Request for suggestion/inputs/ideas

[Premnath]

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Hi
These are my qualifications

Education
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1. Undergrad - Major - Physics (Equal to BS here)
- Ancillary1- Chemistry
- Ancillary2- Maths
- Country - India

2. Masters - Major - Computer Science (Equal to MS here)
- Country - India

Career Background
==============
Been in IT for close to 10 years now.

Requirements (mine)
==========
1. To switch careers due to love for medicine from desk job.
2. Personally motivated and determined.

Requirements (Family)
==========
1. Need to work Full-time due to 2 beautiful kids (4 and 2)
2. Spouse - working - IT as well.
3. Cant disturb income flow - for kids future+529+mortgage

Questions
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1. Can i work fulltime right through from start(pre-med) to till finishing MD until I start practising ?

Thanks in Advance ~ Prem

 

[Premnath]

Meant to say if i can work pre-med to MD -all the way by working Fulltime and learning part-time including MD? I do understand i might have to burn more than my midnight oil. Any suggestions appreciated. Am also new and checking current/old posts in previous threads. I could not find so far if MD could be done part-time...i saw lots of pre-med part time ...still looking.

 

[p30doc]

Meant to say if i can work pre-med to MD -all the way by working Fulltime and learning part-time including MD? I do understand i might have to burn more than my midnight oil. Any suggestions appreciated. Am also new and checking current/old posts in previous threads. I could not find so far if MD could be done part-time...i saw lots of pre-med part time ...still looking.

No such thing as a part-time MD program in the US

 

[DrMidlife]

It is not realistic to try to hold a job to support your family at the same time you're trying to succeed in medical school. Look around SDN for better numbers, but I doubt you can borrow more than maybe $25k/yr towards supporting your family, in addition to borrowing the cost of med school. The average medical school schedule is about 60 hours per week. During 3rd and 4th year, you do not have control over your schedule. During 3-8 years of residency, you make maybe $40k for an 80+ hour week. After residency, you'll have up to $300k in debt and you'll be making maybe $100k to $150k in salary out the gate.

These are some ugly, ugly facts.

Some med school students who have done advanced work in the sciences before med school are able to hold jobs during the first two years of med school, because they start out well ahead. Some programmers or lawyers are able to hold part-time consulting gigs during the first two years of med school, but these are some sweet, sweet gigs that aren't publicly available.

Now, that's bad enough for your case already, but here's the really bad news: US med schools typically require that you take your prereqs in the US. This means you most likely need to take physics and chemistry again here, in addition to biology and organic chemistry. Furthermore, you are at the mercy of the standardized evaluations of foreign coursework, which could determine that you're deficient in English or the humanities, so you might need to take additional US coursework.

Some good news: with a strong math & physics background, you're in the top percentile of score-earners when it's time to take the MCAT.

Let me make two suggestions for you:

1. Find out if you actually WANT to be doctor, vs. if you actually HATE your current job and WANT OUT. Do some volunteering in a hospital, where you have access to physicians and residents. Ask a million questions. See how you handle being around trauma and vomit. See how you handle being around nurses and support staff. If this makes you want to be a doctor even more, great. If this makes you want to leave your volunteer shift early and never come back, then medicine's not what you want regardless.

2. Look for IT jobs in medicine. Depending on where you live, there might be tons of opportunities. These jobs definitely pay less, but they tend to be stable with good benes. I'm not saying do healthcare IT instead of medicine: I'm saying look for something in between while you work on your longer-term strategy.

Lastly, get up to speed on physician misery, and see if you can handle all the politics and financial hurdles going on. I recommend www.kevinmd.com as a starting point.

Best of luck to you.

 

[DrMidlife]

I forgot one very important thing: stop watching House, ER, Scrubs, Hopkins or anything else that's informing your opinion about medical careers. Totally misleading.

 

[Premnath]

It is not realistic to try to hold a job to support your family at the same time you're trying to succeed in medical school. Look around SDN for better numbers, but I doubt you can borrow more than maybe $25k/yr towards supporting your family, in addition to borrowing the cost of med school. The average medical school schedule is about 60 hours per week. During 3rd and 4th year, you do not have control over your schedule. During 3-8 years of residency, you make maybe $40k for an 80+ hour week. After residency, you'll have up to $300k in debt and you'll be making maybe $100k to $150k in salary out the gate.

These are some ugly, ugly facts.

Some med school students who have done advanced work in the sciences before med school are able to hold jobs during the first two years of med school, because they start out well ahead. Some programmers or lawyers are able to hold part-time consulting gigs during the first two years of med school, but these are some sweet, sweet gigs that aren't publicly available.

Now, that's bad enough for your case already, but here's the really bad news: US med schools typically require that you take your prereqs in the US. This means you most likely need to take physics and chemistry again here, in addition to biology and organic chemistry. Furthermore, you are at the mercy of the standardized evaluations of foreign coursework, which could determine that you're deficient in English or the humanities, so you might need to take additional US coursework.

Some good news: with a strong math & physics background, you're in the top percentile of score-earners when it's time to take the MCAT.

Let me make two suggestions for you:

1. Find out if you actually WANT to be doctor, vs. if you actually HATE your current job and WANT OUT. Do some volunteering in a hospital, where you have access to physicians and residents. Ask a million questions. See how you handle being around trauma and vomit. See how you handle being around nurses and support staff. If this makes you want to be a doctor even more, great. If this makes you want to leave your volunteer shift early and never come back, then medicine's not what you want regardless.

2. Look for IT jobs in medicine. Depending on where you live, there might be tons of opportunities. These jobs definitely pay less, but they tend to be stable with good benes. I'm not saying do healthcare IT instead of medicine: I'm saying look for something in between while you work on your longer-term strategy.

Lastly, get up to speed on physician misery, and see if you can handle all the politics and financial hurdles going on. I recommend www.kevinmd.com as a starting point.

Best of luck to you.

Great suggestions. Thanks. Looks like my case is a NO-NO in US as part-time MD is not possible. Unfortunately i cant quit my job since my job is very critical to maintain $ flow @ any point of time.

Iam a professional and a matured adult...my family is more important than my personal ambition. As u said, there are lots of other IT related medical work which i can try part-time.

Thanks