Second year vet student considering applying to med school

[MuffinStuffin]

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[doc05]

Compelling? Not really. Sorry you're disappointed with vet med. human medicine isn't any better.

Stick with vet med. people take better care of their pets than themselves.

 

[gyngyn]

I've never seen this happen.

 

[getdown]

I'm sorry but what makes you think that going into human medicine is going to be any different. You talk about your rose colored glasses coming off because of the limited things you can do for pets. Then wait until you see the real world of medicine. You might be horrified by the problems associated with access to care, insurance companies not wanting to pay for treatment and the list goes on.

At the very least go shadow a doctor and see what medicine is because I can tell from this post that you're an idealistic person, have no clue what medicine truly is and have these grand ideals of what medicine should be. Do this and then decide if you want to spend at least 8 years training for a field you're going to be disillusioned over.

 

[Tenk]

Don’t. Humans suck.

 

[smukke]

Absolutely finish the degree. Not finishing is a red flag (You've bailed before, what's to stop you from bailing again?).

Be prepared to work for a couple years after you graduate. You likely won't have the time to get significant clinical exposure/shadowing/etc while still in vet school and you want to show that you've actually thought this through and put effort into this decision this time and aren't just collecting degrees.

Try to get involved in translational research if that's an interest; look for jobs at universities or non-profit research institutes (I'd avoid pharma). (Almost) Every lab loves a good pathologist or vet (tech) to collaborate with. There's also related pathways like clinical trials management that you could end up going down.

 

[Moose A Moose]

I think the only way you’d be able to make this work is to have an advocate in your corner. This person would have to be someone connected to a medical school’s admission committee. Pick your favorite med school and get to work setting up some meetings.

 

[HomeSkool]

Med school ain't gonna happen for you. You're better off staying where you are.

While I don't share the cynicism of some of my colleagues above (I mean, damn, guys!) I do agree that the root problem here seems to be that you've become disillusioned as idealism gives way to realism. You're going to see that in any field, medical or otherwise, and you need to accept it. To be happy in life, you need to see your ideals as what could be, not what should be. Accepting that and shifting your paradigm from the theoretical to the practical is an important prerequisite for professional satisfaction.

My advice is to finish vet school and then make your veterinary career exactly what you want it to be. Clinical practice? Go for it. Research? Right on. But decide right now to love the journey and not just the destination. The grass isn't any greener in human medicine (although it is pretty green where I'm sitting!). @doc05 wasn't lying: people do take better care of their pets than themselves.

 

[DocAdams]

Will Eward, MD, DVM

 

[DocAdams]

Here is another

John Weigelt MD DVM

Seems doable.

 

[DrRiker]

Evidently it's been done. In order to do so, I think you'll have to consider your narrative. There are research groups testing devices for humans (ECMO, for instance) on animals. You DVM may make you well suited for that type of research. From there, you can "discover your true passion for human medicine," or get a PhD, or whatever you want from your career.

 

[Goro]

Hi everyone!

I am a rising second year vet student and I'm starting to have some real hesitation about going into the veterinary field. I'm looking for any advice anyone might have on my situation and experience. I went to an ivy league school for undergrad and majored in evolution/ecology. I considered a PhD in that field but felt medicine was more of a draw. I'm really interested in medical translational research. I spent a year in an immunology lab after undergrad and I really enjoyed the work but I wanted more. I really feel that I want to help people and society. I had to chose vet med or human med and everyone who knows me knows that I love animals, so I picked vet med. I thought potentially I could be a veterinary pathologist or a lab animal vet to marry my love of research with my love of animals.

Went through two gap years prepping for vet school and got into a very good school. Fast forward to the end of vet school, and I'm pretty unhappy. I find vet med to be horribly unsatisfying. I'm really interested in human pathologic diseases as modeled by animals. I'm passionate about research and pathology and I just don't necessarily fit the mold of veterinarian. I look at all my friends who get so excited about our labs and vet school as a whole and I'm just not as enthusiastic.

My plan is to finish vet school. I feel dropping out this late in the game would be detrimental. I think that having the comparative background could be extremely valuable for a career in research as well as just thinking creatively and caring for my patients.

Does anyone feel that I even have a chance at med school? Any sage words of advice? I'm not terribly concerned about MCAT or GPA as I tried to really keep that up for vet school admission. I'm also not financially constrained, so the money is not an issue. Is this a compelling narrative? I know some med schools are more interested in producing clinicians versus researchers and vice versa.

Sorry for the extremely long post. Thanks in advance for any advice! Edited for some clarity.

