Scared I'm in over my head

[mj4566]

Hi,
So I graduated this year with my bachelors in Psychology with a 3.2 GPA. It took me a total of 6 years to complete my undergrad studies because of my mental health. I've always felt really alone and did not fully go looking for outside help ( I attended a few therapy sessions here and there but those were when I was at my worst. I never stayed consistent with therapy). Good news is I'm still here and I'm writing looking for some help.
I'm afraid medical schools will look at my undergrad track record and decline me on the spot. I have not taken any prerequisites for medical school so I will be attending a 2 year post-bacc pre-med program in January. Also, I will start as a patient sitter in December.

A little about me is I am building a business as a personal trainer. In May, I will start as a PCT. I plan on getting into clubs and research opportunities once I'm on campus. There are multiple doctors who have agreed to allow me to shadow them.

Am I in over my head or will great post-bacc results and my experience be enough?

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[deleted1102547]

Hi,
So I graduated this year with my bachelors in Psychology with a 3.2 GPA. It took me a total of 6 years to complete my undergrad studies because of my mental health. I've always felt really alone and did not fully go looking for outside help ( I attended a few therapy sessions here and there but those were when I was at my worst. I never stayed consistent with therapy). Good news is I'm still here and I'm writing looking for some help.
I'm afraid medical schools will look at my undergrad track record and decline me on the spot. I have not taken any prerequisites for medical school so I will be attending a 2 year post-bacc pre-med program in January. Also, I will start as a patient sitter in December.

A little about me is I am building a business as a personal trainer. In May, I will start as a PCT. I plan on getting into clubs and research opportunities once I'm on campus. There are multiple doctors who have agreed to allow me to shadow them.

Am I in over my head or will great post-bacc results and my experience be enough?

There are no experiences you've described that will "be enough". You will need a lot of clinical experience, which you will get as a patient care technician. You will also need volunteering experience, which you have not described here. Being your own business owner is cool, but it isn't enough to get you into medical school on its own.

Your GPA will hinder your chances at MD schools. With a strong post-bacc and GPA, you could still get into an MD school. With a good MCAT, you could get into a DO school with a 3.2, but it would still be below average.

 

[mj4566]

There are no experiences you've described that will "be enough". You will need a lot of clinical experience, which you will get as a patient care technician. You will also need volunteering experience, which you have not described here. Being your own business owner is cool, but it isn't enough to get you into medical school on its own.

Your GPA will hinder your chances at MD schools. With a strong post-bacc and GPA, you could still get into an MD school. With a good MCAT, you could get into a DO school with a 3.2, but it would still be below average.

Thank you for your response. Is patient sitter considered clinical experience?

 

[deleted1102547]

Thank you for your response. Is patient sitter considered clinical experience?

Yeah!

 

[Goro]

Hi,
So I graduated this year with my bachelors in Psychology with a 3.2 GPA. It took me a total of 6 years to complete my undergrad studies because of my mental health. I've always felt really alone and did not fully go looking for outside help ( I attended a few therapy sessions here and there but those were when I was at my worst. I never stayed consistent with therapy). Good news is I'm still here and I'm writing looking for some help.
I'm afraid medical schools will look at my undergrad track record and decline me on the spot. I have not taken any prerequisites for medical school so I will be attending a 2 year post-bacc pre-med program in January. Also, I will start as a patient sitter in December.

A little about me is I am building a business as a personal trainer. In May, I will start as a PCT. I plan on getting into clubs and research opportunities once I'm on campus. There are multiple doctors who have agreed to allow me to shadow them.

Am I in over my head or will great post-bacc results and my experience be enough?

As of right now, your GPA is 100% autoreject from MD schools, and meh for DO.

IF you have a massive rising GPA trend, that's a different story.

Your mental health history concerns me. Medical school is a furnace, and it breaks even healthy people.

You have to get your mental health issues under 100% control before you even attempt to go down this path. The number one reason my school loses students to withdrawal dismissal or leave of absence is due to mental health issues.

 

[mj4566]

As of right now, your GPA is 100% autoreject from MD schools, and meh for DO.

IF you have a massive rising GPA trend, that's a different story.

Your mental health history concerns me. Medical school is a furnace, and it breaks even healthy people.

You have to get your mental health issues under 100% control before you even attempt to go down this path. The number one reason my school loses students to withdrawal dismissal or leave of absence is due to mental health issues.

Thank you for the response. It took me so long to complete my undergrad bc I felt lost and didn’t have the why to conquer any how (wonderfully said by Nietzche. The need to find my why and “who I was” really hindered my ability to finish my undergrad. I’m a heck of a lot better now. Also, I want to thank you for the advice you have up for pre-meds who need reinvention!!

