English PhD --> MD/Psychiatrist?

[inspectorgadget]

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[Dave1980]

oh god...is this really what you want? undergrad-->phD in engish-->pre reqs-->med school. you wont get into residency until your are nearly 40 and i cant imagne the debt burden you will have.

i wouldnt focus on top 50 or top 10. just focus on getting in if that is your dream. psych isnt that competitive...you dont need a name brand place to get a residency.

have you ever had a 9-5 job? i am worried you are a perpetual student.

 

[inspectorgadget]

oh god...is this really what you want? undergrad-->phD in engish-->pre reqs-->med school. you wont get into residency until your are nearly 40 and i cant imagne the debt burden you will have.

i wouldnt focus on top 50 or top 10. just focus on getting in if that is your dream. psych isnt that competitive...you dont need a name brand place to get a residency.

have you ever had a 9-5 job? i am worried you are a perpetual student.

It's not the ideal situation, but this is where I am in life now.

 

[BritainKittenMittens]

oh god...is this really what you want? undergrad-->phD in engish-->pre reqs-->med school. you wont get into residency until your are nearly 40 and i cant imagne the debt burden you will have.

i wouldnt focus on top 50 or top 10. just focus on getting in if that is your dream. psych isnt that competitive...you dont need a name brand place to get a residency.

have you ever had a 9-5 job? i am worried you are a perpetual student.

Some people are interested in academia which is pretty elitist.

 

[inspectorgadget]

Edit

 

[Dave1980]

It's not the ideal situation, but this is where I am in life now. The first steps of that outline above are already done, I can't move backward, and would rather pursue the dream than end up unfulfilled. Perhaps I should've specified, I'm not "in my early 30s," I turn 31 this year. That means, ideally, I'd enter residency in my late 30s.

I have had a 9 - 5 job, and have been teaching during the entirety of the PhD. I also incurred zero debt from the PhD (they paid me).

have you shadowed any psychiatrists and seen what clinical medicine is like? im nervous anytime someone talks about medicine as a "dream" because it is a business.

 

[Dral]

I basically did this, but my PhD was in a biological field. I took the MCAT my last year of grad school and hit the ground running. I started med school at 33. I ended up in one of the competitive fields, so I don't think you'll have an issue with psych based on the whole age/non-trad thing. However, I wouldn't focus on the top 50 thing too much. With that undergrad GPA, you're currently in the beggars can't be choosers category.

Anyway, your course would likely not be straight forward, but doable.

And I'll echo above...it's odd that someone at age late 20s or early 30s suddenly develops a 'dream' to do psychiatry. It just sounds like an odd narrative. I'm not saying you are not genuine, but just be cognizant of how your present your motives to advisors, interviewers, etc.

 

[inspectorgadget]

If it matters, the latter two years of my undergrad. were more like a 3.7, and again, no science classes and nearly a decade ago. That's why I hope proving I can do well in recent science classes post-grad. would be enough.

I have done some shadowing of both, plan to do more. As for medicine being a "business," well, what profession isn't? If you mean my "dream" is really to get rich, then that's clearly not the case!

 

[Dave1980]

If it matters, the latter two years of my undergrad. were more like a 3.7, and again, no science classes and nearly a decade ago. That's why I hope proving I can do well in recent science classes post-grad. would be enough.

I have done some shadowing of both, plan to do more. As for medicine being a "business," well, what profession isn't? If you mean my "dream" is really to get rich, then that's clearly not the case!

Not sure how you jumped to that conclusion lol. You won't be hurting financially but you certainly won't get rich if you become a psychiatrist in your early 40s

You said it was your "dream" to be a psychiatrist. I was merely saying that anyone who describes medicine in such flowery language or altruistic motives is often disappointed by the reality of medicine.

 

[Dral]

We know that's not what you mean by dream. It could come off that way though.

English PhD...trucking along...near completion...realizes that there are not too many lucrative pathways in English...I know! I'll jump ship on English and develop a dream to be a psychiatrist and go down that path instead!

I'm not saying that is how things went, but that is how many will perceive your course. It will be an uphill battle for you to convince admissions committees that your intentions are really to be a physician opposed to looking for a more guaranteed and secure career once you may have figured out that English is not what you thought it might be. Your narrative would likely include how your intersection with the psych field sparked an interest.

You'll have to be careful though...some admissions folks are wary of those who are dead set on a specific field before they enter med school and experience more things.

I'm not here to accuse or assume. I'm just here to tell you that that is a hurdle you'll have to face in this process. I speak from experience. My pre med school PhD was in a scientific field related to medicine, and I still had to work hard to justify and explain my intentions. I had MCAT takes as an undergrad to back up my intentions as original even before grad school, but people could just as easily assume I didn't do well enough on that MCAT, jumped ship on med school, then decided to come back to it. Hopefully you're catching my drift here. Your narrative and how you explain your motives could make or break an interview.

This is all getting ahead of things a bit though. You have a lot of volunteering, shadowing, and classes before you get to that.

Best of luck. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.

 

[inspectorgadget]

EDIT Thanks for the advice, Dral.

 

[Bonne Nuit]

Understood! And yeah, again, clearly wouldn't be pursuing all this for the money. For me it's about having a direct impact helping real people, in a field that I'm very interested in. After years of analyzing fictional characters and trying to help students, friends, family, colleagues, who come to me but not feeling like I can really do much to help without 1) a strong background in science/the body and 2) being in a position where people are actually supposed to come to you for help and you have the authority to help them in every way possible. I've been sort of riding out this path in English from undergrad., discovered it was not for me soon after entering grad school but kept trucking along to see if I could make it work. I was interested in psychiatry before, even took some grad. level psych classes, and have made my PhD very psych-related, but again, it all feels like a shadow of what I could/should be doing with my life. Thanks for the advice, Dral.

So, to be clear, you've extensively shadowed psychiatrists? You know what the typical day-to-day life of a practicing psychiatrist looks like? I ask because I think it's probably the most misunderstood field from the outside. I remember being very surprised at how much time the psychiatrist I shadowed spent on prescription refill appointments and how little patient interaction she had otherwise (she saw her patients once every 90 days or so for about 15 minutes, and only then). Before med school, I had assumed that psychiatrists were involved in psychotherapy, but this is actually rare.

Now, don't get me wrong, a psychiatrist absolutely helps people, but is this type of practice how you envision yourself helping others? You say you love analyzing fictional characters and you want to have the authority help the people you know who approach you, but I have to admit, I am struggling to see how psychiatry is aligned with those interests. Frankly, I'm not understanding why putting yourself through several years of postbac + 4 years of medical school + 4 years of a psychiatry residency is necessary to help people in the ways you want to help them.

In any case, to answer your questions, you don't need to worry about school rankings for psychiatry, because it's not all that competitive. I also think you are underestimating the time it's going to take you to transition from an unrelated field to having a completed medical school application. Remember, on top of perfect postbac grades and a high MCAT, you also need extensive clinical experience (paid or volunteer - most successful applicants have several hundred hours, some have thousands), up to several hundred hours of nonclinical community service, and additional leadership roles. Most successful applicants also have some lab skills and/or basic science research experience. It took me about 4.5 years to do all this from scratch. Knocking this all out in 1-2 years is probably not feasible.

 

[deleted367183]

This guy at Cincinnati, Peirce Johnston, has a Ph.D. in English and is now a psychiatrist. He's a big talker, so you might even try emailing him--you can say a former UC med student referred you.