RN to MD?

[deleted1139352]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for reading this. I am an ER RN in my mid-20s in WA. I have always wanted to work in healthcare. When I was a child, I dreamt of becoming a doctor, however, once I learned about the rigorous admission requirements and long hours of residency, I decided I wanted to go the RN/NP route for work/life balance. I generally enjoy my job and I have accepted a spot in an ARNP program. When I was completing clinical rotations in nursing school, my favorite aspects we by far the reading of H&Ps, examining lab values and imaging studies, and trending a patient's overall direction. In essence, I loved the medicine part far more than the nursing part.

For years after I realized this, I have gone back and forth with the idea of going to medical school. I am so excited about potentially going to ARNP school, and I know I would enjoy the work, however, part of me still longs to learn even more. I know it would be extremely hard, and it is not all glamorous, but I do feel as if I would love learning medicine at the most in-depth level and I would love exposure to different specialties in school and in residency. If I applied, I would definitely apply DO as well as MD. I feel as if my years as a nurse have allowed me to work with people of all ages, walks of life, and acuity levels and I feel like I could bring a unique perspective to med school. After years of lurking on SDN, I workshopped a very tentative premed plan.

I did not do fantastic in undergrad. My cGPA is 3.68, my sGPA is 2.56 (not including my nursing classes- just bio/chem/micro/a and p/nutrition). I do feel as if I am significantly more mature and disciplined than I was in undergrad. My tentative plan would be a DIY post bacc at a local community college (in my area, the only public 4 year university is impossible to register for even if you're a full time student and the private schools are, well, private and too expensive). I would hope to take:

-1st year: bio and chem w/ labs, so 2 classes/quarter (yes, I do feel as if I need to retake gen bio/chem, I retained very little)
-2nd year: physics, o chem, and biochem, also 2 classes/quarter
-3rd year: take MCAT and one upper division science class/quarter as med school prep
.
I recently took stats at a CC as a requirement for my ARNP program and got an A. I have read that calc is not usually a prereq or needed on the MCAT so I do not plan on taking it. I would also have >10,000 hours as an ER RN, leadership and educational roles as a charge RN and preceptor to new nurses, ~250 volunteer hours, and likely some research (offered through my CC). I would also shell out the big bucks to take a well-renounced MCAT prep course to hopefully get me >513. As an ER RN, I work very closely with and have great rapport with many physicians I admire and respect and I believe I could get LORs from them. Additionally, I have a few MD/DO contacts and I could likely shadow them.

My issue is this- are the sacrifices worth it? Is the CC program worth it? Am I in over my head? Should I stick w/ ARNP? Are the two classes/quarter insufficient to adcoms? I can't help but feel like I'm starting from scratch and I start to doubt myself. It can be incredibly frustrating and disappointing to see admissions statistics on med school websites where people who have met all the requirements still have such a narrow chance at acceptance and I can't help but wonder if that will happen to me, despite the total revamping of my life I would do. I just feel a bit lost.

Again, thank you so much for reading. I truly appreciate any and all advice you have to give.

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[Rapsidy]

When I was a child, I dreamt of becoming a doctor, however, once I learned about the rigorous admission requirements and long hours of residency, I decided I wanted to go the RN/NP route for work/life balance. I generally enjoy my job and I have accepted a spot in an ARNP program.

I still think these are incredibly valid concerns to think long and hard about. Are the sacrifices worth it is a deeply personal question. You have the acceptance and the path, and you’ll be making good money far quicker as a NP rather than going down the medical route. Are you wanting kids? Willing to move across the country and leave family if needed? Do you have a partner to consider who may need to uproot their life for this path? Do you have enough saves to cover things like rent, existing student loans, health insurance on this path? All of the concerns you brought up still exist which originally led you on the nursing route.

I switched from social work to medical school and did the DIY post bac through community college so it can be done. Your experiences will be valuable and ultimately make you a good candidate I believe since you already know the ugly and hard realities of patient care and have a lot more clinical experiences than many students applying now. But realistically your plan will likely take at least 2-3 years, then another 4 years of medical school, and another 3-6 ish years of residency before you are even looking at a physician salary. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a NP, just like there’s nothing wrong with pursuing this dream, and talk to the supports in your life to make that decision.

 

[deleted1139352]

I still think these are incredibly valid concerns to think long and hard about. Are the sacrifices worth it is a deeply personal question. You have the acceptance and the path, and you’ll be making good money far quicker as a NP rather than going down the medical route. Are you wanting kids? Willing to move across the country and leave family if needed? Do you have a partner to consider who may need to uproot their life for this path? Do you have enough saves to cover things like rent, existing student loans, health insurance on this path? All of the concerns you brought up still exist which originally led you on the nursing route.

