How does one begin?

[kali26]

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Hello everyone 🙂

I am 26 years old. I live in Texas, but grew up in England. I finished school without getting all my GCSE's. I want to be a surgeon, I realise I have a LONG way to go. I was wondering, at 26, starting totally from the beginning, is this possible? and where should I start?

Any help, pointers, or any info or ideas where to look would be very gratefully received.

Thanks for reading.

Kali

 

[DrMidlife]

Do you need to do med school in the US, or somewhere else?

Where's your citizenship and/or permanent residency?

Have you been to college yet?

What's a GCSE?

 

[MedWonk]

Hello everyone 🙂

I am 26 years old. I live in Texas, but grew up in England. I finished school without getting all my GCSE's. I want to be a surgeon, I realise I have a LONG way to go. I was wondering, at 26, starting totally from the beginning, is this possible? and where should I start?

Any help, pointers, or any info or ideas where to look would be very gratefully received.

Thanks for reading.

Kali

Do you have a high school diploma? (sounds like you do, but not exactly sure what GCSE's are)

Do you have US/Canadian citizenship?

Do you have a bachelor's degree? If not, look into enrolling in a four-year institution. Cheapest route would be to look into the University of Texas system if you're a resident of that state.

If you've already got a bachelor's degree, then you need to see which prerequisites you've taken, and which you still need to take. https://www.aamc.org/students/medstudents/cim/

This is the directory of all US/Canadian med schools:
https://services.aamc.org/30/msar/

The AAMC website will provide with a ton of info on what you need to do to apply to med school.
Generally, you'll need: two semesters of biology with lab, two semesters of general/inorganic chemistry with lab, two semesters of organic chemistry with lab, and two semesters of general physics with lab (most, if not all, med schools don't require calculus-based physics), and two semesters of English literature or expository writing (a lot of schools will let you substitute this with any writing-intensive course, such as intro journalism).
Some schools have additional requirements. For example, a few schools now require a semester of biochemistry. Some schools require at least one semester of calculus. Usually, you can easily find these out by going to that school's website.

This site (also AAMC) will let you search out post-baccalaureate programs to fulfill any prerequisites you may need.
http://services.aamc.org/postbac/

Although not an explicit requirement, you should get clinical volunteering/shadowing experience. If you can, you should also get into some research.

Of course, this all relates to getting into a US med school. I have no idea how it works in England.

 

[kali26]

Hey,
*..We dont have a high school diploma in england, we have gcse's which is a grade in each subject.
*..Ive lived in Texas for 5 years now, Im married to an american and in the process of becoming a citizen, but am not yet.
*..no bachelors degree


*..Yes I want to do school here in the usa, Texas would be prefered
*..

 

[theseeker4]

Hey,
*..We dont have a high school diploma in england, we have gcse's which is a grade in each subject.
*..Ive lived in Texas for 5 years now, Im married to an american and in the process of becoming a citizen, but am not yet.
*..no bachelors degree


*..Yes I want to do school here in the usa, Texas would be prefered
*..

Look into what it would take to register at a Texas university to pursue a Bachelors degree. It doesn't matter what it is in, as long as you get 2 semesters each of biology, chemistry, organic chemistry and physics, all with labs, plus some various other courses required by some medical schools, including biochemistry, calculus, English, etc. If you can have your citizenship by the time you are applying for medical school, it will make things a lot easier in the application process. Getting into a bachelors degree program is your first step, so start from there. Good luck!

 

[DrMidlife]

Great. Here's your to-do list:
1. Get a bachelor's degree. Major in anything you want, but it's more convenient to choose a major such as biology or chemistry, because then your course of study includes the prerequisites for med school. If you major in piano or history etc, then you can minor in bio or chem to get prereqs done.
2. Get very, very good grades in all coursework.
3. Start clinical volunteering, right away, and keep this up through school.
4. Make yourself well-known to professors and physicians and supervisors so that it's simple for such folks to write you recommendation letters.
5. Pay attention to what's going on with US healthcare policy, economics and ethics. If you read the NYT & WSJ health pages once a week during school, you will pick up on what you need.
6. Find physicians who will let you shadow in clinic. Ideally, get a physician to mentor you. Pay attention to happy or unhappy physicians are.
7. If there's another career in which you'd be happy, do the other career.

