Medical Non traditional business major looking to go into medicine - What should I be doing?

[TheBoneDoctah]

Hello everyone,

First off, thanks for any help, I really appreciate it. I am a recent graduate (December 2019) in Finance with a solid GPA(3.85 if that matters). After experiencing different finance internships as well as a recent full time job, I lack the passion and interest to continue in finance. All throughout college and now I kept wanting to make the switch to pre-med, but felt bad since I was so entrenched with my business studies. My question is, besides taking the pre reqs needed and pushing myself to score extremely well on the MCAT, what should I be doing regarding ec's? I am from Miami, so a lot of volunteer as well as shadowing opps are currently held off for now. What would you do if you were in my position? Thanks.

I mean, right now everyone is kinda on hold with this kinda stuff. Good news for you is that it will take probably 2 years to finish all your prereqs (depending on how many you actually have already) before you are even ready to apply, and I HOPE this world is in a better place in the next 6 months with this virus. You should have plenty of time to rack up hours volunteering and shadowing and getting that important clinical research, but make sure it doesn't cut into and hurt your grades in your prereqs.

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[TheBoneDoctah]

Thank you for reaching out. I am hopeful as well, I just feel a little behind, especially being a nontraditional student with a delay on ec's. Would you recommend trying to pursue some nonclinical volunteer pops remotely, or maybe even looking into some paid clinical work like an EMT or CNA? Just trying to think of a way I could maybe begin exploring and adding some experience.

Anything you can do would help, but just don't let it get in the way of your course studying.

 

[tantacles]

Thank you for reaching out. I am hopeful as well, I just feel a little behind, especially being a nontraditional student with a delay on ec's. Would you recommend trying to pursue some nonclinical volunteer pops remotely, or maybe even looking into some paid clinical work like an EMT or CNA? Just trying to think of a way I could maybe begin exploring and adding some experience.

Essentially, what you'll need is:

1. Clinical experience (can be paid or volunteering)
2. Volunteering experience (an be clinical or non-clinical)
3. Shadowing physicians
4. Research (possibly optional)

You have a lot of time to take care of these things, but if you check these boxes, you've at least done the minimum.

 

[tantacles]

Thank you for your reply. I have been looking into things such as the WARS scoring system which basically adheres to what you are saying. For the clinical and volunteer experiences, do you believe a diversity of experiences to be better than one experience with more hours and consistency? I see a lot of med students where it seems they may have more experiences with fewer hours to make their resume look more full I suppose. Do you believe it would be frowned upon to have fewer experiences with a longer duration? Hope that makes sense.

Consistently doing one thing for many hours is the ideal way to go about things, but you do need to check all of the boxes.

 

[Goro]

Read this:
Med School Rx: Getting In, Getting Through, and Getting On with Doctoring Original Edition by Walter Hartwig
ISBN-13: 978-1607140627

ISBN-10: 1607140624