How would a BSN affect my chances on getting into Med School?

[MyCreativeName]

Hello, I am new to this website, and I am sorry if this is in the wrong section. I have been browsing through many forums and have found threads much like this one, but no one has answered this exact question.

Here is my situation.

I am an incoming student at Moravian College, in Pennsylvania. Its a nationally accredited private college (don't think that matters but just in case). I was planning on majoring in nursing and obtaining a BSN, then going to med school. Moravian has a good Pre-med program I would take along with my major. This would fulfill all the required classes for med school admission.

I've heard stories of med schools shunning nursing majors because they are taking always spot of someone who wants to become a nurse. But I didnt, as Moravian pretty much always has at least a few open spots in their nursing program.

SO basically, If i was to major in nursing (and obtain the 4 year degree) and ace all premed track classes, would I still be looked down upon? I would obviously take the MCAT as well. Ive always been VERY close to a 4.0GPA, if not at it.

My uncle has been a nurse for many decades said that majoring in Nursing while fulfilling the pre med requirements was a great idea, but I need your opinions as well.

Thank you. If you have any questions regarding this, please ask!

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[MyCreativeName]

I will also be volunteering at a local hospital every summer. The nursing degree at moravian will give me many hours of patient interaction before graduating.

 

[Richard Dawkins]

don't do it. adcoms may think you're flaky or unreliable and will question your choice of a specialized major that is closely related to medicine with no intention of going that route. leave nursing degress to people who want to be nurses and pick something else that you're interested in. there are other ways of gaining clinical experience that don't raise flags.

 

[TriagePreMed]

I've heard stories of med schools shunning nursing majors because they are taking always spot of someone who wants to become a nurse. But I didnt, as Moravian pretty much always has at least a few open spots in their nursing program.

Not a very good idea. While it may be true that your program has few nursing students, this doesn't mean that the individual medical schools will know this, and letting them know is not something that you can actively do without revealing that you know it may seem as a hindrance. I would recommend majoring in something else. If later on in life you don't want to do medicine and instead want to do nursing, you can always do an accelerated program.

 

[alpinism]

Here's the deal:

A BSN is meant to be a "professional degree" centered around preparing graduates to become nurses, not physicians. Other majors (humanities, engineering, psychology, etc..) are not professional degree programs and graduates from these programs do not automatically become writers/engineers/psychologists when they finish. They still need to attend a graduate (MS/PhD) professional degree program in these fields to get a job (not always, but for the most part). Also, they can use their degree to get a variety of different jobs not directly related to their degree.

BSN programs don't let you take as many elective classes and you don't get a well rounded undergrad education like other majors. In addition, you won't take any of the required pre-med prereq's such as Physics, Gchem, Orgo, or other highly suggested classes like Cell Bio, Biochem, Calculus, etc.. as part of the BSN itself. You don't want to take a bunch of nursing classes and then have to take the all premed classes on top of that at the same time.

In reality, the nursing classes will do very little to prepare you for med school and you'll never use most of what you'll learn as a doctor. The little that might come in handy will be covered again in med school so you'll end up wasting your time taking the same classes/learning the same thing twice.

If you are planning on applying for med school, you can major in almost anything w/ the caveat that the major lets you take all of the premed pre-req's as part of the degree program (either as core classes or electives) along with a some upper division bio classes and it is not a professional degree program.