Second guessing my Nursing degree

[JSUBSN]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hello all and thank you in advance for your time. I am currently in my second semester of nursing school and am having more and more feelings of regret with my choice to become an RN. I initially thought I wanted to be a nurse because the field of medicine fascinated me, I liked how diverse the field was, and above all I enjoyed helping people. But now I have some clinical experience and I found I feel like I would be a greater asset to the medical community in a position with more critical thinking and decision making (and surgery absolutely fascinates me. I recently observed a few ortho surgery's and honestly couldn't sleep the night after).

My dilemma is I don't know if I should continue my route and obtain a BSN and use it as an undergrad for med school or if I should drop out of nursing and obtain a different bachelors. What are your personal opinions? I am very studious and currently have a 3.7 but I could foresee that dropping a small amount if I continue towards a BSN. I have heard from a few that nursing degrees are not exactly favored among med school admission boards and as time demanding as nursing school is it would be difficult to pad my resume with shadowing and extracurricular's. But on the other hand in the likely hood I am not accepted (with either degree) a BSN would be an the fall back I would want.

Above all I guess I am mainly looking for some advice or words of en/discouragement from any and all who have applied (successfully or not) to med school with a BSN.
Also, is it true a DO is slightly less competitive than an MD?

Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Promethean]

Hello all and thank you in advance for your time. I am currently in my second semester of nursing school and am having more and more feeling of regret with my choice to become an RN. I initially thought I wanted to be a nurse because the field of medicine fascinated me, I liked how diverse the field was, and above all I enjoyed helping people. But now I have some clinical experience and I found I feel like I would be a greater asset to the medical community in a position with more critical thinking and decision making (and surgery absolutely fascinates me. I recently observed a few ortho surgery's and honestly couldn't sleep the night).
My dilemma is I don't if I should continue

Uh... if you don't think that critical thinking and decision making are involved in being an RN, you should please withdraw from your program. Not only for your own sake, but also because the profession is better off without nurses who think so little of their role.

You are in your second semester of nursing school. You haven't yet had significant clinical experience. You've barely learned to change bed linens at this point.

Being an RN won't prevent you from going to medical school, if that is what you want to do. If surgery is what you are hot for, you could do OR nursing (learning to circulate and scrub) while you do the pre-reqs for medical school. It would be great experience and you could see more than a few hours of surgery before making career decisions.

So, if you did leave your nursing program, what would you do instead? How would that get you any closer to medicine than continuing your program and using it as the basis for further education?

 

[JSUBSN]

Promethean, thank you for your input. I have the up-most respect for all in the nursing profession and know it does include a lot of critical thinking but I want to be in a role where I can influence the plan of care more directly. And your absolutely right, I have not had an abundance of clinical experience but three days a week in a hospital the last two semesters has given me an insight I had not had when I decided to go RN. As far as a different major, I'd like to major in Chemistry or Anatomy as those are fields that interest me and I have excelled in. The only reason I am considering switching majors is I've been told extracurricular's such as research and shadowing are highly valued, and I'd have more time to invest, also, I believe I'd have a slightly higher GPA. What it boils down too is I have an undeniable desire to be a surgeon, but I am just a B+ student with no outstanding accomplishments to put on a resume in application to med school. Would more time to invest in EC's be worth giving up the safety net of a BSN as a fall back? I know at this point only I can really answer that but I'm kind of thinking out loud and looking for personal opinions. If you don't mind me asking, what was your undergrad major/GPA and what kind of extracurricular's did you do?

Thank you very much for your time.

 

[futuremdforme]

Since you're only in the second semester, if you are very certain about medicine, I think it would be a lot easier with a non-nursing degree. I would also say that you will want to become at least an A- student to make it easy on yourself to get accepted!

 

[italiancowgirl]

Many of the answers to your questions are in the forum here, spend more time reading and looking at what other people are asking. ECS and GPA are both important but you also (to be honest) don't have real experience with surgery unless you have spent much more time shadowing and learning from surgeons. Right now it is peaking your interest which is great, but you sound like you are jumping in without looking. Until you know all the possibilities in MD, DO, NP, PA, and RN you need to invest time in reading online about their roles, and most importantly talking with them. Please don't assume because as an applicant I spent more than 500 hrs shadowing physicians and I am still learning new things about how they practice and their different lifestyles all the time (some things I love and other things I don't like at all). It is too much to really know without really exploring. It is good to ask questions but try to answer them yourself if you can. For average applicant acceptance stats you can check AMCAS for MD school info. GL.