Do you have any alternatives if you don't get accepted to med school?

[floatingrib]

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So I'm a nursing student at one of the best programs in the country, so it was very selective. Though the only reason I'm still in the program is because I'm terrified I won't get accepted to med school and won't have anything to fallback on. I realize it's ridiculous trying to explain to your dean why you need 21 credits, and just taking 19+ credits of nursing and pre med classes which are both demanding and tough.

But I'm too reluctant to drop it and major in neurobiology and my school is known for it's nursing, but I'm only going to work as an RN for 1-2 years if I go to med school. I want to drop it because I realize now that nursing is not a stepping stone to medicine and it has the potential to screw me over, but if I don't get to med school I know I'll be crushed and I will need a back up plan and I could live with an acute environment. And the money is a huge aspect, like is there anything else that'll provide me the flexibility of being per diem and making a decent wage?

Like what exactly do I do if I don't get accepted to med school, or do you guys have any fallback plans? I mean my gpa is 3.85 and I'm looking at a 3.9 this semester with pre med and nursing classes but I'm not sure of what I should do tbh and I'm looking for lots of views before I make a decision

(I'm aware that the general consensus is that med schools don't like nursing students but I initially planned that I would work during the gap year or work 2 years in between)

And I know it sounds cynical but the reality is the majority of people don't get to med school so I find it stupid when I ask ppl I know and they don't have a back up plan because I'm sure as hell not going to work in a lab the rest of my life

 

[0dee]

Duh, SGU.

 

[TheZaLord]

Well, I don't get the impression that medical schools "don't like" nursing students. But they question someone who "immediately" abandons nursing to try for med school out of concern they may just move on to the next thing.

I am a speech language pathologist. If it doesn't work out for me, I'll keep doing what I'm doing now, maybe go for my Ph.D and work in speech, language, and hearing science research, but not for a while.

 

[tantacles]

(I'm aware that the general consensus is that med schools don't like nursing students but I initially planned that I would work during the gap year or work 2 years in between)

That is not the general consensus.

 

[md-2020]

That is not the general consensus.

It seems to be on SDN, at least, especially for nursing students who don't enter the workforce.

 

[floatingrib]

That is not the general consensus.

Unless you've got crazy MCAT and gpa the statistics are definitely against allied health majors, especially if you've got a reason like mine, though working as a nurse is a complete different story. I mean do they actually view it more rigorous (since the amunt of credits one would have to take each semester to stay on track for both)?

 

[Catalystik]

Like what exactly do I do if I don't get accepted to med school, or do you guys have any fallback plans?

If your GPA dives, you can consider applying to DO med schools which have a grade replacement policy, or to Podiatric schools, which are less-selective stats-wise and also use MCAT scores.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

That is not the general consensus.

It is insofar as the perceived lack of difficulty associated with nursing classes/degrees, since it is effectively a vocational degree.

A strong MCAT will quell some of adcoms fears. Also working in the field for a year or two is very different from going directly from nursing to MD school.

 

[tantacles]

Unless you've got crazy MCAT and gpa the statistics are definitely against allied health majors, especially if you've got a reason like mine, though working as a nurse is a complete different story. I mean do they actually view it more rigorous (since the amunt of credits one would have to take each semester to stay on track for both)?

The statistics are against allied health majors because they don't do as well on the MCAT. Medical schools don't care about your major; they care about your GPA and MCAT.

 

[tantacles]

It is insofar as the perceived lack of difficulty associated with nursing classes/degrees, since it is effectively a vocational degree.

A strong MCAT will quell some of adcoms fears. Also working in the field for a year or two is very different from going directly from nursing to MD school.

We don't disagree. But as far as academics are concerned, medical schools mainly care about GPA and MCAT.

 

[drab]

My back up is my original plan from back when I entered undergrad: clinical psychology.

 

[CowboyNiceguy]

My plan B was law (studying for LSAT in gap year). All they care about is GPA and LSAT, and I could see myself being reasonably happy in that career. Plan C was using my engineering degree (ugh).

