Do past criminal charges practically block entry to medical school?

[JAK2-STAT3]

Thank you! I think this is exactly what I'm going to do. I recently spoke with my advisor because I was curious about research, and she told me to email a psychology professor here at my university to get involved in psychology/neuroscience research. I have spent a ridiculous amount of hours over the past week trying to find other careers that I may enjoy, and research--medical research in particular--seems to be the only real thing I've found.

First of all, you must be an incredibly resilient individual to have gotten where you've gotten despite the trauma you must have faced. Congrats on getting sober, and I wish you all the best.

I also majored in Neuroscience and now work as a research assistant in a Neuroscience lab at a major academic hospital. I got this job fresh out of undergrad. This could be an excellent next step for you--from your posts, I gather that what you really want is to be an expert in something relating to Psychology/Neuroscience. Being a lab tech is a good place to start. If you struggle to find a position, look into volunteering--PI's like free labor.

My day-to-day job as a lab tech is a mixture of more boring stuff like breeding/weaning mice, ordering supplies, and some administrative tasks, and cool science stuff like running my own experiments (I have my own project), helping postdocs with their various experiments ,analyzing data, troubleshooting when experiments don't work, and discussing results and next steps with my PI. I have had the privilege of presenting research at multiple conferences and have publications in progress. Since I am at an academic medical center, there are no shortage of cool seminars and talks given by bigshot MDs and PhDs that I get to attend at least once per week. Working at a hospital is a lot of fun; while my job has zero patient involvement, I find it enjoyable to be in an environment where there is every flavor of healthcare professional and researcher around, all working towards improving the health of humanity.

As I'm sure you know, there is a lot of very complicated (and not very well studied) neurophysiology underlying various Psychiatric conditions. Someone needs to do this research, and it could be you! You could get a PhD and have tremendous impact on these patients by elucidating some of these mechanisms in a way that will guide future treatment. I have heard absolutely fascinating talks from PhDs on their work studying the underlying mechanisms of various conditions. You could a do some really cool, kickass research, become expert in your field, become a PI of a big lab stuffed full of talented people making groundbreaking discoveries, develop collaborations with physicians, write grants, review grants, sit on advisory committees, collaborate with pharmaceutical companies, etc. I know that it must hurt to hear that your dream of becoming a physician may be impossible to achieve, but I believe that you have it in you to take that hurt and turn it into career that can have a massive and positive impact on patients.

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[ThatOneShyGirl]

First of all, you must be an incredibly resilient individual to have gotten where you've gotten despite the trauma you must have faced. Congrats on getting sober, and I wish you all the best.

I also majored in Neuroscience and now work as a research assistant in a Neuroscience lab at a major academic hospital. I got this job fresh out of undergrad. This could be an excellent next step for you--from your posts, I gather that what you really want is to be an expert in something relating to Psychology/Neuroscience. Being a lab tech is a good place to start. If you struggle to find a position, look into volunteering--PI's like free labor.

My day-to-day job as a lab tech is a mixture of more boring stuff like breeding/weaning mice, ordering supplies, and some administrative tasks, and cool science stuff like running my own experiments (I have my own project), helping postdocs with their various experiments ,analyzing data, troubleshooting when experiments don't work, and discussing results and next steps with my PI. I have had the privilege of presenting research at multiple conferences and have publications in progress. Since I am at an academic medical center, there are no shortage of cool seminars and talks given by bigshot MDs and PhDs that I get to attend at least once per week. Working at a hospital is a lot of fun; while my job has zero patient involvement, I find it enjoyable to be in an environment where there is every flavor of healthcare professional and researcher around, all working towards improving the health of humanity.

As I'm sure you know, there is a lot of very complicated (and not very well studied) neurophysiology underlying various Psychiatric conditions. Someone needs to do this research, and it could be you! You could get a PhD and have tremendous impact on these patients by elucidating some of these mechanisms in a way that will guide future treatment. I have heard absolutely fascinating talks from PhDs on their work studying the underlying mechanisms of various conditions. You could a do some really cool, kickass research, become expert in your field, become a PI of a big lab stuffed full of talented people making groundbreaking discoveries, develop collaborations with physicians, write grants, review grants, sit on advisory committees, collaborate with pharmaceutical companies, etc. I know that it must hurt to hear that your dream of becoming a physician may be impossible to achieve, but I believe that you have it in you to take that hurt and turn it into career that can have a massive and positive impact on patients.

I want to thank you sincerely for this reply. This is truly the only reply I've gotten that has made me light up after the last few weeks of tears and no sleep and I cannot thank you enough! This sounds like a dream (now that my initial dream was ruined, at least). You have hit the nail on the head with my interests here. Thank you so much for describing your day-to-day and your accomplishments in addition to what the future could hold if I go into research. This is truly the only other thing I can imagine being interested in enough to enjoy. I actually just talked to someone at my university's career center about research this morning!
So, you have conducted your own, published data, and given presentations at conferences with just a BS degree, or do you have an MS or PhD? How did you get into research? Again, thank you so much!

 

[JAK2-STAT3]

So, you have conducted your own, published data, and given presentations at conferences with just a BS degree, or do you have an MS or PhD? How did you get into research? Again, thank you so much!

Glad I could help! To answer your questions, I got into science/research in undergrad. I just have a BS. I went to a small, not well known school that nonetheless had a strong culture of students doing research with professors; research was accessible and not cutthroat. By the time I graduated I had a 3.8x GPA and ~600 hours of research with professors at my home institution. Some students did research at fancier outside institutions but for various reasons I chose to stay on campus. The spring of my senior I binge-applied to a lot of lab tech jobs, since that was the only thing I felt qualified for. Before my interview with my current PI, I read his publications and familiarized myself with what the lab studied. I believe I was hired because I showed genuine interest in the lab's research and had some previous experience with mice (but again, nothing fancy).

