Other Lawyers wanting to be MDs out there?

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LLB2MD

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Hi all,

New to this forum and just wondering how many fellow lawyers wanting to be MDs there are out there. Would love to hear how the transformation is going.

I am currently on my last bare bones pre-req (Physics) and am studying for the June MCAT. I finally quit work at the end of January to focus on what is hopefully the last leg of my pre-med journey (fingers crossed). I'm volunteering but still need to get some hard-core shadowing in which won't be too difficult as I have many willing physician friends.

Would love to hear about your experiences!

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Here is another lawyer dreaming of becoming a doctor instead. I just started taking my pre-requisite classes this semester, and I am still working full time as a lawyer.

How long did you practice law before you decided to switch? I was a litigator at a large firm for six years, and then switched to go inhouse to do corporate work last year in order to get more time to take classes. So far, I am terribly bored with the corporate work, but it does give me a lot of time to study!
 
Still working full time, huh? That is so tough...at least it was for me! Ironically now that I have more time I am finding it harder to motivate and get things done. Sometimes I think I should go back to work - I use my time so much more efficiently!

I practiced for 4 years before starting the pre-reqs - started tentatively with Gen Chem then dove into Orgo and Bio last year while still working fulltime. I used to do Orgo Psets at while at work - they were so much fun! :). Sounds like a good decision to lessen the workload. And you are 100% right, the paid work might be boring, but that just means you have a lot more of yourself to devote to the pre-reqs.

What pre-reqs are you taking? I'm not taking Calculus, btw. My lack of math background has made Chem and Physics a nightmare for me, so I have less than zero desire to subject myself to Calc. Of course I have no designs on applying to the top med schools (all of which require calc)...
 
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I'm not a lawyer... But if I weren't already 34, I would apply MD/JD...
 
I'm not a lawyer... But if I weren't already 34, I would apply MD/JD...

Actually this dual degree combo makes no sense. If you do a search you will see that there are lots of threads on SDN explaining why the MD/JD dual degree is not useful, and at least one website devoted to why this is a bad dual degree. There are no jobs that require both, and you won't get a better salary for having both. You can do medmal with just the JD. You can go into business admin just as effectively (maybe even more effectively) as an RN with an MBA than as an MD/JD. There is a role for folks with both these degrees in academics, but again it's not an essential combo.

The only reason IMHO that you should ever have both degrees is if you started with one and changed careers. Then sure, you do what you can to leverage the transferable skills from one to the other. But to go to school to get both is kind of silly. Probably suggests you are either a degree collector, or know you want to be a "professional" but are putting off the decision. Either way, it's probably not a positive.

As for the career changers on this thread, good luck! Just be sure you are going into medicine because you like medicine, and not doing it because you are fleeing law. The grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence, but it is still going to be grass. There will be a variety of hurdles and hindrances in any career, and so you really need to love it, and find it interesting, such that these hindrances seem minor. Probably the biggest thing you can do as a lawyer interested in medicine is spend a lot of time shadowing and talking to young physicians (outside of your family), such that you really truly know what you are getting yourself into. The "why medicine?", "why now?", "what makes you want to change careers?", and "you do realize you are never going to get back to the salary you would be making had you stayed employed in law over the next decade?" questions are going to loom large in the interview setting. Get a ton of clinical exposure so you have lots of experiences to draw upon as to why you love medicine, and stay far away from all of the reasons that you aren't enthusiastic about law. Adcoms want winners, not whiners. And they want folks running to medicine based on a real sense of knowing what you are getting yourself into, not folks running from the frustrations of the legal profession. You can't come off as a law washout and succeed on the interview trail. You have to be someone who enjoyed law, and did great, but has come to the realization (or always knew) that medicine is your true interest, and that you have a ton of transferable skills and that based on lots of clinical shadowing/volunteer experience you know what you are getting yourself into. Hope that helps.
 
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LLB2MD: Must be nice to finally be so close to the MCAT, although, I know the feeling of being much more efficient when you have more to do! Good luck with the hard work!

Law2Doc: I wholeheartedly agree that the MD/JD degree makes no sense. You can definitley do medmal legal work without an MD degree, and for me, I don't see any reason to have a JD when practicing medicine. I think you raise very good points of carefully analysing why one wants change careers. I am actually not leaving law because I am so dissatisfied with the legal work - I quite enjoyed being a litigator. I have always wanted to be a doctor, though, but for different reasons did not go that route. Now I feel that this may be my last chance of exploring that possibility, and I am quite excited about it. I really think I would love all aspects of medicine - providing care, understanding the science, doing something "meaningful for society," etc.

