clinical psyc to MD

[mmonte4]

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Hello, I am new to this part of the forum and looking for some help. I've previously posted on the clinical psychology forum. For the past 2-3 years I've set my sites on getting into graduate school to eventually become a clinical psychologist. Though this I have years of research experience, 4 professional presentations at national conferences, and 1 year of volunteer work under my belt. I graduated from a flagship university with a 3.5 gpa including a 4.0 for my final 41 hrs.
Lately Ive become disenchanted with the clinical psych field as a whole and the value of the PhD. I am seriously considering making a major switch and applying to medical school. to to this I would have to go back to school and get the necessary science classes as well do some shadowing, volunteer work, etc I assume.
My question is- what is the best route to go about doing this? What is recommended besides taking classes to assure (or significantly improve) chances of admission.
Any additional advice?

 

[gaikokujin]

whatever you do, do not get a PhD in psych. My parents both have PhD's in psych an complain constantly about it. They both say it was a mistake and have found it very difficult to get good jobs. In the 70s when they were in school psych was a burgeoning field, but today it is stagnant. it is difficult to make a living with a psych PhD unless you are a uni professor. The clinical work has been eroded by counselors, psychiatrists (who can give pills - everyone likes pills more than psychotherapy), social workers, pastors, etc. The APA has done very little to protect the field.

If you just want to do clinical psych go to med school and become a psychiatrist (prescribe happy pills and make more money) or become a counselor (still help people and much less life investment).

Then again, if you want to do research and be a uni professor get a psych PhD.

 

[Dr Who]

If you already graduated then you can do a post bach program. There are many such programs designed to get you prepared for the MCATs. If you are still in undergrad then take the pre med courses 2 biology, 2 physics, 2 chem and 2 organic chem. My bachelors was in psych and I took my pre med courses on the side.

 

[SoCuteMD]

Agree on the post-bacc. The good news is that depending on the topic, you can probably buff a lot of your experiences in psych-related stuff to relate to medicine (psychiatry in particular).

Best of luck!!

 

[Wizard of Oz]

Your GPA and extra-curricular experiences are probably already set for med school depending on where you want to go.

Here's something to consider--many (if not the majority) of my medical school classmates had never taken a blood pressure or used a stethoscope before starting medical school. The reason? Clinical skills don't correlate with success on the first step of the licensing exam.

On the other hand, most med schools believe that MCAT scores do in fact correlate with success on the first step of the licensing exam, so my advice for you if you want to get into medical school is to get an MCAT prep book and study it along with the science courses that serve as pre-requisites. Yeah, shadow and stuff if you want to and/or are not really sure if this is what you want to do, but most schools will pre-rank applicants according to some combination of GPA and MCAT score before deciding who they want to give an interview to much less accept.

If autonomy is what you are looking for, then I would definitely recommend medical school over a PsyD or a PhD in psych. Clinical psych's are currently a dime a dozen, and as already mentioned, pills are usually the preferred therapy nowadays. Bear in mind, however, that you are going to be looking at least 7-10 years of training (after you get accepted) before you actually get the autonomy and salary.

Let's say you do med school and still realize that you love psych. Then do psych--it's a very easy residency to match. Let's say you do med school and learn that you don't like psych. You'll still have a ton of opportunities.

Best of luck!

 

[vandygirl07]

Just reading this while procrastinating, and I had to reply b/c I was a psych undergrad, applied to clinical psych PhD programs and ended up in medical school. To get here, I went to a post-bac for science classes (mine was 1 year program, make sure they are interested in teaching you/helping you get into med school and not just collecting your money), then spent another year of working (in research) while applying to school. My post-bac program had a90%accept rate into medical school. It was worth the lost pay of going back to school full time to have reassurance that I would be accepted.

Then, when you are on interviews, make sure you ask about other non-traditional students - it's nice to know you won't be the only one not going to frat parties. 🙂

Also have friends who are clinical psychologists - they helped me tremendously in shoving me towards medicine, which I find very very satisfying (even though I had no thoughts of medicine before 6 years ago).

 

[Wizard of Oz]

Then, when you are on interviews, make sure you ask about other non-traditional students - it's nice to know you won't be the only one not going to frat parties. 🙂

You can be over 30 and still go to the frat parties. Also be careful who you call non-traditional. It is offensive to some.