Been a RN for 8 years, would like to return to school to pursue medicine. I've enjoyed working the bedside, but I can't see myself doing it for the rest of my life-- would really like to start helping patients more with my brain than my back. I've worked in a variety of settings from the regular floor to organ transplant to the MICU/COVIDland. I would like to pursue primary care mostly because my most rewarding nursing job has been working in transplant and having a longitudinal relationship with patients, some of whom lived in the hospital under my care for a year+. I live in a rural area and plan to continue to do so in the future, so maybe I can be one of those rare people that actually wants to live 2-3+ hours from a major city?
I'm in the position of not being able to start pre-reqs immediately due to family issues; I plan to start in Spring 2022. As a result, I am considering buffing my application before I buckle down and hammer out the classes that I need in '22. I've received a variety of advice on that from attending and resident colleagues, and am now turning to SDN for their wisdom.
Clinical hours wise, I should be set (somewhere around 20-25k hours... I work a lot of overtime). I enjoy teaching and do a lot of precepting as a part of my job. I have done some formal nursing student education in the past. I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile for me to pick that back up again, application wise. Is any application committee going to pay any special attention to me being a professor? Might do it regardless just to get a tuition discount.
Non-clinical volunteering I'm not sure. I would probably not do a done of volunteering during the run up to medical school due to working full time+, running my small farm, etc on top of classes, so I would be in the position of having a bolus of hours now with a slow drip up to the time of application, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. One of the local hospices is looking for office support volunteers. I'm fairly computer literate and don't mind that sort of work, and I really like the hospice mission. Focusing on actual quality of life and minimize medical intervention is something I like a lot-- I find the ICU mentally stimulating but emotionally taxing, and one of the most rewarding experiences for me (as macabre as it may sound, sorry) is educating and talking to a patient and family and helping them define goals of care so that their lives end with maximum comfort instead of suffering to the very end on high level ICU support.
Research is something I could do, but most of my opportunities would be stuff published in nursing journals. I could probably do, say, early mobility intervention in the ICU and get 1st or 2nd author, but I'm not really sure I'd impress anyone. My administration is very supportive of nursing doing research and would probably be very willing to help, it's just nursing side stuff. I'd have to stretch harder to do work in physician research-- to the point I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze.
Shadowing wise, I have multiple attendings offering me opportunities. I was wondering if anyone is going to raise an eyebrow at me picking up 50-100 hours now a few years out from an actual application, or if I should wait until closer to application submission time. Letters of rec aren't going to be an issue, at least. I do have contacts at one of the hospitals I worked at (doing organ transplant) who now teach at the medical school; one is now fairly close to the top of the administration. Is "audition shadowing" a thing, or am I being silly? I wouldn't mind flying back down and spending a few days doing some shadowing with faculty that I know personally if it might help with that particular school.
Thanks everyone!
I'm in the position of not being able to start pre-reqs immediately due to family issues; I plan to start in Spring 2022. As a result, I am considering buffing my application before I buckle down and hammer out the classes that I need in '22. I've received a variety of advice on that from attending and resident colleagues, and am now turning to SDN for their wisdom.
Clinical hours wise, I should be set (somewhere around 20-25k hours... I work a lot of overtime). I enjoy teaching and do a lot of precepting as a part of my job. I have done some formal nursing student education in the past. I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile for me to pick that back up again, application wise. Is any application committee going to pay any special attention to me being a professor? Might do it regardless just to get a tuition discount.
Non-clinical volunteering I'm not sure. I would probably not do a done of volunteering during the run up to medical school due to working full time+, running my small farm, etc on top of classes, so I would be in the position of having a bolus of hours now with a slow drip up to the time of application, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. One of the local hospices is looking for office support volunteers. I'm fairly computer literate and don't mind that sort of work, and I really like the hospice mission. Focusing on actual quality of life and minimize medical intervention is something I like a lot-- I find the ICU mentally stimulating but emotionally taxing, and one of the most rewarding experiences for me (as macabre as it may sound, sorry) is educating and talking to a patient and family and helping them define goals of care so that their lives end with maximum comfort instead of suffering to the very end on high level ICU support.
Research is something I could do, but most of my opportunities would be stuff published in nursing journals. I could probably do, say, early mobility intervention in the ICU and get 1st or 2nd author, but I'm not really sure I'd impress anyone. My administration is very supportive of nursing doing research and would probably be very willing to help, it's just nursing side stuff. I'd have to stretch harder to do work in physician research-- to the point I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze.
Shadowing wise, I have multiple attendings offering me opportunities. I was wondering if anyone is going to raise an eyebrow at me picking up 50-100 hours now a few years out from an actual application, or if I should wait until closer to application submission time. Letters of rec aren't going to be an issue, at least. I do have contacts at one of the hospitals I worked at (doing organ transplant) who now teach at the medical school; one is now fairly close to the top of the administration. Is "audition shadowing" a thing, or am I being silly? I wouldn't mind flying back down and spending a few days doing some shadowing with faculty that I know personally if it might help with that particular school.
Thanks everyone!