 

[cherubb3]

There seem to be so many nursing threads here recently. I wonder if that is related to the increasing difficulty of getting a job with many of the typical pre-med degrees.

 

[JustAPhD]

There seem to be so many nursing threads here recently. I wonder if that is related to the increasing difficulty of getting a job with many of the typical pre-med degrees.

It's possible. Nursing is still a fairly safe profession to get into. Just look at science in general...it's a little scary how bad it's getting.

 

[njtrimed]

It's possible. Nursing is still a fairly safe profession to get into. Just look at science in general...it's a little scary how bad it's getting.

Excellent point. When I couldn't make a reasonable living using my bachelor's degree and extensive research experience, I went back to the OR. And a family member with a PhD in the sciences just went to work in finance because academia is harder than it's ever been. It makes sense to have a back-up plan. But OP, if you're maintaining a GPA like that with your schedule, I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[MDProspect]

The perception that I from both dealing premed advisors and adcoms for a few decades now, support the concept that nursing majors who apply directly from a BSN program are more problematic then nurses who have been in the workforce for sometime. Indeed, a past president of the AMA Board of Trustees, was a nurse for a decade prior to starting medical school at age 35 is a prominent example. The issue for current and recent grads from nursing may have is the question on commitment. Adcoms may question if you are giving up commitment to the nursing professional, what does this say about the long commitment to medical training? Should we as a school risk investment in time to this candidate. Remember, in may ways applying to medical school is a negative process. That is, adcoms are trying to trim several thousand applications, to several hundred interviews to a few hundred acceptances to a hundred or so matriculants. So reasons to reject people, such as open questions of commitment can easily sway an adcom looking to cut through the mass of applications


We looked at the acceptance rate on this a few years ago tangentially in relation to nursing programs recruiting older nontraditional students. It appeared that two items were the major "structural" factors in lower chances for applicants who were studying nursing and/or working as nurses in acceptance to medical school. First is the coursework. Often basic science courses are geared specifically to nursing. This results in incomplete foundation in sciences as well not part of BCPM (science). The former may be a factor in MCAT scores and the latter often did not give nurses the required prereq courses. The second is simply time. A nurse who has a a job and possibly family obligations may have less time to fully prep for MCAT, work on applications, arrange days off for interviews, etc. These two factors seem to affect nurses as well as other specialized health majors.

What about an applicant who was initially pre-med and took all of the BCPM courses, but didn't get into medical school and decided to go into nursing. Because he/she couldn't sit around a year or two improving their application with postbacc or masters work.

Also is there a same notion for PAs who try to go into medical school right after getting their degrees?

 

[Skydive Fox]

My contingency plans consist of DO, PA, law, business, elementary education, and being a global tour guide. They're all fields I could find meaningful purpose within and still be happy.

 

[crunchywhit]

My contingency plans consist of DO, PA, law, business, elementary education, and being a global tour guide. They're all fields I could find meaningful purpose within and still be happy.

Same... And also living on my mother's velour couch with my two kids.

 

[Vaccinated]

I will be majoring in as a microbiologist in a medical lab science program. So I will just go work in the hospital lab if it doesn't work out. They don't look very positively on that fact they I may use their program as a stepping stone though. I just make sure to tell my pre med advisor the real plan, and my micro adviser the plan B plan. But anyways, that's the back up.

 

[aldol16]

It's possible. Nursing is still a fairly safe profession to get into. Just look at science in general...it's a little scary how bad it's getting.

