Switching from nursing to premed?

[stusnow]

Hi all, second year nursing student here. I've planned on becoming an NP / CRNA since Junior year of high school. However, this year taking applied nursing classes has really not excited me the same way A&P, Microbiology, and Chemistry did last year. I'm beginning to realize I want to know WHY everything I'm learning in Nursing classes happens, not just "here's what happens, here's what you do." I'm an ENTJ personality, tend to take control of situations and I could see myself becoming frustrated, even in advanced practice nursing. My grades are decent, I had a 3.92GPA last year. Should I stick with nursing and do nursing premed? Should I change to Health Science/Bio/Chem/Biochem premed? I'm also concerned about (most likely) taking an extra year to graduate. Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! 🙂

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[deleted407021]

You can do premed as a nursing student, however, I've heard mixed opinions on how it impacts your admissions chances, raising questions like, "why'd you major in nursing if you wanted to be a doctor?"

If you are annoyed with nursing and enjoy other sciences, I wouldn't advise against changing your major to something you like more that wouldn't raise eyebrows, e.g., anything other than nursing. Remember, you need to take some science classes such as ochem and biochem, which nursing students don't usually take. You can easily find the prereqs for med school and what you need to know for the MCAT.

Your GPA is fantastic. Keep up the good work.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is fun, but mostly meaningless.

You can def. communicate to adcoms your changing interests and how your initial pursuit of nursing led you to learn that you're more suited to medicine.

An extra year is not a problem. Do well in the prereqs, on the MCAT and get plenty of healthcare exposure and community service. I'm sure you'll do very well. Good luck!

 

[mikil100]

I received an associates degree in nursing and then pursued my goal of becoming a physician. Like you, I became enamored with the Science of Medicine, and the Physiology, Pathology, and Anatomy were my favorite parts of nursing school ( and were not near as in depth as I had hoped). Because I was in an ASN program, I decided to stick through the program and after graduating I worked as an RN while starting my premed classes in earnest. I actually went for a completely new degree in Biology, for two reasons. One, I couldn't stand any more of the nursing style classes, they were a bore to me. Secondly, the degree in Biology was more useful credit wise and gave me time to further increase my GPA (nursing school is kind of hard on the GPA, at least where I went). So, with that in mind, this would be my recommendation to you.

If you are nearly complete with nursing school ie, one year, I would continue with your studies and reap the reward of making a decent salary and boosting your "EC" background in healthcare.
If the above doesn't apply, then I would consider just switching degrees and focusing on the hard sciences since you're actually interested in those. Either route you take you will be exposed to more sciences (med school pre reqs must be taken regardless.

If you're in a bachelors program for nursing, I doubt you would have taken too many nursing specific classes at 2 years in? If so transferring out won't hurt too much. For me, when I transfered it was like dumping half my degree down the toilet, as the nursing credits didn't count at all.

Regardless, you have a good GPA and if you make sure to volunteer and maybe get some research with a solid MCAT you'll be golden. Just be sure to have a strong idea of "why medicine, not nursing." It will come up in interviews.

 

[PassThePropofol]

You can do premed as a nursing student, however, I've heard mixed opinions on how it impacts your admissions chances, raising questions like, "why'd you major in nursing if you wanted to be a doctor?"

If you are annoyed with nursing and enjoy other sciences, I wouldn't advise against changing your major to something you like more that wouldn't raise eyebrows, e.g., anything other than nursing. Remember, you need to take some science classes such as ochem and biochem, which nursing students don't usually take. You can easily find the prereqs for med school and what you need to know for the MCAT.

Your GPA is fantastic. Keep up the good work.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is fun, but mostly meaningless.

You can def. communicate to adcoms your changing interests and how your initial pursuit of nursing led you to learn that you're more suited to medicine.

An extra year is not a problem. Do well in the prereqs, on the MCAT and get plenty of healthcare exposure and community service. I'm sure you'll do very well. Good luck!

While I am sure mixed opinions exist about nursing to premed I think it is a fine way to pursue med school. I am biased because this is what I did. As I interviewed I was asked why I changed and I simply said that I realized I wanted a different relation with the patient but got an extremely good pre med experience because I was actually part of the healthcare decision making team and not just a scribe or a nurse's assistant. I get annoyed when I hear people saying go get some good clinical experience and in the same breath say don't be a nurse if you want to be pre med.

While I agree that getting a nursing degree is not the traditional path to med school, now that I have done it I would not discount it. In fact, I would encourage it. With a nursing degree you have an edge clinically. You actually do rotations in every specialty that a doc will do and are actual member of a healthcare team, learning how to deal with various patients, nurses, doctors, etc. most premeds are CNA's (nurse's assistants) or scribes. This experience is inferior to being a nursing student. By the time I finished, I had 600 hours of one on one patient interaction. I administered meds, gave injections, drew blood, started IV's, assisted with hand surgery, saw a baby born and then an episiotomy being stitched, saw a thoracentesis, spent a day in interventional radiology, did a longitudinal elderly study (required in med school), worked with refugee families in their homes, public school students in their school. I am hard pressed to think that any one experience a premed traditional student has incorporated all these things. Being a nurse is a great premed major. Just make sure your pre reqs are the traduonal med school ones which may be at a higher level than nursing ones.

