Undergrad Degree...

[Arrector Pili]

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I finally decided to apply to the school of Nursing and get my BSN. So now I'm wondering, does the type of undergrad degree you have, really matter when applying to medical school. Many people on here seem to say that it doesn't, but at school, whenever I talk to any of my professors, and tell them I am wanting to go to med school they look at me as if I was an alien for choosing Nursing as my major. Any advice/comments are greatly appreciated...

 

[sunnyjohn]

Well, all the med school say they want are the prereq's. They don't care if you major in 16th Century Thought & Culture or Scuba Diving as long as you have Chem, O-chem, Bio and Physics...Oh and a decent MCAT👍

WITH THAT SAID... One of the books I read on med school admissions said that adcom's have some problem with nursing degrees because they feel they are "shortchanging" another critical healthcare field... Bunch of hooey if you ask me....



Call a few med schools and ask... Get the info from the horses mouth....

I am looking at nursing myself.... Decent wage... LOTS of patient contact & clinical experience... & with my present healthcare training I can complete a degree in less than a year... and if med school goes KABOOM, I can still work in healthcare and get my Phd and do research.

Besides, I gotta pay outta pocket for my post-bac and Masters. I can do that working PRN as a nurse and still have LOADS of time to dedicate to study...

Lots of folks dis' nursing. They don't see it as a valid career choice. Another load of horsepuckey. It is not a traditional pre-med route. That is why you may be getting the odd looks from your advisors. You may even be more suprised when you start working as some of your fellow nurses will not support your drive to become a doctor. Notice I said SOME and not ALL or MANY.

Usually it's because they are fighting the stereotypical images of nurse v. doc....


I am sure smarter folks on the forums will chime in and give you advice.... 😛


Agape

 

[klubguts]

I got into med school with a BSN degree four years ago (yeah--almost done!!)--not directly, i had worked about 5 years as an RN before i started med school. From my experience on the med school interview trail, there is some anti-nursing bias at some institutions. Certain MDs and PhDs were confrontational with me regarding my motivations and career aspirations. I felt like i had to "explain myself" ALOT during interviews and was often made to feel defensive about my previous career choice. All that being said, you can certainly get into med school with a BSN, just be aware that some admission comms may look down on your degree. Not only is a BSN not the traditional premed route, it also gets into that whole MD vs RN thing. I realize your situation is a little different than mine but i hope this is helpful for you. Best of luck.

 

[njbmd]

I finally decided to apply to the school of Nursing and get my BSN. So now I'm wondering, does the type of undergrad degree you have, really matter when applying to medical school. Many people on here seem to say that it doesn't, but at school, whenever I talk to any of my professors, and tell them I am wanting to go to med school they look at me as if I was an alien for choosing Nursing as my major. Any advice/comments are greatly appreciated...

Hi there,
It really does not matter what you major in for medical school as long as you take the pre-med (pre-MCAT) subjects (General Chemistry with lab, Organic Chemistry with lab, General Physics with lab and General Biology with lab). These courses should be the equivalent of two semeters (or three quarters) long and at the university level and you keep a high GPA.

If you are discussing your pre-med plans with your nursing instructors, I would advise you to move over to the science professors or a pre-med advisor. Nursing instructors are really not in a great position to advise you about medical school and some can be antagonistic toward you as a throwback to the old "us vs them" or a "what, nursing is not good enough for you" mentality. Make sure that you take the courses that you need and keep your career after nursing close to the vest with your instructors and with your fellow students.

There is nothing wrong with nursing as a pre-med major and you have a skill that can earn you some money during the holidays and over the summer vacations while you are in medical school. You will also have your clinical experience built into your major.

Good luck
njbmd 🙂

 

[prince_moses]

i highly agree, I am starting a BScN program at this september after doing a year of General science, I dident do all of my prereqs for med just the chem and bio but I wanted to do some clinical and hold a degree which is worth more then a honours or general science, if everything works out I want to apply to med right after the degree but even if I have to wait a year I can get a good job that pays well while im waiting to reapply.

 

[Arrector Pili]

Thanks for the replies. I have to register for Fall and Summer classes this week, and it's not going to be easy. As far as I can see, all my med school pre-req classes, if I take them, won't count much towards my BSN degree, but they would help me complete a degree in some field of Biology, Forensic and Investigative Sciences, or Clinical Laboratory Science, I'm sure there are others, but these are the only fields I'm interested in, other than Nursing. Looks like I have a lot of things to sort out, before I register.

 

[msting22]

Based on the books I have read about getting into medical school it is often discouraged to have a back ground in nursing because the admission committe wonders why you did not continue further in nursing...I am not sure exactly why but it was explained that it is seen as a red flag...which is quite unfortuante especially when aquiring a nursing degree would help dramatically in med school and practice.

 

[prince_moses]

That is very true, my understanding is someone with a nursing degree would be better suited to become a doctor then someone who holds a general science degree, I dont care what they teach at Med School, Im just saying that with all the practical hours and CBL (context based learning) class hours under your belt, one looks at medical care from a favourable perspective.

