. Every course is counted and calculated in your sGPA and cGPA.
You need about 50 hours of shadowing including a big chunk of shadowing a primary care doc.
You also need at least 200 hours of clinical experience. Could be paid or volunteer but it must be direct patient contact. How else are you going to know you want to spend the next 30+ years dealing with the sick, injured and dying!
You also need at least 200 hours of nonclinical volunteering to the unserved/underserved in your community!
Nobody on here can predict you your chances without a final GPA and a true MCAT(No predictions).
Why are you switching? Reading your post you really haven’t said why you are changing paths, especially since you have little to no clinical interaction with patients( not test subjects)
Good luck as you move forward.

 

[brockhamptonfanacct]

Okay, thank you for your reply and clarification! My interest in attending med school is new, as I learn more and more about the clinical side of things in my program. As you can see I have a lot of research and preparation to do, but I know this.

Some MLS positions will feature patient contact, in the form of drawing the blood to be tested, but those positions are found pretty much solely in rural hospitals, as those hospitals may not employ phlebotomists (or can't retain them). I will not have patient contact as a part of my job, as my hospital lab is in a metropolitan area, and employs a large team of phlebotomists.

It is possible that I could either volunteer, or find part time employment, as a phlebotomist to acquire patient contact hours. Phlebotomy is not my strong suit, nor is it meant to be in my current role, but I'm sure many institutions wouldn't mind having a student phleb who would defer to experience. Does this sound like a reasonable way to address my lack of patient contact hours?

Phlebotomy is definitely clinical experience. The baseline seems to be that you should accrue at least 150-200 hours of patient contact, and importantly, be able to talk about it meaningfully and how it impacts your desire to go into medicine. (More is good too, of course).

 

[LabStudent]

There is no grade replacement. Every course is counted and calculated in your sGPA and cGPA.
You need about 50 hours of shadowing including a big chunk of shadowing a primary care doc.
You also need at least 200 hours of clinical experience. Could be paid or volunteer but it must be direct patient contact. How else are you going to know you want to spend the next 30+ years dealing with the sick, injured and dying!
You also need at least 200 hours of nonclinical volunteering to the unserved/underserved in your community!
Nobody on here can predict you your chances without a final GPA and a true MCAT(No predictions).
Why are you switching? Reading your post you really haven’t said why you are changing paths, especially since you have little to no clinical interaction with patients( not test subjects)
Good luck as you move forward.

Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to help me figure out this out!

I am planning to switch due to a lack of upward mobility in the lab (which is obvious to me, even as short a time as I've been here) and the relative monotony of most tasks. Part of the MLS education is interpretation of the data that we produce, while that is not even a small part of the day to day job (for the vast majority of clinical lab scientists, anyway). I am enjoying this aspect of the education much more than I thought I would going in, and would like to pursue it further. So my intended path wouldn't necessarily be to become a family medicine physician, or similar, but more along the lines of becoming a clinical or anatomical pathologist. This in mind, I wouldn't pigeonhole myself going into medical school, telling myself that that's all I would enjoy or excel at.

 

[brockhamptonfanacct]

Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to help me figure out this out!

I am planning to switch due to a lack of upward mobility in the lab (which is obvious to me, even as short a time as I've been here) and the relative monotony of most tasks. Part of the MLS education is interpretation of the data that we produce, while that is not even a small part of the day to day job (for the vast majority of clinical lab scientists, anyway). I am enjoying this aspect of the education much more than I thought I would going in, and would like to pursue it further. So my intended path wouldn't necessarily be to become a family medicine physician, or similar, but more along the lines of becoming a clinical or anatomical pathologist. This in mind, I wouldn't pigeonhole myself going into medical school, telling myself that that's all I would enjoy or excel at.

Out of curiosity, why not a PhD instead of an MD/DO then?

 

[LabStudent]

Phlebotomy is definitely clinical experience. The baseline seems to be that you should accrue at least 150-200 hours of patient contact, and importantly, be able to talk about it meaningfully and how it impacts your desire to go into medicine. (More is good too, of course).

Luckily, the job market is pretty flexible for MLS. I think I will prioritize taking a shift, or job, that allows me to also function as a phlebotomist. Thank you for helping me figure this out!

 

[LabStudent]

Out of curiosity, why not a PhD instead of an MD/DO then?

I am fairly certain that a MD/DO will give me much more flexibility, and greater job prospects. I'm under the impression that employment in a clinical laboratory is fairly uncommon for PhD's, with maybe a couple management positions open for a single metropolitan hospital (only opening up as people retire). It may not be particularly common, but it is certainly not unheard of for PhD's to attend a post-bacc MLS program, in order to find employment with reasonable wages, and geographical flexibility. There are plenty of MLS positions, but not much in the way of jobs for those with graduate degrees.

Getting a graduate degree, I would be in the same boat, and maybe even taking a pay-cut for a job with less security (if I transitioned to a tech/ R&D company).