older md holder wanting to go back to med school.

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linktim

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Dear SDN members, my situation is as follows. I am 28 soon to be 29 , a US citizen, lived abroad and did medical school abroad. Due to a host of factors:

1.Annoyed that some states do not recognize school.
2.Annoyed that if I ever want to move to western Canada ( where my mom/step dad/sister live) in the future, my degree is not accepted but a US degree/residency (with varying red tape) is taken at par
3. residency competitiveness
4. FMG stigma.

I am planning on going back to school at 28/29, and will be about 33 when I am out, and 39 when I earn full salary, is anyone here in this situation?

[I am not all about money but it depresses/hurts me that I will be old before I can even see some monetary success, I cant imagine being poor
till near 40! Adding salt to the wound, my friends will be 150K+ at 32-33
and I might have to deal with a a resdent salry at 37 with a child possibly on the way. ]
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I would just move to some state where your degree is valid and just start residency there. There is a stigma with FMG's but you should still be able to find an IM or FP position somewhere. It would be very hard for me to even consider re-doing medical school, so I would not recommend you go that route. Just make your current degree work for you. Ton's of FMG's have made it in the US.
 
i've only finished one round of med school and will be older before I earn a real salary.

Life brings what it brings. don't fret it.

BTW you rincreased maturity will be recognized and benefical in residency. some of these folks are so young and act that way
 
Very few medical schools in the US will accept you if you already have an "MD equivalent". A few DO schools will allow this, and may shorten your pre-clinical work to 1 year, saving money and time.
 
I agree that going back to school wouldn't be the best thing to do.if even possible. On another note, 29 is hardly seasoned. A lot of us out there started much later than that. Besides, you will make good money and if you are wise starting your retirement savings in your 40's will pan out just fine. Someone who started saving at age 25 but makes 35K/year is no better off than someone starting at 40ish making 150+/year. Get your residency where you can..then let the river of life take you from there.
 
As others note, your age is not an issue. Many people are not the traditional 26 year old intern and either started school late, went back to school (in my case) or took time off between school and residency.

Many people have children during residency. Frankly, "being 37, earning a resident's salary with a child possibly on the way" doesn't sound like something you should be pinning your future decisions on. Its pretty iffy if you will still be in residency at 37 and whether or not you/your partner will be pregnant.

You have to decide whether or not being a physician is worth the sacrifice and living as a resident in your 30s. Frankly, residents earn more than the average US salary, so its hardly poverty wages. Is it as much as perhaps your friends make? Perhaps not if they have high powered jobs but all of us here have made the decision that the sacrifices of medical school and residency are worth it for reaching the final goal.

Regardless of whether or not DO schools will accept you now, IMHO, it is a waste of time to go back to medical school. If you have a valid degree from a school listed on FAIMER and are eligible for an ECFMG certificate and a state license in *some* US state with residencies, I'm not sure why you would go back to school.

What is worse to you - the "IMG status (you are an American citizen so you are not an FMG but rather an IMG)" or being in your 30s and in medical school/residency? Surely you thought about the stigma when you first decided to go abroad for medical school and decided it was worth it. What's different now?

Have you even tried to get into a residency in the US? If not, it really seems ridiculous to consider going back to medical school on the off chance that you might be able to work in Western Canada. What residency are you considering that takes 6 years?

So it seems to me that you need to get over the age (non) issue and decide whether to try and get into a US residency or medical school, accepting that even that is not a guarantee that you will be able to live and/or train exactly where you want.
 
agree with all the excellent advice above.
Life is about choices. You have to decide what is important to you at this point. You haven't given us much info, such as what your occupation/job is right now, when and where you went to med school, etc.
If you are willing to do internal med/family practice/psychiatry, or maybe one of a few other specialties, I think you could probably get a residency coming from most med schools abroad, if you can do well on the USMLE.