Excellent point. When I couldn't make a reasonable living using my bachelor's degree and extensive research experience, I went back to the OR. And a family member with a PhD in the sciences just went to work in finance because academia is harder than it's ever been. It makes sense to have a back-up plan. But OP, if you're maintaining a GPA like that with your schedule, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Definitely very bad in academia. Tenure is a good thing when you're on the receiving end of it but it's a job killer for the rest of us out there who want a professorship and not 4+ years as a post-doc. The problem with academia is simply that they're admitting too many unqualified applicants and so now you have way more PhD diplomas than you have jobs. Many PhDs I know can't even get jobs in their field. In fact, in some ways, having only a BA/BS can be advantageous here because you can get a job as a research tech making $40,000+ a year. Companies will gladly pay that whereas they don't want to pay the PhD premium when they can just get a tech to do the same job. It's quite perverse. Actually the reason why I'm switching fields (or hope to).

 

[Lawpy]

Duh, SGU.

Gotta be a wizard on the wards no matter what

 

[osckey]

Real talk, I did on occasion overhear other premeds saying they don't know what they'd do if they didn't get in and some suggested a bullet to the head. The conversation quickly turned to, "if you were to die, how would you want to go?".

Yikes. Can't say I didn't feel the same way at times undergrad though.

 

[Lucca]

Definitely very bad in academia. Tenure is a good thing when you're on the receiving end of it but it's a job killer for the rest of us out there who want a professorship and not 4+ years as a post-doc. The problem with academia is simply that they're admitting too many unqualified applicants and so now you have way more PhD diplomas than you have jobs. Many PhDs I know can't even get jobs in their field. In fact, in some ways, having only a BA/BS can be advantageous here because you can get a job as a research tech making $40,000+ a year. Companies will gladly pay that whereas they don't want to pay the PhD premium when they can just get a tech to do the same job. It's quite perverse. Actually the reason why I'm switching fields (or hope to).

Someone has to do the science though. Who else but graduate students? You need sharp minds behind research projects, not just technicians but someone who is invested in some form in a research project. The format of science training is "up-or-out" and the types interested in research are not interested in being worker-bees forever but want to run the show one day. I think this is a fine arrangement as long as funding rates for independent investigators is given out at a reasonable rate (i.e. not at 15% lol) and there are realistic exit opportunities for skilled PhDs in other industries. In today's climate, a smart PhD program will offer ways for their PhDs to tool or retool their skillsets for jobs outside of academe. They can be (reluctantly) found if your PhD is in the "right" field; i.e, the physical sciences + engineering + CS. Alternatively, if your PhD is from the "right" school; i.e, places industry drools over regardless of the strength of the department you graduated from like Stanford, Harvard, MIT...

 

[aldol16]

Someone has to do the science though. Who else but graduate students? You need sharp minds behind research projects, not just technicians but someone who is invested in some form in a research project. The format of science training is "up-or-out" and the types interested in research are not interested in being worker-bees forever but want to run the show one day. I think this is a fine arrangement as long as funding rates for independent investigators is given out at a reasonable rate (i.e. not at 15% lol) and there are realistic exit opportunities for skilled PhDs in other industries. In today's climate, a smart PhD program will offer ways for their PhDs to tool or retool their skillsets for jobs outside of academe. They can be (reluctantly) found if your PhD is in the "right" field; i.e, the physical sciences + engineering.

Unfortunately, that's not how it works anymore. I'll backtrack. It is in some labs but in the labs I've been in (during first-year rotations as well as in my current one) the PI is more interested in pawning off projects to the graduate students to do. There is very little discourse and it usually takes the form of grad student runs into trouble, runs to PI who tells them how to fix it, and then they fix it and continue doing what they're doing. I'd guess less than half of my fellow grad students had to come up with their own projects and even fewer have experience writing good proposals.

I definitely agree that if I were to stay in my PhD program, I would want to "run the show" one day but that's simply too optimistic. They're training way too many people. Think of how many graduate students and post-docs a professor trains in his or her career. 50? 100? That's 50 - 100 people who are looking to replace each professorial position. And nowadays, universities are downsizing and hiring lecturers instead. They've found that they can get away with having a few well-known professors doing research and then divvy up the teaching to the lecturers who only teach part-time (some full-time).