I have three children, and I am nervous about giving up a healthy salary to go back to school for a long time. But, I have decided to take it step by step, and will start out with taking one or two pre-req classes per semester, and then do the MCAT, and then decide whether to give up law and go forth full speed, or if I should turn back. In the meantime, I am trying to spend as much time as I can shadowing and talking to doctor friends in order to get as much information as I can. It is not an easy decision!

Thank you Eject and Law2Doc for your well wishes and words of wisdom. It is nice to know that there are others out there who are on the same journey.
 
Law2doc, yep you sure know me! Wow, you have your opinions, clearly on this thread and the other one that you've decided to attack me on, you make some pretty absurd assumptions about me. I'm surprised you've never learned this in all your time in school, ask a question, don't jump to a conclusion. Why would I do a JD/MD? Because I have a passion for law AND medicine. However, as I stated on the other thread, if you're a resident (as you say you are) and you're on the premed forum just trying to flame people, go back to your own set of forums, or start being useful. I have done nothing to you, but you seem to seek out my posts and attack them... Gee... Cool buddy :p
 
Law2doc, yep you sure know me! Wow, you have your opinions, clearly on this thread and the other one that you've decided to attack me on, you make some pretty absurd assumptions about me. I'm surprised you've never learned this in all your time in school, ask a question, don't jump to a conclusion. Why would I do a JD/MD? Because I have a passion for law AND medicine. However, as I stated on the other thread, if you're a resident (as you say you are) and you're on the premed forum just trying to flame people, go back to your own set of forums, or start being useful. I have done nothing to you, but you seem to seek out my posts and attack them... Gee... Cool buddy :p

Um, I don't think I attacked you on this thread, just stated that the JD/MD track makes very little sense. This is something I have said repeatedly on multiple similar threads, long before you even started posting on SDN. Honestly this thread is about career changers from law to MD, so I would suggest that it is I who is in "my own set of forums" here. This is a topic I know as much about as anyone on SDN.

As for "having a passion for law AND medicine" that's well and nice, but I'm telling you you are going to have to choose one or the other for virtually any career -- there are simply no great bridging jobs out there, and having both degrees simply means you will have paid for and won't be using one of them. You won't make more money. You won't be more in demand. There are no jobs that require both degrees That's really all there is to it. That's not an attack, just reality.
 
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Um, I don't think I attacked you on this thread, just stated that the JD/MD track makes very little sense. This is something I have said repeatedly on multiple similar threads, long before you even started posting on SDN. Honestly this thread is about career changers from law to MD, so I would suggest that it is I who is in "my own set of forums" here. This is a topic I know as much about as anyone on SDN.

As for "having a passion for law AND medicine" that's well and nice, but I'm telling you you are going to have to choose one or the other for virtually any career -- there are simply no great bridging jobs out there, and having both degrees simply means you will have paid for and won't be using one of them. You won't make more money. You won't be more in demand. There are no jobs that require both degrees That's really all there is to it. That's not an attack, just reality.
I agree w/ Law2Doc. By May of this year, I will be an MD/JD, but not b/c I wanted the dual degree all in one decision. I wanted the MD, thought I couldn't hack it, then got the JD, then had remorse and pursued the MD after all. If I do use my law degree for a concrete purpose it will most likely be for med mal defense, but most likely the background will only serve as an intangible (I now think differently than most physicians do; I probably have more networking skill than most medical students). There are very few medical specialties where both degrees could prove useful - forensic psychiatry comes to mind. I'm going into plastic surgery - unless I regularly consult on med mal cases for plastic surgeons (which are much rarer than for other surgery specialties), all I have are extra bragging rights and alphabet soup after my name.
 
By May of this year, I will be an MD/JD, but not b/c I wanted the dual degree all in one decision. I wanted the MD, thought I couldn't hack it, then got the JD, then had remorse and pursued the MD after all.

This is my story as well. I had serious misgivings about law school before I started, but (for whatever reason - a modest scholarship I suppose) went anyway. I realized about halfway through my 2L year that I was alarmingly unhappy about becoming a lawyer. I started taking pre-reqs during my 2L summer, felt a renewed sense of purpose, and the rest - as they say - is history. I'm finishing up Organic this summer and taking the MCAT in August.

The one thing I have noticed along the way is that people have this sort of unique reaction to those of us making the JD-to-MD transition. When I've told people (classmates, friends, family) about my decision to pursue medicine, I've generally been met with bewilderment -- like I'm some kind of a masochist or, even worse, a degree collector. Meanwhile, I have a couple of like-aged friends who recently finished 2-3 year graduate programs in Psychology and English, (respectively) who have decided to do post-bacs and the response is always "Oh, it makes total sense that you would go to medical school." Maybe it's because law is such a discrete career arch, or sui generis (which I so rarely have occasion to use). I dunno'.

But, anyway, congratulations to all of you who have either successfully, or at the very least plotted, escape from the gilded cage.
 
