Non-trad RN to MD

[rntomd2022]

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking here for quite some time. I am 24, a TN resident and currently an RN in an ED, I have always wanted to pursue medicine. But, after having a couple of semesters of W's due to family losses and a semester of F's following that due to another loss/not wanting to study early in my college career. I decided against it and went into nursing. After that semester have an upward trend in my GPA and finished nursing school with a 3.99, only a A- in psych. I am wanting to go back and take my prereqs for med school as not many overlap into nursing school. My cumulative GPA factoring in all F's is 3.35, with my current science GPA as a 2.5. sGPA is very low due to not having to take many science pre-reqs and having those F's.

I am here for a multitude of reasons, I worry if I can even get accepted into MD/DO school with my background of W's and F's, if being a nurse decreases my chances, and if I should do my diy post-bacc at university or a local CC as I have to continue to work full-time to provide for my family

I know that nothing is provided until I take my MCAT and my other pre-reqs, I am just curious if I even have a shot. I will post my other science courses below

Gen Bio- C+
Gen Chem- F, then a B on retake in a 8 week summer course
A&P I- F, then a A on retake
A&P II- A
Micro- A-

Any feedback is greatly appreciated as I am trying to do what is best for med school while also providing for my wife our daughter who will be here shortly

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[DO_or_Die]

Take the pre-reqs and kill them, I mean straight A's. You don't need to overwhelm yourself as far as course load if you are working as a nurse, you can take them over 2-3 year period.

Take a few upper level bio courses (genetics, physiology, biochemistry) to show you can handle the rigor. You need to shadow physicians for at least 50-100 hours and you need to start volunteering non-clinically (low commitment maybe just 3hrs/week for a long term period of minimum 1 year). A year before applying begin to collect recommendation letters from 1-2 science profs and at least 1 physician. If you apply DO, a DO letter is preferable or you can have one of each. Once you've taken the pre-reqs and done well, give yourself minimum 3 months to study for the MCAT. 500+ will get you in a DO school somewhere, 507+ for MD. Realize that you will more than likely have to move for medical school, potentially across the country. I got into my state school, but was 100% prepared to move.

I'm a nurse too and I know it is a lot that I just threw your way, but if you really want this, this is what it will take. I was not able to work FT and do all of this and do well enough to be accepted. As far as your W's and F's, you will be able to articulate this in your application, they just need to see that you have broken that cycle.

 

[Throwaway33130]

Hey! So excited to see others taking the plunge!

I totally agree about taking some upper level courses and crushing them. You can do this, especially given how well you did in nursing school! As mentioned above, if you can speak maturely about your grades in your application, it shouldn't be an issue. Also, agree on being willing to be a little mobile, which I know might be tougher with a wife and daughter. My experience with shadowing and a few other things was a little different, so I wanted to share.

I was a PICU RN with ED experience as well. I decided at year 5 of nursing to make the change. I opted to do the a post bacc. Many top tier universities have "extension schools" that offer either formal post bacc programs or the option to just take courses a la carte. It's a great flexible way to take courses with solid academic rigor, at honestly a similar cost to what a local state or community college might cost.

I chose to travel nurse (albeit locally) in Boston and worked full time while completing the program over 2 years. During that time, I also made contact with a physician in the area and did a lot of research. My commitment for research was anywhere from 5-15 hours a week, school 20-30, and work 36 hours a week. It made for some LONG days and months, but was the best move for me given my financial situation.

I cannot say enough about travel nursing if you need to work. Because you request your dates upfront in your contracts, I always was able to block a week of for myself during big exams, and take 3 weeks between contracts when I needed to focus on school. As a staff nurse, you run the risk of getting PTO requests denied, and you don't have the luxury of specifying things like "I only work day shift" or "If I'm on nights, I never want to work more than 2 nights in a row" into your contracts. If you're travel nursing in one spot, like I did, you will get fully taxed which really takes a way the huge pay advantage of travel nursing, but I still found that I was slightly ahead of what I would make in a staff position, and had way more free time between contracts.