 

[frosted2]

As of right now, your GPA is 100% autoreject from MD schools, and meh for DO.

IF you have a massive rising GPA trend, that's a different story.

Your mental health history concerns me. Medical school is a furnace, and it breaks even healthy people.

You have to get your mental health issues under 100% control before you even attempt to go down this path. The number one reason my school loses students to withdrawal dismissal or leave of absence is due to mental health issues.

Truth. Many of my classmates who appear to have it 100% together are different people behind closed doors. Anxiety and depression are more common than anyone on the outside would ever guess. I say that because we ALL struggle. Every one of us.

 

[esob]

Your mental health history concerns me. Medical school is a furnace, and it breaks even healthy people.

You have to get your mental health issues under 100% control before you even attempt to go down this path. The number one reason my school loses students to withdrawal dismissal or leave of absence is due to mental health issues.

Truth. Many of my classmates who appear to have it 100% together are different people behind closed doors. Anxiety and depression are more common than anyone on the outside would ever guess. I say that because we ALL struggle. Every one of us.

my depression got worse after starting med school. being a med student doesn't help depression.

All of this is on point. Goro has said the same things for years, "med school is a furnace." I read that ~ 6 yrs ago and first thought, "I made it through two wars in the military, what can med school do?" My med school experience has been on par with my military experience. In some ways, it's worse, because at least in the military your command and your peers want to keep you alive because all warm bodies have some use to the unit. I don't feel like faculty/admins/peers in med school have the same M.O. N=1 ofc, but my institution is known for being "chill" and it's anything but...

Grades, experience, etc won't matter if you are unwilling to stomach 7+ years of toxicity to your well-being. If this doesn't sound like something you would embrace, I would not follow the path. I've had several friends/classmates quit already due to mental health issues.

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

There are a lot of people with who struggle with mental health in medical school. But I'm not reading here that you have a solid plan for if you have issues in the future. You don't want to figure that stuff out on the fly, particularly if you're in the middle of board preparation or a rotation for a specialty that you're interested in. Figure it out now when you don't have the pressures of a full time job's worth of school work and when taking a day off can be the difference between passing and failing a block.

Most applicants will have a strong GPA, MCAT, several hundred hours of each volunteering, clinical experience, research and leadership plus a few weeks worth of shadowing. No one is in over their head, it's just a question of whether you've done those things or not.

I would suggest taking pre-req classes at a local university or community college before you commit to an expensive 2 year pre med post bacc program. I'm going to be brutally honest, your current GPA and lack of a mental health emergency plan are not good indicators for strong performance in any program. You need to excel to make it worth it. I'm not saying you're not capable, only that it's better to have a record of very good grades in pre-reqs before you gamble on a post-bacc unless you're confident you can ace it.

 

[nontradcns]

Hi,
So I graduated this year with my bachelors in Psychology with a 3.2 GPA. It took me a total of 6 years to complete my undergrad studies because of my mental health. I've always felt really alone and did not fully go looking for outside help ( I attended a few therapy sessions here and there but those were when I was at my worst. I never stayed consistent with therapy). Good news is I'm still here and I'm writing looking for some help.
I'm afraid medical schools will look at my undergrad track record and decline me on the spot. I have not taken any prerequisites for medical school so I will be attending a 2 year post-bacc pre-med program in January. Also, I will start as a patient sitter in December.

A little about me is I am building a business as a personal trainer. In May, I will start as a PCT. I plan on getting into clubs and research opportunities once I'm on campus. There are multiple doctors who have agreed to allow me to shadow them.

Am I in over my head or will great post-bacc results and my experience be enough?

So first of all, congratulations on completing college! That's a huge accomplishment. You should give yourself some time to enjoy this!

I guess my first question is, Why do you want to go to medical school? If you have not yet completed prereqs nor shadowed docs yet, you may find out that you are not interested in med school after all. If you decide to apply to med school, doing very well in a 2yr post-bacc will help your application, but you will want to have a plan to ensure that you ace your classes in the post-bacc so that med school adcoms will see a big improvement. It's hard too whether you should disclose why you struggled in college; adcoms should not be judgmental about mental health issues, but realistically, there is a lot of negative bias out there.

A few other ideas. Look into other medical careers in addition to physician. For example, if you are a personal trainer, you might be interested in becoming a physical therapist (and DPT programs are I think only 3 years long without need for a residency!). Also consider applying to DO schools, on average they admit students more holistically with lower GPAs/MCAT scores than MD schools.

Finally, medical school is emotionally extremely challenging. If you go to med school, ensure that you take steps to maintain self-care and keep up with your therapy appointments. You do not want to start the marathon of medical school (which is only the start of many more challenges to come) without having a plan to maintain your mental health.

Good luck! : )