Best of luck to you.

 

[UpwardTrend]

All of what DrMidLife said plus:

When taking your year each of Bio, Chem, O-chem, Physics make sure you master the subjects and understand all the concepts. Making A's is easier than making A's while retaining the information. Try to volunteer in a non clinical setting too (tutoring kids, soup kitchen, etc). Plan on getting involved in an undergraduate research project at your school. Get involved with a club(s) or organizations at your school and try to gain an officer position. The longer you are involved in all of the extracurricular activities the better. Don't wait until your senior year to begin the EC's!
If you have time for a job, look into becoming an EMT. The training is around 6 months and it could land you a great opportunity on a bus or in an Emergency Department. Learn how to use the search function on this forum because any question you could think of has probably been answered already. Research and understand TMDSAS (google it if it's foreign to you). Figure out if you want to go to the one Osteopathic school (TCOM) or one of the Allopathic schools in TX. Do not get any grades less than a B. If you do get a B, make sure you have at least two A's for every B that you get.
Wow, there are lots of us non-trads that wish we had a clean slate like you have. DON'T MESS IT UP!

 

[Doc2doc2]

From what I recall, completing your GCSE is the equivalent of completing high school. If you haven't done that yet, get your GED then enroll in college and follow the advise of previous posters. Good luck.

 

[DrOMG]

From what I recall, completing your GCSE is the equivalent of completing high school. If you haven't done that yet, get your GED then enroll in college and follow the advise of previous posters. Good luck.

Yes your GCSE is the equivalent to a high school diploma.

OP, your GCSE's are useless here and also GNVQ's. The only thing that they will consider looking at is A-Levels, which I am assuming you didn't complete because you didn't mention them. If you are really interested to find out what your GCSE's are worth then consider WES to translate them into their American equivalence. But it is costly and you will likely not rcv anything of use out of it. I know this because I was born and raised in England too (Birmingham) and moved here in 2006 when I was 19. I joined the military and started from scratch at a local community college. It is definitely not too late to start!!! 😀 Don't give up on your dream!

 

[Drogo]

Hello everyone 🙂

I am 26 years old. I live in Texas, but grew up in England. I finished school without getting all my GCSE's. I want to be a surgeon, I realise I have a LONG way to go. I was wondering, at 26, starting totally from the beginning, is this possible? and where should I start?

Any help, pointers, or any info or ideas where to look would be very gratefully received.

Thanks for reading.

Kali

I'd suggest knocking out all your general education courses at a local community college to keep tuition costs as low as possible.(general ed courses are the same everywhere, don't care if it's an ivy leaugue or a CC) Maybe do a prereq or two and save the rest for the state uni you transfer to. Immediately get started on some volunteer work with some hands on clinical experience, post-op or EC (emergency center) volunteer work (avoid the liason volunteer work, try to get in the back where the action is).

Community service is a good thing to get involved in, I'd say find an organization that intrigues you greatly and become a part of it long-term. This can prove to be very helpful when you need letters-of-reccomendation later for volunteer work or other opportunities you're trying to get involved in (LOR's from a volunteer director or pastor of a church who know you personally are looked upon highly)

I'd suggest shadowing at least 5 different physicians and accumulating 50-60 hours.

I'm a year younger than you and I'm doing the aforementioned and I can't believe how much I have accomplished in a year already. You just have to stay on a grind and keep it moving forward.

If you're proactive and start networking as much as possible and build up great connections, you'll go far; and a word of advice, maintain some kind of communication with professionals/directors or great professors you meet, it'll prove invaluable come time you apply.



Take your compass test as soon as possible http://www.act.org/compass/index.html

 

[MD Odyssey]

This is a pretty simple question, but are you an American citizen? If your citizenship is in the UK, you will have a difficult time convincing an admissions committee that you will actually practice medicine in the US rather than going back home to practice there.