I switched from social work to medical school and did the DIY post bac through community college so it can be done. Your experiences will be valuable and ultimately make you a good candidate I believe since you already know the ugly and hard realities of patient care and have a lot more clinical experiences than many students applying now. But realistically your plan will likely take at least 2-3 years, then another 4 years of medical school, and another 3-6 ish years of residency before you are even looking at a physician salary. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a NP, just like there’s nothing wrong with pursuing this dream, and talk to the supports in your life to make that decision.

Thank you so much for this thoughtful response. It's definitely encouraging to hear about your successful diy post bac and you've brought up very valid points about the sacrifice. If you don't mind me asking, do you feel like it was worth it for you?

 

[Rapsidy]

Thank you so much for this thoughtful response. It's definitely encouraging to hear about your successful diy post bac and you've brought up very valid points about the sacrifice. If you don't mind me asking, do you feel like it was worth it for you?

On the worst days no, life would be a lot simpler as a social worker and a lot less stressful and taxing on my mental health. On the better days yes, I think I slept like 14 hours straight after the final block exam of M1 year.

 

[deleted1139352]

On the worst days no, life would be a lot simpler as a social worker and a lot less stressful and taxing on my mental health. On the better days yes, I think I slept like 14 hours straight after the final block exam of M1 year.

Totally makes sense, thank you so much again!

 

[operaman]

What I often tell people in these situations is to try and decide what your ultimate goal in medicine would be. What sort of day to day practice are you looking for?

If your plan is primary care or something similar where you can have the exact same day to day experience as an NP, then it may be worth strongly considering doing that instead. If you’re interested in a specialty or other practice area not as open to NPs, then maybe MD/DO is worth doing.

I don’t know if the increased depth of knowledge is truly worth the investment if your ultimate day to day practice is the same. From today you’re looking at 10 years just for primary care fields, 12-15 for many specialties. I think the sacrifices may be worth it if it lets you do things you couldn’t otherwise, but otherwise maybe not.

 

[esob]

I agree that if you want to do something that you can essentially do as an NP (which is most things) AND work-life balance is a high priority, then go with the NP. Physician and work/life balance don't really go together, especially for the med school + residency portion of the journey.

 

[NITRAS]

I agree that if you want to do something that you can essentially do as an NP (which is most things) AND work-life balance is a high priority, then go with the NP. Physician and work/life balance don't really go together, especially for the med school + residency portion of the journey.

Lots of physicians have great work/life balance. The best paying positions usually cost lots of hours/time.

 

[gramnegative]

I'm an M2 and a former ICU RN. If I was paying full price for tuition, I would definitely regret my decision. While it sounds like rotations and especially residency will represent great opportunities for clinical training and education, the pre-clinical years are school and not qualitatively different than what you have experienced before. Harrison's Internal Medicine is a lot cheaper than four years of tuition. I'd echo the points made so far to think very hard about what you want to end up doing because the opportunity cost is huge.

That being said, my RN experience added to the rest of my application (which was well-rounded with a high MCAT; 4.0 in the last 80 credits I took, mainly two classes at a time; varied and significant volunteering experiences), led to a lot of interest during my application season. As I said, I am lucky and privileged enough to receiving a significant (>50%) combination of financial aid and scholarships, which made the decision much more tolerable for me. You CAN do it, if you want to and are able to stay disciplined - the question is, do you want to?

 

[PandaBaer]

I only want to add that as a non-trad former ED tech from western WA, I'd be happy to help if you do decide to pursue MD/DO, currently an OMS-II.

I didn't have as hard of a choice when deciding to pursue healthcare from a corporate job, since I was weighing NP vs PA vs MD/DO which would all have taken similar time/resources. PA was shortest but I felt would be unsatisfactory for my personality, I almost followed a friend into doing an accelerated DNP, but wanted to keep my options open to practice in all specialities. Whether the commitment/sacrifice of MD/DO is worth it is up to you.

 

[Sn00pygrrl]

NP applying to MD/DO school here. If you like the medicine stuff--H&Ps, labs, imaging--you can get PLENTY of that as an NP. It's really more about whether or not you want to assume *full* responsibility for patient care, which means being available / on call a lot, as well as liable for patient outcomes. If that doesn't appeal to you, don't do MD/DO and stick to NP. You can do all the medicine you want as an NP and you can continue to learn pathophysiology, pharmacology, etc on your own and from your physician supervisors/colleagues throughout your career. Don't do it just for that--do it because you legitimately want more responsibility for patient care/outcomes (and shadow MDs/DOs so that you fully understand what that entails). Just my 0.02.