Nothin you've written here says anything about running TO a career in human Medicine, and everything about running AWAY from a career in Veterinary.

Suggest getting a PhD

 

[smukke]

Then you have to figure out how to weave a convincing story of your animal -> human connection interest. Just going to school for it isn't going to be enough. It's much easier to do once you've been practicing or are extensively involved in research as you'll have the experience and track record to show otherwise right now it just comes off as a "grass is greener and I'm just going to keep going until something interesting sticks" approach.

Read about Will Eward (there's a couple articles on him online), he was a practicing vet, dealt with osteosarcoma in dogs, got interested in the human side, and went on to orthopedic oncology. His story makes sense.

PS Our vets are vital to our clinical trials, without them there wouldn't be one since we need the animal data for the IND. Even as a physician it's highly unlikely that you'll be overseeing an entire clinical trial but rather be involved for a just a portion of it.

 

[getdown]

It's irrelevant how you think you come off in this story since it's not up to you to decide if you get into medical school. You have multiple admission committee members and other experienced members telling you that the degree jumping is a negative red flag. It's up to you to either heed that advice or try your luck.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I want to use my veterinary degree to help make me both a better clinician and scientist. I personally don't see it as running away from vet med, though I can certainly understand why you'd say that. I think of it as a way to use my veterinary education in a creative way that makes sense for me. Vet med is a really unique field in that you can do just about anything with a DVM from work in policy to government work, food regulation, bioterrorism, being a mom and pop vet, the list is seemingly endless. The education is designed to give us an interdisciplinary perspective and I see this as a way to meld both, not leave one behind. There are many things you cannot do, however, with just a DVM. I can't help with clinical trials. I won't be taken as seriously working on human disease. I've experienced these first hand. I want more. I see this as a way to bring my passions together. Did you know that dogs and cats cannot get atherosclerosis because the sinusoids are too small for the molecules to get stuck? Or that giant breed dogs are a great spontaneous model for pediatric osteosarcoma. Cats lack several of the P-450 enzymes making them far more sensitive to drugs that get excreted through glucoronidation. I find all of those differences a gold mine for potentially coming up with new therapeutics and thinking of human disease with a different set of eyes.

You are all welcome to pick holes in my story and in fact I really do appreciate that, because that's what will happen when I apply. But, that's where my interests lie and I do think I'm going to go for it because fundamentally I will regret not having tried.

If you want to so something other than general pratice, you will in many cases need to either specialize via internship and residency or pursue an additional degree such as a PhD (especially for research) after vet school. Just something to keep in mind, especially with the debt to salary ratio in vet med. Veterinary pathology in an extremely competitive specialty if that is one of your top interests (trust me, I am one) so that's something to consider - if you can't get a residency, you're pretty much relegated to GP jobs.

High-end animal model research as a DVM will also likely require you to pursue a PhD as well after vet school, unless your goal is to be more focused on the lab animal medicine side rather than the actual research side. That's definitely a viable option - I know many DVM/PhDs involved in fantastic translational research....but it comes at a schooling and debt cost.

Vet school is immensely difficult and sucks no matter which way you look at it, and it's even harder for those of us who want to do something different than clinical practice. I can tell you that there are indeed options for those of us who want to practice in nontraditional areas. It just usually takes extra training and experience after the main clinical degree, which can be really hard when you're 150-250k in debt and still earning **** pay. If you're prepared to do so, then more power to you - but it's a long and difficult slog with no guarantees.

 

[BigRedBeta]

The clear end goal, based off of what you've said, is to get you into the lab. From the consideration of a PhD to begin with and even the idea of working with lab animals screams "RESEARCHER", much more than vet or physician.

So let's ignore any sort consideration of what you might research and instead focus on how to get you there the fastest and sets you up for the most success. Subject matter will work itself out. It's wonderful that you're not financially constrained, but unless you really don't care about getting on with your career, I don't think it wise to be a perpetual student as a general rule.

I think it makes the most sense to get the PhD, and is up to you whether or not you drop out of DVM school (I don't anticipate PhD programs being quite as up in arms about dropping out of your DVM program as medical schools would be). Getting an MD without a PhD isn't going to make you particularly more marketable for a research position, and certainly isn't going to improve your understanding of research methods to the degree a PhD would. I don't find your argument that a DVM discounts the perception of your ability to understand human disease to be that particularly compelling - if that really mattered, my colleagues and I would discount every PhD in molecular biology publishing on Pediatric ARDS out of hand because they never completed a pediatric residency or pediatric critical care fellowship.