PhD to MD?

[lazin]

Hello All,

I just found this forum and read some discussions,I'd appreciate if you could help me about my decision.
I've always had the passion for medicine, but I always found it intimidating (first generation immigrant,35 years old, married, mother of one wonderful girl 16 months old ).

I got my BS and two MS back home. Then I immigrated to US in my 29'th. I started PhD in 32 and going to be graduate in 2018. Following is summary of my credentials:

BS in Electrical Engineering-Biomedical minority GPA: 3.12
MS in Radiological Engineering GPA: 3.77
MS in Biomedical Engineering GPA:3.45
Currently PhD candidate in Bioengineering with focus on biomedical optics.

I have good publications,both journal and conference and mostly worked on medical imaging and image processing field. Also I have two years of being instructor in university and 4 years of working in industry back home. I am thinking to go to MD program after graduation. Actually I was told by administrator of MD-PhD program in our university that If I get acceptance from MD school while I am in the middle of my PhD they can consider me as MD-PhD student, however I have to pay for the first two years of MD and then defense my PhD and after that for the last two years of MD I will have support. Actually it was very tempting offer since I have a full support for my PhD as research assistant and can use these next two years until graduation to take the premed courses and take the MCAT.

Do you think the plan is good enough? Actually I was told by many peers in biomedical engineering that if I want to take Post Doc's it is better for me to take MD since it increases my chance to get a good job in industry and academia as well. Right now I am not thinking about residency since by the time I finish medical school I will be 40-41 and I want to establish my career,however who knows what happens! I think residency in radiology would be best match for all my experience and honestly I would love it.

I really appreciate if you could put your thoughts and experience regarding this life scenario.

Thank you for all your input.

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[QofQuimica]

I don't see anything in your post about loving the practice of medicine and wanting to work with patients, so I'm going to come down on the side of no, you should not go to medical school. Not to mention that you do not have a US college degree, which will also be an obstacle at many schools, and English is clearly not your first language, which may make it difficult for you to do well on the MCAT and other standardized tests. In addition, if you are not a US citizen (or at least in possession of a green card), then there are very few med schools that will consider your app even if everything about it were stellar, and these few all tend to be among the most competitive (and expensive) med schools in the country.

My advice? If you love what you're doing, and it sounds like you do, then stay the current course. Enjoy your baby, enjoy your career, and don't go looking to make life unnecessarily complicated for some kind of nebulous "job prospects" in the future. Things change constantly in medicine, in science, and in the economy. Who knows what the job market will be like next year, let alone in a decade or two when you'd be done training?

If you want to go forward with med school anyway in spite of knowing that it's likely a bad idea, what I suggest is that you start by getting some clinical experience. You can do this by shadowing physicians, volunteering in a hospital, or taking a PT job in a clinical venue. You should also find out what you need to do to get your foreign UG grades verified in the US (if possible), and/or start making arrangements to complete a second BS here in the US, since again, most of our medical schools will require you to have an American UG degree. In addition, you should begin the process of applying for a green card if you haven't already, since having one will make your med school admission prospects much better than if you try to apply as a nonresident. And finally, you should take steps to improve your written English (and spoken too if needed), because getting through medical training and practice requires ongoing timed, standardized testing from the day you take the MCAT until the day you retire altogether.