Law School to Premed Postbac

[gcorleone]

Hello Everyone:

I am new to the forum and almost everything premed and health career related. Since this is an area of limited knowledge for me, I would be so grateful if anyone could offer me feedback on my situation.

I am currently 23 years old and in my first semester of my second year in law school in New Jersey. I attended Rutgers- New Brunswick for undergrad, double majoring in Political Science and Planning and Public Policy with a history minor. My overall gpa was a 3.316. I do not have any of the prerequisite science courses for medical school and only Statistics completed for math. I realized over the past summer just how unhappy I was in the legal field when I worked two separate legal internships and held a weekend job. I have always had an interest in medicine and the way that the body can be affected by disease, especially after seeing members of my family deal with various types of cancer.

I am interested in applying to and attending a pre-health or core sciences postbac but I am unsure what program would be the right fit. I would like to start a program as soon as possible, (Spring or Summer 2013) but I am unsure of how my application will be viewed as I do not have a large amount of health related work experience or volunteer work on my resume. Starting in October, I will be volunteering with a local hospital but because of my already packed schedule, I would only be able to commit 1-2 days a week. I am also wondering if it would be helpful for me to take a job at a hospital as an overnight unit secretary. I am not sure if that type of position would be helpful to an application for a postbac or medical school.

I have applied to NYU's postbac program and started applications for Columbia and UPenn's programs as well. I have heard mixed feedback on all of these programs but besides going back to my undergraduate school, I am not sure where else to look. If possible, I would like to complete the program within a year to a year and a half, taking summer classes.

Any feedback or advice on my situation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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[DrMidlife]

You need to have a rational basis for pursuing medicine, or you're just school hopping. Get into a clinical setting as a volunteer, and pay attention. Now would be good. Typical med school candidates have hundreds of clinical volunteer hours - partially to determine if medicine is a legitimately interesting field to them, and partially because they love being in a clinical setting. Use clinical volunteering to get access to physicians who will let you shadow. Learn about the practice of medicine. Be willing to find that medicine is not what you want to do.

Also, from a 3.3 in undergrad with no science, you should expect the med school prereqs to be very, very difficult. Plan accordingly. Such as: start with one class, and only proceed if you get an A.

Best of luck to you.

 

[gcorleone]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your honest feedback. You make a good point that it might seem like I am school hopping. I really don't want to come across that way as I've known since high school that I wanted to go into medical school but gave up after my first semester in college when the school lost my placement tests and I hated psychology.

I also have a unique situation with law school as I didn't take the LSATs and apply to various schools but was offered a position and scholarship in a class because of my high GRE scores. It was never my dream but coming out of college I accepted it as my best option. I am leaving law school after this semester and addition to volunteering at the hospital, I will be shadowing my allergist in the Spring. I was just really hoping to start premedical courses as soon as possible.