Is Nursing A Good Major As PreMed?
Started by Xypathos
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Thanks!!!!!!!! for those kind words.🙂
there are pros/cons to everything on this earth no many how careful we try to plan. an english/psychology/history major will still need to complete all the science pre-reqs for med school same as a nurse. the diffenrence is, i feel good sacrificing an extra 1.5yr to get them done than trading the fact that i am a nurse. you could see it as a waste of time but for me and many nurses out there, it works just fine. my goal is not to rush ...but instead to take my time and grap eveything that i possibly can to be a great primary care physician no matter how long it takes me. after all, the end justify's the means.
if it take u 4yrs to get in med school or 5yrs or 6yrs or even 15yrs.....you will still become a physician. i am married with a child and one on the way so u know definitely that i am not playing the rushing bussiness. every situation is different, so let us just choose as your situation permits.
thanks
I am thinking they should require more statistics in nursing school.
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haha....very funny.
1:1000 nurse acceptances vs 40:50, 000 biology major...my imagination. please site a source that help me understand where u got ure stats.
anyways, i really donot care for wht the statistics are. my philosophy is have a good package and you will be accepted to med school
Directly from the AAMC. http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/start.htm
Also, the MSAR, which you can pick up at a bookstore.
And here I thought that even nurses were interested in evidence based practice.
Also, just so you know, there are merely 23,000 biology majors, not 50 thousand.
Lets compute some facts, shall we?
% admittance:
Biological Sciences: 41%
Humanities: 48%
Math: 36%
Other: 39%
Physical Sciences: 47%
Social Sciences: 43%
Specialized Health: 31%
Overall: 41%.
i still do not see Nursing singled out in your statistics.
my aim here is not to debate with anyway. i still stick to my philosophy. the adcoms look at your total package and not whether u are biological sciences or whatever else is out there. again, whatever you choose to do, shine like a star and you will be on your way to med school.
Nursing is quite clearly specialized health major.
Yes, and if you look at the GPA and MCAT breakdowns, the total package either correlates or is caused by, majors in science, the notable exception being the verbal score and humanities major.
I don't think that this will be the focus of your interview, particularly at those schools which interview with a closed file.
Your facts don't consider the MCAT scores or the UG GPA's for each major, so they fail to control for some considerable confounding variables.
If you argue that traditional nursing pre-req's don't prepare you well for the MCAT, that is understandable since we agree that the MCAT will cover material not found in nursing prerequisites (nor should they). If you argue that students who take harder courses have lower GPA's, you could probably find statistics to support that too.
However, to say that "the statistics prove" that nursing majors don't get accepted at the same rate because not as many of them seem to get in, you have to show that those nursing majors who didn't get in were passed over for other majors who had the same MCAT and GPA numbers.
My advice to everybody who wants to get into medical school is to pretend that they only things that matter are MCAT and GPA. After you have secured competative numbers, fill in the mortar around those bricks. Doing nursing at the same time holds personal advantages for some, but it doesn't inherently improve your application to medical school by itself. It doesn't hurt it, either, nor would getting a business or agriculture degree.
And more biochemistry, and more pharmacology, and more advanced A&P. And yes, this is coming from a nurse. I don't think our education has kept up with rising patient acuity and it's a huge source of frustration for me.
I'm going to be honest guys. A nursing major is science-focused and prepares you to become a nurse, but there's also a lot of fluff there, and if you're pre-med you would be far better served to replace that fluff with hard science.
Example: I'm currently finishing up my BSN (I started at a university, moved across the state, transferred to a tech and graduated with an ADN, and am now returning to complete my BSN). My current classes are Nursing Research, Statistics (not required for BSN, but next step is MSN and I need it for that), Nursing Leadership and Management, and Community Health Nursing. Stats is going to kick my butt.
Nursing Research is challenging and fascinating. The other two--not so much. I'm going to be neck-deep in writing papers, but having looked thoroughly through the syllabus and reading assignments, I can't say I'm going to learn an awful lot. It's fluffy busy work, and more about the philosophy of nursing than what we actually do. Unfortunately, there's a lot of that in nursing and it drives me batty because that time should be filled with patho and the science of nursing. I have spent so much freaking time during my education writing process recordings and care plans and getting exactly nothing from them. That's NOT what nurses do in the real world, but nursing academia/leadership just loves that stuff so valuable time is wasted with fluff.
If you're going to go to medical school, you don't have much time for fluff. I say, learn as much about the hard sciences as you can because it will prepare you for even more hard science in medical school. Certainly you can add more hard science (along with your pre-reqs for med school) around the nursing program, but nursing curriculum is often scheduled very tightly so you'll be hard-pressed to do so.
