I am 30 years old. I have undergraduate degrees in nutrition and psychology and a master's degree in nutrition. FWIW I will likely earn an advanced credential (Certified Diabetes Educator) next year. I have been working at a prestigious top 5 ranked psychiatric hospital as a Registered Dietitian for the past 3 years. I love working with psych patients and am considering going back to school to become a psychiatrist.
I took about half of the pre-requisite med school courses as a nutrition undergrad circa 2004-2007. My chemistry grades were not great. My undergraduate GPA was 3.06. As an undergraduate I fluctuated between making the deans list or a lot of Cs. I had a lot of nervous energy and struggled with staying focused. My Masters GPA was much higher (3.88). I settled down in grad school and became much better at managing the emotions of my coursework/career decisions.
There is a post-baccalaureate 1 year premed program at a school very close to my home. They have a very high med school acceptance rate. Additionally, this program has a partnership with my state university medical school. Therefore, theoretically I could start this program next summer, gain provisional acceptance to the state medical school for the following year and then start in state medical school in the fall of 2018 so long as I finish the program and get an adequate MCAT score. The only drawback is this program is full time (ie limited ability to work) and the tuition is expensive (more so than a year of medical school at said school).
My research indicates that psychiatry is one of the less competitive residencies. Resident salaries are similar to RD salaries. Therefore 4 years of residency would be a wash financially. I know it will be much more work, but that doesn't scare me.
I'm 60-40 on wanting kids and I realize that I will be 39ish by the time I finish all this school. I figure that I don't have a boyfriend or any promising prospects at the moment. If someone great comes along maybe I could take a year off or something. I feel like I should live the life I want to live regardless.
After all that rambling these are my questions
Will medical schools accept courses taken 10 years ago?
Do I absolutely need all of the required courses? - I took a lot of graduate level nutritional biochemistry/biology/research courses for my masters degree and earned good grades. It is not the exact courses they are looking for but it was a lot of science.
If I need more coursework, would I be able to take some community college/online courses so that I could save money/still work? or would the post bac program be the best way to go?
FWIW I'm a great test taker and could likely put up a decent MCAT score.
Thanks!!
I took about half of the pre-requisite med school courses as a nutrition undergrad circa 2004-2007. My chemistry grades were not great. My undergraduate GPA was 3.06. As an undergraduate I fluctuated between making the deans list or a lot of Cs. I had a lot of nervous energy and struggled with staying focused. My Masters GPA was much higher (3.88). I settled down in grad school and became much better at managing the emotions of my coursework/career decisions.
There is a post-baccalaureate 1 year premed program at a school very close to my home. They have a very high med school acceptance rate. Additionally, this program has a partnership with my state university medical school. Therefore, theoretically I could start this program next summer, gain provisional acceptance to the state medical school for the following year and then start in state medical school in the fall of 2018 so long as I finish the program and get an adequate MCAT score. The only drawback is this program is full time (ie limited ability to work) and the tuition is expensive (more so than a year of medical school at said school).
My research indicates that psychiatry is one of the less competitive residencies. Resident salaries are similar to RD salaries. Therefore 4 years of residency would be a wash financially. I know it will be much more work, but that doesn't scare me.
I'm 60-40 on wanting kids and I realize that I will be 39ish by the time I finish all this school. I figure that I don't have a boyfriend or any promising prospects at the moment. If someone great comes along maybe I could take a year off or something. I feel like I should live the life I want to live regardless.
After all that rambling these are my questions
Will medical schools accept courses taken 10 years ago?
Do I absolutely need all of the required courses? - I took a lot of graduate level nutritional biochemistry/biology/research courses for my masters degree and earned good grades. It is not the exact courses they are looking for but it was a lot of science.
If I need more coursework, would I be able to take some community college/online courses so that I could save money/still work? or would the post bac program be the best way to go?
FWIW I'm a great test taker and could likely put up a decent MCAT score.
Thanks!!
