Should I Quit Job to Continue Pursuing Pre-Med?

[studyhardmcat]

Hello everyone,

I’ve had this question in my mind for the longest time and haven’t found anyone else/other ways to solve my dilemma.

I’ve graduated with a bachelors in Healthcare Administration and I’ve worked in numerous positions in the healthcare field (mostly admn stuff, but a lot of clinical expousure). My dream has always been to become a doctor, but due to lack of guidance (I’m a first generation college grad) I chose a business degree with very minimum science courses.
Now I’m currently doing a post-bacc to try to get my science courses and study for the MCAT at the same time. The issue is that I currently work a full time job for a medical residency program for the past 8months or so - I got this opportunity thinking it would open a lot more doors in the medical field (build a rapport, meet more doctors, do more shadowing, make more connections) but it’s not really going as planned. It’s a lot of work, long hours, and I get paid really bad (I’m taking loans used to pay for classes and my own bills because my work alone does not cover it all). They are also not very flexible with my school (they know about my dream of becoming a doctor one day).

My main concern is that all of this is really stressing me out: the workload from work, the workload from school, the financial pressure. It’s unfortunately impacting my grades as I don’t have much time to study. So I was wondering if it is a good idea to quit this job and perhaps find a job online or that gives me more flexibility? I know my current title/experience would look great on my resume for medical school, which is why I can’t seem to let go. Help?

PS: I was a straight-A student throughout college, did many volunteer opportunities and participated in tons of extra curricular activities. So I take my grades very seriously, and it saddens me that they are currently not as good as I planned. I’m scared the low gpa will haunt me in my application because of my current work.

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[CatDad26]

Hello everyone,

I’ve had this question in my mind for the longest time and haven’t found anyone else/other ways to solve my dilemma.

I’ve graduated with a bachelors in Healthcare Administration and I’ve worked in numerous positions in the healthcare field (mostly admn stuff, but a lot of clinical expousure). My dream has always been to become a doctor, but due to lack of guidance (I’m a first generation college grad) I chose a business degree with very minimum science courses.
Now I’m currently doing a post-bacc to try to get my science courses and study for the MCAT at the same time. The issue is that I currently work a full time job for a medical residency program for the past 8months or so - I got this opportunity thinking it would open a lot more doors in the medical field (build a rapport, meet more doctors, do more shadowing, make more connections) but it’s not really going as planned. It’s a lot of work, long hours, and I get paid really bad (I’m taking loans used to pay for classes and my own bills because my work alone does not cover it all). They are also not very flexible with my school (they know about my dream of becoming a doctor one day).

My main concern is that all of this is really stressing me out: the workload from work, the workload from school, the financial pressure. It’s unfortunately impacting my grades as I don’t have much time to study. So I was wondering if it is a good idea to quit this job and perhaps find a job online or that gives me more flexibility? I know my current title/experience would look great on my resume for medical school, which is why I can’t seem to let go. Help?

PS: I was a straight-A student throughout college, did many volunteer opportunities and participated in tons of extra curricular activities. So I take my grades very seriously, and it saddens me that they are currently not as good as I planned. I’m scared the low gpa will haunt me in my application because of my current work.

To me it sounds like an easy decision to quit! The job market is so hot right now that I'm fairly confident you could find a better paying job with much more fair and regular hours. I totally understand your fear of leaving if you think it will look great on your future med app, but I promise you can find something else that'll look just as good if not better. With your admin experience and clinical exposure, you'd probably be a great fit for a practice assistant or medical assistant (lots of doctors offices now have MAs that carry administrative roles as well). This sort of gig would have a nice 8-430 schedule leaving you more study time

At the end of the day you're the only person looking out for yourself, keep that in mind. It seems your current job is holding back your potential, so make a change and keep on track towards reaching medical school!

 

[Gummydinosaur]

Hello everyone,

I’ve had this question in my mind for the longest time and haven’t found anyone else/other ways to solve my dilemma.

I’ve graduated with a bachelors in Healthcare Administration and I’ve worked in numerous positions in the healthcare field (mostly admn stuff, but a lot of clinical expousure). My dream has always been to become a doctor, but due to lack of guidance (I’m a first generation college grad) I chose a business degree with very minimum science courses.
Now I’m currently doing a post-bacc to try to get my science courses and study for the MCAT at the same time. The issue is that I currently work a full time job for a medical residency program for the past 8months or so - I got this opportunity thinking it would open a lot more doors in the medical field (build a rapport, meet more doctors, do more shadowing, make more connections) but it’s not really going as planned. It’s a lot of work, long hours, and I get paid really bad (I’m taking loans used to pay for classes and my own bills because my work alone does not cover it all). They are also not very flexible with my school (they know about my dream of becoming a doctor one day).

My main concern is that all of this is really stressing me out: the workload from work, the workload from school, the financial pressure. It’s unfortunately impacting my grades as I don’t have much time to study. So I was wondering if it is a good idea to quit this job and perhaps find a job online or that gives me more flexibility? I know my current title/experience would look great on my resume for medical school, which is why I can’t seem to let go. Help?

PS: I was a straight-A student throughout college, did many volunteer opportunities and participated in tons of extra curricular activities. So I take my grades very seriously, and it saddens me that they are currently not as good as I planned. I’m scared the low gpa will haunt me in my application because of my current work.

From this site I've heard a lot of Ad-coms allude to the fact that your post-bach is a one shot deal to improve/show off your GPA for school admissions. So if your job is affecting your ability to nail these courses I would let it go.

Shadowing and clinical experience is nice, but its pretty likely that you could easily get a job working in a medical office for better experiences/pay/flexibility.

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

I would quit that job whether I had aspirations to be a doc or not. You are obviously very capable and they don’t seem to respect your time our goals outside of them. Especially if the pay is bad, don’t waste your energy with them.

You may be able to find more lucrative work elsewhere especially since you have a business degree. I might try to do that to keep loan burden down at least while finishing up under grad level classes.