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This is my story as well. I had serious misgivings about law school before I started, but (for whatever reason - a modest scholarship I suppose) went anyway. I realized about halfway through my 2L year that I was alarmingly unhappy about becoming a lawyer. I started taking pre-reqs during my 2L summer, felt a renewed sense of purpose, and the rest - as they say - is history. I'm finishing up Organic this summer and taking the MCAT in August.

The one thing I have noticed along the way is that people have this sort of unique reaction to those of us making the JD-to-MD transition. When I've told people (classmates, friends, family) about my decision to pursue medicine, I've generally been met with bewilderment -- like I'm some kind of a masochist or, even worse, a degree collector. Meanwhile, I have a couple of like-aged friends who recently finished 2-3 year graduate programs in Psychology and English, (respectively) who have decided to do post-bacs and the response is always "Oh, it makes total sense that you would go to medical school." Maybe it's because law is such a discrete career arch, or sui generis (which I so rarely have occasion to use). I dunno'.

But, anyway, congratulations to all of you who have either successfully, or at the very least plotted, escape from the gilded cage.

What i don't understand is the schools that are pushing their students into getting combined JD/MD. Mayo will even pay you to go to certain associated law schools. Are the schools being degree collectors also?
 
Law2doc, yep you sure know me! Wow, you have your opinions, clearly on this thread and the other one that you've decided to attack me on, you make some pretty absurd assumptions about me. I'm surprised you've never learned this in all your time in school, ask a question, don't jump to a conclusion. Why would I do a JD/MD? Because I have a passion for law AND medicine. However, as I stated on the other thread, if you're a resident (as you say you are) and you're on the premed forum just trying to flame people, go back to your own set of forums, or start being useful. I have done nothing to you, but you seem to seek out my posts and attack them... Gee... Cool buddy :p

Yeah, you need a reality check. Do you think because you have a "passion" for law AND medicine (first of all, I don't even know exactly what you mean by this? Would you like to follow a litigator during the day and ER doctor during the night? :laugh:) that any law school or medical school will seriously consider you?

Give me a break. You need to 1) do exceptionally well on BOTH LSAT and MCAT, 2) get lots of hours in both fields - which, is more than just "passion," 3) learn how to be more mature and listen when someone like Law2Doc gives you a constructive criticism, and 4) (this is important so listen) better improve your argument skills because you sound like 5 in that post. :smuggrin:
 
I am intrigued by people switching from law to medicine. My thought process is largely driven by my disdain for lawyers, but I often ponder how many doctors wonder about becoming a lawyer. (My thought is the thought crosses their mind when they are paying a lawyer to defend themselves against a hypocondriac that they refused to treat for glass touching their shoe)

Anyways, from my point of view, you are one of the Jedi going from the Darkside back. So, I wish you luck. I would love to hear someone having been in law school talk about doctors becoming lawyers.
 
I have three children, and I am nervous about giving up a healthy salary to go back to school for a long time. But, I have decided to take it step by step, and will start out with taking one or two pre-req classes per semester, and then do the MCAT, and then decide whether to give up law and go forth full speed, or if I should turn back. In the meantime, I am trying to spend as much time as I can shadowing and talking to doctor friends in order to get as much information as I can. It is not an easy decision!

Thank you Eject and Law2Doc for your well wishes and words of wisdom. It is nice to know that there are others out there who are on the same journey.

Occasionally I lurk these forums and thought I would chime in. I have a law degree, worked as an EMT during my 3rd year of law school, and previously worked on premed requirements (studied and passed the bar while working as a medic). If you really think medical school is for you than get some practical experience. Personally at this stage in the game shadowing physicians is not enough IMO.

I worked as a medic which pretty much cured my desire to go into medicine. I enjoyed medical things, and interacting with patients but decided that i had enough with school. Plus I decided that I was tired of living for the future and wanted to enjoy my life while I was still in my 20s. Packing an entire year of graduating law school, working as a medic, and studying for the bar exam pretty much made me sick of school.

Like many people on this board I was dissatisfied with my career choice in the legal field right out of law school. Luckily I decided to stick with it. If you already have a law degree I would advise you to really dig deep down inside and ask yourself whether you think switching careers is the answer for you.

I thought I would never be happy doing something legally related but I am!! I have been working for 4 years now as a hearings examiner for the feds. I make between 90K and 120K a year and only work 40-50 hours max a week (often times I work 4 days a week with 3 day weekends). I am telling you this because the grass is not always greener on the other side. There are plenty of good job opportunities (even in a bad economy) for lawyers. You just have to look around a bit and talk to people and network. A law degree can open many doors for you that are not miserable.