Ideally, PhDs should have a variety of career paths open to them but unfortunately, that's no longer true unless you're in physics, math, or engineering. I'm in chemistry and there are few options - big pharma no longer does R&D despite what many think. Their R&D departments have become M&A departments. The options left to me if I were to complete my PhD (which I have no intention of doing as I'm applying for medicine) would be consulting or a long post-doc without any guarantee of a position. I have seen too many people from my department (a highly ranked program no less) ending up in fields they don't want to be in or teaching positions at unknown universities.

 

[Lawpy]

Now in regards to the thread title:

Do you have any alternatives if you don't get accepted to med school?

Yes of course. I will go into economics/finance if medicine doesn't pan out. No big deal. This is why it's important to keep your options open and not just invest everything into one goal.

 

[Lucca]

Unfortunately, that's not how it works anymore. I'll backtrack. It is in some labs but in the labs I've been in (during first-year rotations as well as in my current one) the PI is more interested in pawning off projects to the graduate students to do. There is very little discourse and it usually takes the form of grad student runs into trouble, runs to PI who tells them how to fix it, and then they fix it and continue doing what they're doing. I'd guess less than half of my fellow grad students had to come up with their own projects and even fewer have experience writing good proposals.

I definitely agree that if I were to stay in my PhD program, I would want to "run the show" one day but that's simply too optimistic. They're training way too many people. Think of how many graduate students and post-docs a professor trains in his or her career. 50? 100? That's 50 - 100 people who are looking to replace each professorial position. And nowadays, universities are downsizing and hiring lecturers instead. They've found that they can get away with having a few well-known professors doing research and then divvy up the teaching to the lecturers who only teach part-time (some full-time).

Ideally, PhDs should have a variety of career paths open to them but unfortunately, that's no longer true unless you're in physics, math, or engineering. I'm in chemistry and there are few options - big pharma no longer does R&D despite what many think. Their R&D departments have become M&A departments. The options left to me if I were to complete my PhD (which I have no intention of doing as I'm applying for medicine) would be consulting or a long post-doc without any guarantee of a position. I have seen too many people from my department (a highly ranked program no less) ending up in fields they don't want to be in or teaching positions at unknown universities.

Yuuuuuuuuuup. The grad students in my lab have had a different experience to yours so this might be a mentor specific problem but I wouldnt be surprised if it was a common problem. Super-blows. Sorry to hear about your woes, I hope medicine works out for the better!

As far as the lab I work in is concerned, all of the grad students really enjoy our group's dynamic and are happy doing the science they are doing....but nobody is very optimistic about being able to do science in the long term or even having a job. The Chemistry dept. meetings are more depressing than hanging around the philosophy library when some freshman discovers existentialism for the first time and that is saying something

 

[aldol16]

Yuuuuuuuuuup. The grad students in my lab have had a different experience to yours so this might be a mentor specific problem but I wouldnt be surprised if it was a common problem. Super-blows. Sorry to hear about your woes, I hope medicine works out for the better!

Thank you! Yes, a lot depends on the PI. One piece of advice I would give any grad student is to talk to current students in the lab before joining and see where graduates of the lab have ended up. There are certain labs that funnel to certain companies/industries. It's no longer about whether you're passionate about the research (unless you want to end up jobless) and more about whether you worked for the right guy. In retrospect, that's how it's always been in academia - your advisor is way more important than the school you went to. But talk to the grad students in your lab. See how they feel - especially the fifth or sixth years. Looks can be deceiving and many of us will open up and be truthful when asked.

Also, going back to the main topic of the thread, I would continue my PhD and try my shot at getting a professorial position down the line. Though the chances are slim, I do enjoy research and hope to continue doing it - I would continue research even if I get into med school.

 

[Sardinia]

@floatingrib What about admissions into a psychiatric ward? Seems to fit your true area of interest.

 

[floatingrib]

@floatingrib What about admissions into a psychiatric ward? Seems to fit your true area of interest.

hilarious joke. really. if you don't have a fallback plan i recommend being a comedian where u can share ur ****ty jokes to more people.