There can be a huge variation in research lab tech jobs due to how PIs run their labs and where they are in their grants/funding situation. When I started my job, my PI had a couple large grants that had just been funded. This meant that for the first ~18 months I wasn't really running experiments or analyzing data--I mostly bred mice in preparation for large studies we had planned. Then, a postdoc left and I was able to continue working on their project. It has only been in the last year-ish that I've gotten to actually run my own experiments and analyze my own data. While our lab typically attends 2-3 conferences a year, ironically Covid has been good to my CV in that I've gotten to present posters/talks at virtual conferences (with discounted registration fees) that my PI would have never paid for me to attend in a normal year.

While these jobs can certainly lend themselves to independent projects/posters/publications if you are willing to work hard and put in the hours, it is probably not realistic to expect that you'll be handed your own project on your first day and publish it 6 months later. But in exchange for your time doing the more boring stuff, you'll get great exposure to what it's like to be a grad student and postdoc, hopefully good mentorship from your PI, and an inside view of what doing research is really like. You'll also be very well positioned to apply to PhD programs, which is why a lot of people pursue these jobs in the first place.

If you think you want to pursue this path, I'd recommend reaching out to science professors that you like and asking if they are doing summer (or semester) research with students. If doing research at your home institution isn't an option, ask your professors for guidance on applying to summer programs at outside institutions. Make sure you maintain good relationships with your science professors, because they will be giving you references later. If you think you'd be interested in pursing bench research in a Neuroscience lab (as opposed to working with human subjects in a Psych lab), I recommend looking for opportunities to work with mice or rats. Many Neuroscience and Psych labs use rodents, and you will be at an advantage if you can say you have at least some rodent experience. It does NOT need to be anything fancy--just enough for you to know that you can tolerate it and aren't deadly allergic. When it comes time to apply for jobs, remember that PIs are mostly looking for candidates who can demonstrate GENUINE interest in their research and are willing to work hard. Having some previous research experience is important for showing you know you're interested in research, but you don't need to do some ultra prestigious internship at the NIH to get experience. Feel free to PM me if you want more details.

 

[ThatOneShyGirl]

Glad I could help! To answer your questions, I got into science/research in undergrad. I just have a BS. I went to a small, not well known school that nonetheless had a strong culture of students doing research with professors; research was accessible and not cutthroat. By the time I graduated I had a 3.8x GPA and ~600 hours of research with professors at my home institution. Some students did research at fancier outside institutions but for various reasons I chose to stay on campus. The spring of my senior I binge-applied to a lot of lab tech jobs, since that was the only thing I felt qualified for. Before my interview with my current PI, I read his publications and familiarized myself with what the lab studied. I believe I was hired because I showed genuine interest in the lab's research and had some previous experience with mice (but again, nothing fancy).

There can be a huge variation in research lab tech jobs due to how PIs run their labs and where they are in their grants/funding situation. When I started my job, my PI had a couple large grants that had just been funded. This meant that for the first ~18 months I wasn't really running experiments or analyzing data--I mostly bred mice in preparation for large studies we had planned. Then, a postdoc left and I was able to continue working on their project. It has only been in the last year-ish that I've gotten to actually run my own experiments and analyze my own data. While our lab typically attends 2-3 conferences a year, ironically Covid has been good to my CV in that I've gotten to present posters/talks at virtual conferences (with discounted registration fees) that my PI would have never paid for me to attend in a normal year.

While these jobs can certainly lend themselves to independent projects/posters/publications if you are willing to work hard and put in the hours, it is probably not realistic to expect that you'll be handed your own project on your first day and publish it 6 months later. But in exchange for your time doing the more boring stuff, you'll get great exposure to what it's like to be a grad student and postdoc, hopefully good mentorship from your PI, and an inside view of what doing research is really like. You'll also be very well positioned to apply to PhD programs, which is why a lot of people pursue these jobs in the first place.

If you think you want to pursue this path, I'd recommend reaching out to science professors that you like and asking if they are doing summer (or semester) research with students. If doing research at your home institution isn't an option, ask your professors for guidance on applying to summer programs at outside institutions. Make sure you maintain good relationships with your science professors, because they will be giving you references later. If you think you'd be interested in pursing bench research in a Neuroscience lab (as opposed to working with human subjects in a Psych lab), I recommend looking for opportunities to work with mice or rats. Many Neuroscience and Psych labs use rodents, and you will be at an advantage if you can say you have at least some rodent experience. It does NOT need to be anything fancy--just enough for you to know that you can tolerate it and aren't deadly allergic. When it comes time to apply for jobs, remember that PIs are mostly looking for candidates who can demonstrate GENUINE interest in their research and are willing to work hard. Having some previous research experience is important for showing you know you're interested in research, but you don't need to do some ultra prestigious internship at the NIH to get experience. Feel free to PM me if you want more details.

Wow, that's impressive!
This is definitely some of the most helpful information I've received. I really appreciate how you've laid things out in a step-by-step, easy-to-understand manner. I reached out to the professor in charge of the neuroscience department at my university a few days ago regarding research opportunities, so we'll see what he has to say! Thank you so much for your replies. Your responses are the only ones that have given me some happy tears after all the recent heartbreak I've had realizing that my dream isn't very attainable after all.
I definitely may message you with some research questions! I'm generally pretty clueless about it all, but you have really given me some fantastic insight and advice!