Reapplication chances...

[cmpchmguy]

Thanks for reading and I apologize for my long-windedness. I did not get into Med School after Undergrad and I've decided to apply to Med School again. I want to go into clinical research but I have already received my PhD so I have some questions. I apologize as I haven't made a profile so here are some details:

25 yr old white male TX resident
Undergrad: BA in Chemistry
3.48 cGPA
3.82 sGPA
Graduate: PhD in Physical/Computational Chemistry
4.00 GPA (don't think it matters)

MCAT(expires this year for most schools): 11's and WR:Q
Retaking MCAT in August, hopefully 11+'s

Like a lot of people my freshmen year brought down my Undergrad GPA severely.

EC:
~150 hours of community service with only minor time spent in health care in Undergrad.
Worked full time my final two years of Undergrad.
Just began hospital volunteer work and plan on continuing for a year
Some intramural sports

Work Experience (Research Related):
Minor Research in Undergrad (Semester)
TA'ed almost all chemistry labs (3 and a half years)
Tutored most chemistry subjects (1 and a half year)
Substitute taught lecture courses in Physical and Comp Chemistry (~25 lecture hours)
Research Assistant for the last 4 years (70+ hours a week)
System Administrator/Senior Member of Research Clusters (2 years)

Research:
2 National 5 Local/Regional Poster/Oral Presentations
7 Publications; 5 first author, 2 collaborative (2 more submitted/finalized)

Awards:
Undergrad. Dean's List
Lower Level Grad. Student Exceptional Research Award
Upper Level Grad. Student Exceptional Research Award
PhD. Dissertation Fellowship

As for questions, I have a couple. First, I recognize that I am light on health care experience. Any suggestions on time-efficient solutions to this? My mother is a nurse and multiple doctor friends have offered to allow me to shadow them, but I would have to use my vacation time to do this and this would be at maximum a week. Is a week worth it? Due to finances I must constantly work and I am taking an MCAT class in the evenings/sat as well as volunteering on Sundays. Only since I finished my PhD have I even had this time to spare.

Additionally, I have spoken with physicians who feel that I am a very good candidate, but it will depend upon whose desk my application lands on as I am extremely academic research heavy. They all feel that the people who evaluate MD/PhD applicants would appreciate me much more. Some have even suggested I apply to the MD/PhD programs. I cannot find a reliable resource as to whether this is a sane approach or even allowed to get such similar PhDs. Any suggestions/knowledge on this would greatly calm my nerves.

Last time around I stuck to the Texas schools, but I feel I have become a much better candidate so I am going to apply to many, many more schools. Is it worth my time/money to apply to very top tier research schools? I have the drive for them, but I don't know if my application will turn out mediocre.

Thank you for your time.

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[nycneighbor]

Your research experience looks phenomenal-- why medicine then? I think that most medical schools are going to look at your application and ask the same thing. How can you convince them that you truly want to go into medicine and not continue research? How much patient contact have you had to prove this? Shadowing?

 

[Caprica6]

I think your stats look great, but physical chemistry is quite a different field than medicine. As long as you can show through your activities and articulate why medicine I think you have a good shot. Does your thesis in anyway translate to the medical field? Make sure you have a great PS. However, if I was an ADCOMM I would wonder if maybe you didn't just like being a forever student.

 

[cmpchmguy]

I see what you are both saying so in response to both questions:

My number one fear is being labeled as a "forever student" which is one thing I am not. After not getting into medical school I went into computational chemistry (an unknown and up-and-coming field in all sciences) and was only going for a Master's. Unfortunately, in 2 1/2 years I learned very little beyond required courses and added almost nothing to my resume so I finished out my PhD since it only took 1 1/2 years more. The worst part is that it took until very recently to steer my research back into what I am interested in, medicinal computational chemistry. My publications are way above most people in their technical aspect so without me sitting there explaining their importance it is often lost. My overall career goal is similar to a physician friend of mine in that his primary 4 day a week job is at his practice and his other job 3 days a week is clinical research. Yes, I love to work. The difference between he and I is that I prefer the theoretical modeling aspect of drug creation/biological mechanisms which will become much more important in coming years hence computational chemistry.

I can easily explain in this previous paragraph why I want the MD and am very good at expressing this orally, but as far as the general admissions questions that I have seen I don't see where to work this in. Often the questions are the basic leadership and diversity questions.