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[ashylime]

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[Promised_Consort]

Yeah your GPA won’t be a major obstacle if you can do well on the MCAT. You could definitely get into a DO school or even an MD tbh. You need to take the prerequisites like biochem, ochem, physics, Gen Chem, etc.

You can definitely do it, I’ve seen people in much worse positions. But you should also try to find out why you didn’t get into the vet schools you applied to. Ask for feedback. Maybe you could work on it for your medical school interviews.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I'm sorry... I wouldn't lose hope. You put in a ton of vet hours that I don't know if it is going to be that easy to just switch without more human medicine hours. I do think that your own community service hours that don't involve any clinical or animal experience seems light, but that is the only question I have with your WAMC.

 

[cj_cregg]

Agree your GPA won't hold you back from getting into a US school provided your MCAT is adequate.

Your community service hours are adequate, BUT you HAVE to get (human) clinical experience. You'll get diminishing returns from shadowing at about 50 hrs (make sure there is some primary care shadowing, multiple settings/specialties, etc.), and if you are looking for paid employment I would look into scribing, CNA, MA, etc.

 

[cj_cregg]

I definitely would be getting human medicine hours during my gap year, im looking at scribing/patient care tech positions as well as shadowing. Is there a number I should be aiming for? Vet schools require like 100-200 hours to apply but most applicants go in with 2000+, im unsure if it's the same situation here cause med sometimes seems a little harder to get in the door with without some kind of certification

50 hrs of shadowing should be adequate with the caveats I mentioned above. For overall clinical experience, 100-200 is what I'd consider bare minimum, 500 is enough to get your foot in the door most places, and there are certainly some applicants who have 1000-2000 hours as well.

 

[Ach2021]

I was also a last minute change from pre-vet to med school applicant at the end of my junior year. Definitely a bit of a bummer to have all the vet clinic hours not count for much anymore, I feel the pain :') I took 2 gap years, my first I worked as an ophthalmic tech full time for a year (about 1000 hours on my app) and then spent a year doing post-bac research during the application cycle and I got into 2 schools. From my experience, getting paid clinical hours was incredibly helpful for my application, much more than only shadowing, and was obviously a big talking point for my essays and interviews. And for what it's worth, I was also able to throw in some fun and unique vet-related stories which my interviewers all seemed really interested in so I definitely don't regret having those experiences and making the change late. Good luck!!

 

[Lux23]

As much as I have loved my time in vet med, I’ve been considering transitioning to human medicine due to reasons that arent really relevant to this post. That being said, I would really still like to practice medicine as this was always the main appeal to me in getting a DVM, thus I’m weighing my options of pursuing MD/DO.

I worked in the vet field for years before switching, and I have to say my reasons for switching and the story behind it was the most critical point of my application, and was brought up the most during my interviews—so make sure this is rock solid.

That being said, I had 6x as many clinical hours in the vet field than human medicine (which was already in the thousands), and I still got a lot of jabs during interviews about whether I really knew what I was getting myself into. I would highly advise getting into paid employment positions rather than shadowing to back up your reasons for switching.

As another note, I don’t know where you’re thinking of applying and YMMV but I found that DO schools were much more receptive to my experience outside human medicine than MD schools. They loved hearing about my stories and experiences that were unique to veterinary medicine.

 

[Ach2021]

Thank you for this! This is making me feel much better. Can I ask how you got into post-bac research? Most research opportunities I've gotten have been through my university so I was wondering how people who have already graduated get their research experience.

Mine is through the NIH post-bac IRTA program! You can submit an application and then let PIs reach out to you, but I ended up having to take more initiative and reach out to them first since my app probably didn’t stand out as much as others (went to small state university, didn’t have much undergrad research). I know that Mayo Clinic also has post-bac research opportunities (GREP program I believe) that I was considering as well. And I think a handful of other universities have similar programs