That and we're chronically understaffed which is exhausting so I want all the working nurses we can get. 😉
Dude. You're too much. What do the contemporaries of Napolean say to the little man with supreme confidence....not much if they're smart.Since you strike as a little emperor, I think I'll keep my mouth shut. A physician/adcom amongst us in the guise of a pre-med lamb, already versed in evidence based practice and a master of causative statistics....hmmm...and I thought I was cool cause I've worked in the trenches....hmmhmmm.
You never heard of Nasrudin....I never crossed you....(eases up nice and slow)....
I'm just going to go tend to my little field now.
here's what i've heard about nursing and med school... med schools are disinclined to take nurses, as there is more of a national nursing shortage than shortage of doctors. this is from a (former) nurse i know who's now in med school; apparently this was mentioned while on the interview trail. hope this helps, i'm not familiar enough with the cirriculum to speculate if it's good prep for med school.
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Not really relevant on an individual basis though.
There is a major difference between comparing nursing and being a tuba major. There is a very sharp demand for nurses due to an even steeper shortage of nurses in many places. Nursing school much like med school is also somewhat competitive depending on where you go. You are essentially taking a spot in a career that someone else might want whereas when you are an English major, Music major etc, they are just degrees but unless you are a music major at say one of the top music schools it doesnt affect something as serious as the nursing thing would.
Also, there is the fact that you are more likely to gain more clinical experience before med school by doing a patient care tech course or applying for med assistant positions that don't require the 2 year training course and allow for on the job training then you are to get as a nurse. You can get 4 years of experience that way which will be far more then 2 years of clinicals. Being a nurse will not have a leg up in getting in and would be a waste of time unless you were like a nontrad who worked a few years as a nurse.
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Im sorry for putting out facts that you disagree with, but math doesnt lie. But by all means, believe what you want, despite what the MSAR and AAMC say.
Lets skew the statistics. Lets say the breakdown of the % of students getting in with each major is:
Biology: 100%
Humanities: 50%
Other: 0%
What would you major in if you wanted to go to med school?
this conversation has turned a little caustic 🙁.
while i see the point you're making, i think the individual is still at least as important as these stats (basically they're pre-test probabilities based on a "blank slate" person with no defined aptitudes or interests). for instance, let's say i really like econ and not so much the chemistry stuff. empirically, you could say that i should do chem because chem majors have better acceptance rates. but i'm not a "blank slate" person, i'm werd - who likes econ. for me, i could do econ, have a very good gpa, get good letters, etc. if i did chem i wouldn't be as interested, get my gpa's butt kicked, and might not form relationships with profs as well for those letters. for me personally, econ is my better path towards med school acceptance. i think these sort of "acceptance stats" should only be employed if you're really on the fence about what you like. werd.
A few thoughts:
As mentioned above, nursing courses can be a lot of fluffy busy work. This takes away time that could be spent preparing for the MCAT and engaging in activities that will make you a well rounded applicant. The same goes for the "clinicals". Yes, it counts as clinical experience but it is far more than the avg pre-med has or needs and it will grind you down. Furthermore, although it is fluff and much of it seems like BS, it can hurt your gpa.
You need to answer the question, "why medicine". Whereas the tuba player and the chemical engineer may play the "want more contact with people" card, that's obviously useless if you are a nurse. Furthermore, as someone who has already chosen to be trained in a health profession, you need to explain why your first choice was a "wrong choice" for you and why medicine is, in hindsight, a better choice. It isn't impossible but it is a harder thing than explaining why you are not making a career of the history of ancient Egypt.
As mentioned above, nursing courses can be a lot of fluffy busy work. This takes away time that could be spent preparing for the MCAT and engaging in activities that will make you a well rounded applicant. The same goes for the "clinicals". Yes, it counts as clinical experience but it is far more than the avg pre-med has or needs and it will grind you down. Furthermore, although it is fluff and much of it seems like BS, it can hurt your gpa.
You need to answer the question, "why medicine". Whereas the tuba player and the chemical engineer may play the "want more contact with people" card, that's obviously useless if you are a nurse. Furthermore, as someone who has already chosen to be trained in a health profession, you need to explain why your first choice was a "wrong choice" for you and why medicine is, in hindsight, a better choice. It isn't impossible but it is a harder thing than explaining why you are not making a career of the history of ancient Egypt.
I was told this...
There is a shortage of nurses, and a shortage of docs. If you want to be a doctor, then go get your MD. If you want to be a nurse, go to nursing school. Don't go to nursing school with the intention of then getting your MD, as you take away a seat from someone in nursing school who is genuinely interested in nursing.
There is a shortage of nurses, and a shortage of docs. If you want to be a doctor, then go get your MD. If you want to be a nurse, go to nursing school. Don't go to nursing school with the intention of then getting your MD, as you take away a seat from someone in nursing school who is genuinely interested in nursing.
Thank you very much best advice ever!