I think the people who would say that nursing is a not a great pre med major would tend to be male who see nurses as inferior to doctors but run to be nurse's assistants or scribes for their pre med clinical experience. It's illogical. They have no idea what nurses are taught in school or what they do in the hospital. They may think nurses are pretty much glorified CNA's. If they truly understood they would be clamoring for the same experience. They would probably encourage something like an English major or art major over something like nursing. This is just plain ignorance.

 

[iBro]

Hi all, second year nursing student here. I've planned on becoming an NP / CRNA since Junior year of high school. However, this year taking applied nursing classes has really not excited me the same way A&P, Microbiology, and Chemistry did last year. I'm beginning to realize I want to know WHY everything I'm learning in Nursing classes happens, not just "here's what happens, here's what you do." I'm an ENTJ personality, tend to take control of situations and I could see myself becoming frustrated, even in advanced practice nursing. My grades are decent, I had a 3.92GPA last year. Should I stick with nursing and do nursing premed? Should I change to Health Science/Bio/Chem/Biochem premed? I'm also concerned about (most likely) taking an extra year to graduate. Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! 🙂

I changed from Pre nursing to Pre med for similar reasons; I enjoyed the life/hard sciences more than the nursing classes. It worked out great for me.

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[stusnow]

Thanks everyone for the advice! 🙂 I decided to make the change to a Biochemistry major.

 

[mistafab]

Thanks everyone for the advice! 🙂 I decided to make the change to a Biochemistry major.

Do what you love and never look back! Best of luck!

 

[Horse Apiece]

I think the people who would say that nursing is a not a great pre med major would tend to be male who see nurses as inferior to doctors but run to be nurse's assistants or scribes for their pre med clinical experience. It's illogical. They have no idea what nurses are taught in school or what they do in the hospital. They may think nurses are pretty much glorified CNA's. If they truly understood they would be clamoring for the same experience. They would probably encourage something like an English major or art major over something like nursing. This is just plain ignorance.

Nursing is a 4 year program for a professional job. Nursing schools that accept the nursing students after two years are trying to put more nurses out into the job market and provide a needed professional within their communities. So generally it is not that someone would advise that nursing is "inferior," but that a nursing career should not be used as a stepping stone. Scribes and CNA's in their own small way are a part of the healthcare team and get to experience things from the otherside of medicine, so to speak. Your post is insinuating that they cannot witness all of the things that a nurse would, while doing their own work, and are thus inferior, and also sexually based on stereotypes. That is not true, in any entry level clinical job you will get clinical experience without having to spend 4 years getting a degree, and can pursue a degree in whatever you are interested in, perhaps even something outside of medicine/sciences.

 

[PassThePropofol]

Nursing is a 4 year program for a professional job. Nursing schools that accept the nursing students after two years are trying to put more nurses out into the job market and provide a needed professional within their communities. So generally it is not that someone would advise that nursing is "inferior," but that a nursing career should not be used as a stepping stone. Scribes and CNA's in their own small way are a part of the healthcare team and get to experience things from the otherside of medicine, so to speak. Your post is insinuating that they cannot witness all of the things that a nurse would, while doing their own work, and are thus inferior, and also sexually based on stereotypes. That is not true, in any entry level clinical job you will get clinical experience without having to spend 4 years getting a degree, and can pursue a degree in whatever you are interested in, perhaps even something outside of medicine/sciences.

I would agree that nursing is not generally a stepping stone to med school. Should it be? Hmm. I would debate this given what I now know about nursing. My choice to go to med school came DURING nursing school and so I had to go with my choice and apply. Frankly, in hind sight, it was the best clinical preparation I could have gotten as a pre-med student. Your comment about getting clinical experience on any entry level job is partly true. You can get experience but as a CNA you cannot get great experience. As a nursing student, I was passing meds, assisting with and doing procedures that CNA's could never do, learning about the pharmacology and the effects of meds in a way that observing could never accomplish, learning how to assess a patient that CNA's cannot do. I nursed in every department a med student will rotate through. Nursing students are responsible for the patient in a way that a CNA will never be. Watching will never be the same as doing or being accountable for. In this way your comment is just untrue and uninformed. CNA's are inferior in education. They do not have the same education as nurses. Nurses are inferior in education to doctors. They do not have the same education. I don't think you will find any disagreement there from anyone.

 

[Horse Apiece]

@HopefulERDoc2016
Clinical Research, Scribing, CNA, Phlembotomy. These are just a few of the ways to get clinical experience, which will be less involved with patients than a nurse obviously would. My opinion would not be "untrue, and uninformed," just because I am saying that a nursing career takes more time, and there are other good routes to gaining clinical exposure. OP insinuated that people do not give nursing a fair shot due to preconceived notions that nursing is only for women, and an inferior job/clinical experience. I disagreed. I am sorry I have to summarize for you to get the meat of the argument. I would recommend reading a comment fully before calling out others as uninformed and listing all the aspects of a nurses job.

 

[PassThePropofol]

Touchy, aren't we? Not gonna fight with you about it. Nursing is a better clinical experience than any of the experiences you mentioned and takes no more time than an English degree. I prefer nursing to writing papers. I wouldn't fault anyone for choosing nursing as a pre Med major. My opinion. Glad I did it. Glad I'm going to med school. I will be more prepared clinically than anyone who did those other experiences. It's just a fact.

When someone says your opinion is uniformed don't get so riled. They are not making a value judgement on YOU, just your words. Stiffen up. You going to need it for med school.