If you have no undergrad degree from a US university, it will be very hard to get in to a US medical school, as you probably know. If you do and your GPA was good, then you just have to decide whether going for 4 more years of school is worth it to you. Med school will kind of suck if you've already been through it once, but if you want to practice in the US and for some reason your med school can't/isn't being recognized in any US states, it's the price you have to pay if you want to practice here in the US. Being a resident right now (or when you are in your 30's) isn't THAT bad, except when you are an intern or if you are in certain specialties where they all just work like dogs (i.e. neurosurgery).

If you really don't want to redo med school and for some reason you can't get any residency here in the US, then PA or NP school would be an option. I might get flamed by someone on here for suggesting that, but they make pretty good money and have better hours than most docs, and with prior experience I'm pretty sure you could get through the schooling in 2 years, with no residency, so it's not that bad of a deal.
 
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being an "older" student or resident. I am turning 45 in a few weeks and am just 8.75 months away from finishing residency. Being older has many advantages, as well as disadvantages. the pluses include maturity, stability, life experience, and discipline. The minuses include having a little more difficulty tolerating long hours, not having quite as good a memory as when you are younger, and being mistaken for an attending when you are just an intern (or is that actually a good thing?). I wish you all the best in your decision.
 
This sounds like some nightmare I recently had where I was trying to figure out why in the world I was in the Gross Anatomy Lab AGAIN dissecting away to expose the Brachial Plexus when I knew fully well that I had already graduated from medical school. Seriously, you want to repeat medical school? :eek: If it meant that AssHat, Saskatchewan was the only jurisdiction in all of Canada that would recognize my medical school that is where I would be! Seriously, move on and get out of limbo already. Get a residency my friend.
 
Hi guys I am revisiting this thread that I wrote on before. Are there any people here in their mid to late 30's in fellowship? If so, what is your situation
1.family wise,
2.financially.

3. Going back to teh original thread, I will have some regret that my friends will be in fellowship at 33 versus myself at 37-38.Any advice.

thanks.
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Why are you so concerned with what your friends are doing or making? What should matter is what you want to do with the rest of your life. Please make your decesions based on what will make you happy, not what your friends will think.
 
teri78 said:
Hi,

Why are you so concerned with what your friends are doing or making? What should matter is what you want to do with the rest of your life. Please make your decisions based on what will make you happy, not what your friends will think.
Click to expand...

Agreed. This is about you, not them. If you look at the nontrad board, you will see many folks who did whole careers and then decided to go into medicine. Life isn't a competition or a race. You only live it once and the days go by just as fast regardless of what you are doing or when. So what if you end up a doctor later? A few years after you are dead nobody is going to say, well he only became a US doctor at 33 so that's not as good as the person who finished at 24. :rolleyes:

My take on this thread was the same as that of aProgramDirector -- if you already have a foreign degree, very few to no US allo schools will take you, even if you were willing to restart the process. So that narrows your chances significantly, regardless of your age.

But your focus on how old you will be is concerning. This is a path you will be on for the rest of your life. So it really doesn't matter what stage you are at when. All of us are going to experience folks our age who started or finished before or after us. Residencies are not the same length, and so a neuro-surgeon will still be a resident long after a neurologist is an attending. So what?
 
medicinesux said:
This sounds like some nightmare I recently had where I was trying to figure out why in the world I was in the Gross Anatomy Lab AGAIN dissecting away to expose the Brachial Plexus when I knew fully well that I had already graduated from medical school. Seriously, you want to repeat medical school? :eek: If it meant that AssHat, Saskatchewan was the only jurisdiction in all of Canada that would recognize my medical school that is where I would be! Seriously, move on and get out of limbo already. Get a residency my friend.
Click to expand...

lol, this does sound like a nightmare to me too. like groundhog day that lasts four years or something. I would certainly exhaust all options before returning to medical school for four years.
 
Hi guys, thanks for the answers. Regarding the question what will make me happy, what is the logical choice, here is what I think. I am still finishing up, , I am not sure exactly what path I will be put on, that is out of my control.

But, in the mean time, I can convince myself, that being 37 and still in fellowship will not be that bad of an outcome. Which is why in my prev post
I asked if there are folks in fellowship around that age.

I think what I will do is post on the non traditional forum asking them, who knows I might find a lot of "yeah this is my situation no biggie".
 