I have never done any physician shadowing, but worked directly with MD's in my PICU/peds CVICU day job. My rec letters were from MD's I'd worked with in a clinical setting, 2 post bacc professors, and the PI on my major research project.

I took 6 weeks off of work completely to do content review for the MCAT, then took it after another 6 weeks of going back to a travel contract and taking practice exams 1-2x per week. It was honestly impossible to go hard on MCAT prep without taking a chunk of time away from the bedside.

My result was 2 T50 acceptances (one in state, one private) and 2 interviews from top tier schools that I'm waiting to hear back from. As for worrying about nursing decreasing your chances- all of my interviewers spoke very highly of nurses and openly said that they viewed my experience as an asset. I'm not sure who started the rumor that adcoms don't like nurses , but my academic advisor told me that too and so far it's been wrong.

Sorry for the long post- just wanted to share my experience because I found it helpful when I was at your stage of the game. Don't get discouraged, and know that you can do this, even if your path is wildly different than most!

 

[DO_or_Die]

Hey! So excited to see others taking the plunge!

I totally agree about taking some upper level courses and crushing them. You can do this, especially given how well you did in nursing school! As mentioned above, if you can speak maturely about your grades in your application, it shouldn't be an issue. Also, agree on being willing to be a little mobile, which I know might be tougher with a wife and daughter. My experience with shadowing and a few other things was a little different, so I wanted to share.

I was a PICU RN with ED experience as well. I decided at year 5 of nursing to make the change. I opted to do the a post bacc. Many top tier universities have "extension schools" that offer either formal post bacc programs or the option to just take courses a la carte. It's a great flexible way to take courses with solid academic rigor, at honestly a similar cost to what a local state or community college might cost.

I chose to travel nurse (albeit locally) in Boston and worked full time while completing the program over 2 years. During that time, I also made contact with a physician in the area and did a lot of research. My commitment for research was anywhere from 5-15 hours a week, school 20-30, and work 36 hours a week. It made for some LONG days and months, but was the best move for me given my financial situation.

I cannot say enough about travel nursing if you need to work. Because you request your dates upfront in your contracts, I always was able to block a week of for myself during big exams, and take 3 weeks between contracts when I needed to focus on school. As a staff nurse, you run the risk of getting PTO requests denied, and you don't have the luxury of specifying things like "I only work day shift" or "If I'm on nights, I never want to work more than 2 nights in a row" into your contracts. If you're travel nursing in one spot, like I did, you will get fully taxed which really takes a way the huge pay advantage of travel nursing, but I still found that I was slightly ahead of what I would make in a staff position, and had way more free time between contracts.

I have never done any physician shadowing, but worked directly with MD's in my PICU/peds CVICU day job. My rec letters were from MD's I'd worked with in a clinical setting, 2 post bacc professors, and the PI on my major research project.

I took 6 weeks off of work completely to do content review for the MCAT, then took it after another 6 weeks of going back to a travel contract and taking practice exams 1-2x per week. It was honestly impossible to go hard on MCAT prep without taking a chunk of time away from the bedside.

My result was 2 T50 acceptances (one in state, one private) and 2 interviews from top tier schools that I'm waiting to hear back from. As for worrying about nursing decreasing your chances- all of my interviewers spoke very highly of nurses and openly said that they viewed my experience as an asset. I'm not sure who started the rumor that adcoms don't like nurses , but my academic advisor told me that too and so far it's been wrong.

Sorry for the long post- just wanted to share my experience because I found it helpful when I was at your stage of the game. Don't get discouraged, and know that you can do this, even if your path is wildly different than most!

Seeing as how you have peds experience as well, are you wanting to do strictly peds? I have been mostly leaning peds, but I also miss a lot of the disease processes that were more common to see in adults and am wanting to keep my mind open although I love the pedi population. I like hospital work and can't really see myself in an outpatient peds clinic at this time.