If you have a family and other passions in life medical school may not be for you. I am not posting this to discourage anyone. I just want to relate my own experience to you and let you know that life is not always about a career. Sometimes students get tunnel vision and fail to see the bigger picture. Sometimes people think they have a passion for something yet they have no real clue what a career really entails.

If you want to spend time with your family, kids, and pursue hobbies outside of work you may want to reconsider other options. Recently I just got engaged and I am so glad I am not in medical school now. Life is wayyyyyyyyyyyy short!! Besides many jobs are not what they are cracked up to be. :D

P.S. I do not regret my choice! And sorry to burst some bubbles but not all lawyers are evil. Many lawyers help people just like docs.
 
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Occasionally I lurk these forums and thought I would chime in. I have a law degree, worked as an EMT during my 3rd year of law school, and previously worked on premed requirements (studied and passed the bar while working as a medic). If you really think medical school is for you than get some practical experience. Personally at this stage in the game shadowing physicians is not enough IMO.

I worked as a medic which pretty much cured my desire to go into medicine. I enjoyed medical things, and interacting with patients but decided that i had enough with school. Plus I decided that I was tired of living for the future and wanted to enjoy my life while I was still in my 20s. Packing an entire year of graduating law school, working as a medic, and studying for the bar exam pretty much made me sick of school.

Like many people on this board I was dissatisfied with my career choice in the legal field right out of law school. Luckily I decided to stick with it. If you already have a law degree I would advise you to really dig deep down inside and ask yourself whether you think switching careers is the answer for you.

I thought I would never be happy doing something legally related but I am!! I have been working for 4 years now as a hearings examiner for the feds. I make between 90K and 120K a year and only work 40-50 hours max a week (often times I work 4 days a week with 3 day weekends). I am telling you this because the grass is not always greener on the other side. There are plenty of good job opportunities (even in a bad economy) for lawyers. You just have to look around a bit and talk to people and network. A law degree can open many doors for you that are not miserable.

If you have a family and other passions in life medical school may not be for you. I am not posting this to discourage anyone. I just want to relate my own experience to you and let you know that life is not always about a career. Sometimes students get tunnel vision and fail to see the bigger picture. Sometimes people think they have a passion for something yet they have no real clue what a career really entails.

If you want to spend time with your family, kids, and pursue hobbies outside of work you may want to reconsider other options. Recently I just got engaged and I am so glad I am not in medical school now. Life is wayyyyyyyyyyyy short!! Besides many jobs are not what they are cracked up to be. :D

P.S. I do not regret my choice! And sorry to burst some bubbles but not all lawyers are evil. Many lawyers help people just like docs.

As someone fascinated by both Law and Medicine, but I appreciate this post. Nicely articulated.
 
I have practiced law for nearly 27 years and am now entering med school in just a few weeks. I want to become a PCP and my experience of shadowing at a free clinic sealed the deal for me. The timing has worked out well as my youngest son is starting colleged this fall, leaving the nest empty. I do not plan on using my JD in any significant way, but I will be relying on the professionalism and people skills that I have developed over my years of practice. To anyone looking to make the jump I suggest that you look for a shadowing opportunity to make sure that you are not just being driven by a distain for the practice of law. If you find that you do indeed have a passion for medicine, attack it with zeal.
 
Hi this thread is amazing motivation. I am considering leaving a cpa job - but a very good/well paying one. I realize now that I MUST shadow before I go full out or quit my job to try ot get into medical school.

A question for the various posters in this thread, how many courses do you suggest while I am working full time (for the fall I should only have 40 hr work weeks but no free time to study at work). I have no science or math background. I was thinking of starting with biology and chem I? I realize on top of work this would add about 25-30 hours of class and study time. It'll take alot of do well, including giving up my mid 20s social life.

Take care
 
Hi this thread is amazing motivation. I am considering leaving a cpa job - but a very good/well paying one. I realize now that I MUST shadow before I go full out or quit my job to try ot get into medical school.

A question for the various posters in this thread, how many courses do you suggest while I am working full time (for the fall I should only have 40 hr work weeks but no free time to study at work). I have no science or math background. I was thinking of starting with biology and chem I? I realize on top of work this would add about 25-30 hours of class and study time. It'll take alot of do well, including giving up my mid 20s social life.

Take care
First, shadow before you start the course work. That should be step number one. Then if you are going to take classes on top of working, start with one class. You need to get mostly As more than you need to finish quickly. The worst think you could do would be to take multiple courses on top of work, not spend enough time on them and end up with a few grades that could keep you from getting a competitive GPA.
 
Thanks
Makes perfect sense. Difficult to swallow the fact that it will take me 3 years to complete the pre req's and mcat. But, if I do get in then, it means I will have 8 years (at most of schooling - and being broke), but then 20+ years of practising.

on a side note, google's new homepage looks good
 
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