Actually I just looked in the non traditional student area , its more folks like I am fourty something, wanted to be a physician etc. etc. I don't think it applies to me, so what I am going to do is just create another forum, where I ask folks to just holler back. Basically if I can get enough people to say linktim, you know I am 37 in fellowship, and you know what its not so bad etc. I personally feel that will help me the most. I don't necessarily know if I will go to residency directly or not. But, I do want the morale encouragement of knowing that it aint so bad.
 
I don't see why you think it would be unusual to be 30-something and in fellowship. I am 34 and just about to start the clinical part of my cardiology fellowship, which will be 3 years. The average age for an entering med student at a lot of schools in the US is 24 or so, which means that a significant number of people are older than that. Many also do an extra year to get other degrees like MPH, MBA, or even a 7-9 year MD/PhD dual degree. There are a lot of people in their mid 30's in fellowship.

The ? of whether to redo all of med school is a totally separate question. Like others have posted on here, I think it would be hard to get into med school if you've already graduated from one in another country. It seems more logical to try to do some volunteer rotations/shadowing and then try to get a residency straight away. I don't really see the point in redoing all of med school, even if you could get in....
 
I apologize in advance for being a bit brazen, but dude, get over yourself. Many folks are non-trad in age these days. I won't start my fellowship till I'm past your age. I had many classmates in med school who didn't start till they were 38-39, which puts a couple of them at 50 when they finish their fellowships. By no means are you the first, and certainly, you will not be the last. As Yoda so prophetically states, do or do not; there is no try. Either you want to continue as a physician or you don't. There's no middle ground.

And, if you are so concerned about age, why in the world would you even entertain doing another 4 years of med school in your differential? :confused: That seems illogical at best, f'ed up at worst. Go wherever you can get a training spot and get on with your life.
 
linktim said:
Actually I just looked in the non traditional student area , its more folks like I am fourty something, wanted to be a physician etc. etc. I don't think it applies to me, so what I am going to do is just create another forum, where I ask folks to just holler back. Basically if I can get enough people to say linktim, you know I am 37 in fellowship, and you know what its not so bad etc. I personally feel that will help me the most. I don't necessarily know if I will go to residency directly or not. But, I do want the morale encouragement of knowing that it aint so bad.
Click to expand...

I dont think being 37 and in a fellowship would be that bad at all. the hours aren't as bad. plenty of folks do fellowships at that age or older. i wouldnt worry about that.
 
Ok, there is some encouraging news. In your estimates what % of your department is say 35-40 in fellowship age category.

thanks.
 
linktim said:
Ok, there is some encouraging news. In your estimates what % of your department is say 35-40 in fellowship age category.

thanks.
Click to expand...
I have a better question. What are you going to do with the answer?

Over at Penn State, almost all of the cardiology fellows are in their early 30's. I don't know of any that are 35+. So now what? Are you going to give up your career in medicine? What do you intend to do for a living?

Either you're a troll, or you're someone with serious insecurity issues that would be better addressed by a therapist.
 
Agree that you may have difficulty going back to school if you already have a degree. Have you considered options in other fields that are related to medicine? Alternatively, there are more and more opportunities in areas like Health IT and other fields. Would those be of interest?
 
Terpskins99 said:
I have a better question. What are you going to do with the answer?

Over at Penn State, almost all of the cardiology fellows are in their early 30's. I don't know of any that are 35+. So now what? Are you going to give up your career in medicine? What do you intend to do for a living?

Either you're a troll, or you're someone with serious insecurity issues that would be better addressed by a therapist.
Click to expand...

Or when I was there (at Penn State) we DID have a Cards fellow in his 40s. And a GI fellow in his mid 30s (I went to medical school with him). A radiology resident who had practiced as a general surgeon before coming back for residency...he was in mid 40s. There was another rads resident who looked rather, uhmm, elderly. Maybe 50s?

The point is that there are LOTS of people in their mid to late 30s doing fellowship. Since when did that become so old as to worry about it? I suppose if you carried the gene for Huntingtons and you were going to be dead by your mid 40s it might make a difference, but otherwise?

And as others have pointed out, even if you WERE the oldest fellow there, who cares? My mother and brother never did with their life what they truly dreamed about. They regret it and it was what drove me to go back to school and pursue what I had always wanted to do. I cannot fathom why someone else wouldn't choose to do so for the sole reason of fear of being older than anyone else. Let me tell you, there were interns 10 years younger than me who clearly could not handle call as well as I could.
 
I totally concur that fellowships (whether they be for surgery, IM, peds, or OB/GYN, or others) are littered with the 30-somethings, and occasionally, 40- or 50- somethings. My impression is that it is totally the norm to be a fellow in one's 30s (at a minimum). Honestly, once you reach that level, my experience is that your age becomes immaterial.
Good luck to you!
 
ekydrd said:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being an "older" student or resident. I am turning 45 in a few weeks and am just 8.75 months away from finishing residency. Being older has many advantages, as well as disadvantages. the pluses include maturity, stability, life experience, and discipline. The minuses include having a little more difficulty tolerating long hours, not having quite as good a memory as when you are younger, and being mistaken for an attending when you are just an intern (or is that actually a good thing?). I wish you all the best in your decision.
Click to expand...

Hey- drink water - i hear it helps you look younger :)
 
minstral said:
i've only finished one round of med school and will be older before I earn a real salary.

Life brings what it brings. don't fret it.

BTW you rincreased maturity will be recognized and benefical in residency. some of these folks are so young and act that way
Click to expand...


truer words have not been spoken !
 
medicinesux said:
If it meant that AssHat, Saskatchewan was the only jurisdiction in all of Canada that would recognize my medical school that is where I would be!
Click to expand...

AssHat's in southwestern Alberta.
 
I'd suggest a little more research on this part. As far as I am aware that "varying red tape" is mostly impossible with you having little to no chance of entry.

CanGas

linktim said:
2.Annoyed that if I ever want to move to western Canada ( where my mom/step dad/sister live) in the future, my degree is not accepted but a US degree/residency (with varying red tape) is taken at par
Click to expand...
 
this is a good thread. i also fret over the details like my age in relation to the majority. i know i have insecurity issues but i think sharing these issues even if some of you label them as "trolling", helps. it makes you realize how illogical and down right stupid some of your concerns are. a lot of previous insecurity issues i have sorted out on my own. im still not over the age thing but i think im getting there.
 
linktim said:
Actually I just looked in the non traditional student area , its more folks like I am fourty something, wanted to be a physician etc. etc. I don't think it applies to me, so what I am going to do is just create another forum, where I ask folks to just holler back. Basically if I can get enough people to say linktim, you know I am 37 in fellowship, and you know what its not so bad etc. I personally feel that will help me the most. I don't necessarily know if I will go to residency directly or not. But, I do want the morale encouragement of knowing that it aint so bad.
Click to expand...

OMG, is this guy for real? I mean SERIOUSLY. :rolleyes:

I would hate to be your co-resident. All you'd do is bitch and whine about everything.

God help you. G'luck.
 
aProgDirector said:
Very few medical schools in the US will accept you if you already have an "MD equivalent".
Click to expand...

Huh, that makes NO sense to me whatsoever. You would think American med schools would actually be stoked to get someone who already knows their way around.

Another fail of American Medical Academia. Im wondering how soon the whole system will collapse under the weight of increase tuition/decrease provider reimbursements with Obamanomics in full effect.

R.I.P.-American Medical Education, Lots of smart people doing very dumb things.
 
I have not had the chance to check SDN for a long time, I promised myself I would be more active in the SDN community. All I have to say is for those that gave rude comments is, I cannot for the life of me understand why people try to berate you for no reason other than your attending b*tches you out and you have no opportunity but to take it out on random people on the web to make yourselves feel better about your strength of character, or lack of it. But keep tearing people down you will find that life will still give you exactly what you are hoping to get.

All I wanted to know is: am I alone, or am I a big oddball, if I take this step , no.


For those that provided some encouragement or negative feedback in a
reasonable manner thanks
 
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