 

[benelswick]

Remember in Elementary school when we lined up and two captains picked teams for dodgeball. Maybe you picked the agile hard throwing kids and then your friends.....to me this is a highly politicized totally partial completely bisased and unpredictable process. Nursing as an academic pursuit is a mistake in my view. Think about your response from nursing professors about your medical school dreams. Forget all the PC crap...to some extent Nurses and doctors are on opposite teams, not technically in terms of patient care but historically in competition for respect money etc absolutely. But that's just me...I'm just sick of all the pecking order b.s. and hierarchy that I've encountered in healthcare. I'm an independent thinker I want respect responsibility and expertise from myself. I will never again pursue something with limited perspective and a job with albeit technical expertise but no understanding or creative problem solving as the endgame strategy. Pure academic disciplines offer this open ended philosophy of reach as far as you can type education. Not this is the glucometer push this button and so forth....Just some random thoughts from a dude whose been thinking about this same thing for awhile while working in healthcare. good Luck --Ben.

 

[prince_moses]

Its best to keep ones medicine dreams underwraps whiles in Nursing school, in fact dont tell anyone your even thinking of going to med school until you get the acceptance letter. from that point no matter what they say u can tell them to f^&k themselves.

 

[efex101]

I just do not understand why nursing if you want medical school? unless you need to work prior to starting for X years...there is really no reason. The two have different philosphies. As some of the above posters stated "usually" this is a red flag specially with the shortage of nurses. Why take the time to pursue a professional degree as the BSN if you are *not* going to do it?

 

[sunnyjohn]

If you are an undergrad, do not have a previous degree, and have to declare a major, nursing is just a good a major as English or History....

...All bias aside...

And if you do envision having to take a few years between undergrad and med school, it would be nice to do it in a healthcare job with halfway decent pay....

You can get flexible schedules that make leisure and further study possible...

And if you already know in undergrad that you must do post-bacc work, you can get clinical experience, time to study, tuition reimbursement, and a wage decent enough to afford a few luxuries...

I’ll say it's a sweet deal....

But prince_moses is right, keep the pre-med dreams under wraps...There are alot of haters running around the hospital in scrubs and lab coats

 

[benelswick]

Go look at a post by TheDarkSide a little down this page. He/she had gone the nursing route and gave an excellent explanation of its terminal prospects in terms of mastering a body of knowledge.

I think for certain people nursing is the way to go (and by "certain" I do not mean specific abilities). The thing is you're never gonna find those people on a board like this...they're too busy doing nursing well and enjoying their time off with family or hobbies or whatever.....they're content. And then there's everybody else who though whatever guise the project really want to master the craft of medicine and you can sniff out the ones who want(ed) to go to med school or are atleast envious of the skill and knowledge but lack the courage or the willingness to sacrafice to obtain it. I propose that this group is larger than would first appear. Furthermore, that it constitues many of your nursing mangers NP's DNP's PA's or any nurse who is frustrated by what I call the "rear-view" perspective in the clinical endeavor.

The thing to "figure out for youself" as DarkSide so eloquently put it, is what type of person are you and what do you want out of your work and life in general. If the answer condenses somehow around challenges, mastery of craft, creative problem solving, and independent thinking.....then to be certain and quite direct your DOOMED! in the nursing field. Think hard. --Ben.

P.S. To reiterate what the PrinceMoses indicated....Keep your bidness to ya damnself regarding these issues, or like ceasar when you least expect it....knife in the intercostal space.

 

[a_ditchdoc]

I'll give you some of the best advice I ever recieved from a physician when I was considering a major for medical school admission. "Major in what you love. They will teach you everything you want to know about the human body in medical school, and even stuff you don't." I never had second thoughts. Having been a paramedic for years, I decided I wanted to learn about something a little different. I chose something I really liked, Anthropology. Not only did I choose something for "Me", I undoubtedly got better grades because of my interest in the subject.

Many of my classmates in medical school were science majors and occasionally remark on the fact that they wish that they had majored in something besides science. The truth is, the only thing that will make medical school easier is going through medical school first. That not being possible, science majors do seem to have an advantage during the first year. However, when all is said and done, we all end up at the same place.

Choose what you love and the rest will work itself out...

 

[MollyMalone]

Go look at a post by TheDarkSide a little down this page. He/she had gone the nursing route and gave an excellent explanation of its terminal prospects in terms of mastering a body of knowledge.

The thing to "figure out for youself" as DarkSide so eloquently put it, is what type of person are you and what do you want out of your work and life in general. If the answer condenses somehow around challenges, mastery of craft, creative problem solving, and independent thinking.....then to be certain and quite direct your DOOMED! in the nursing field. Think hard. --Ben.

P.S. To reiterate what the PrinceMoses indicated....Keep your bidness to ya damnself regarding these issues, or like ceasar when you least expect it....knife in the intercostal space.

Thanks for the props (I'm a she, by the way).

I think you maybe got some things out of my post that I didn't actually say, however. I think that nursing offers excellent opportunities for challenge, for critical thinking, for "mastery of craft," and for creative problem solving. I engage in these activities every time I work.

The difference, which is more difficult to explain than I would have thought, is that nursing is very much about the "how." How do I get this dementia patient with pneumonia to stay in her room instead of wandering? How can I convince this gentleman that he really does need to stay in the hospital, even though he feels fine, given that his heart rate is 28 and he's in a 3rd degree block? And, on a more knowledge-based level, how does diabetes affect the body and what sorts of things do I need to look out for in my diabetic patient?

Nursing is not so much about the "why," which is what I find untenable, for me. It is not enough, for me, to know how diabetes affects the body. I want to understand why it has those effects and why the therapies work the way they do and all that in far greater detail than you ever learn in nursing school.

Also, I don't want to just figure out the best way to implement a therapy, I want to be the one who figures out what the best therapy is -- I want to have the knowledge and skill to make the diagnosis and determine the plan of care.

That said, thanks for giving me the impetus to refine my earlier remarks. For some reason, what is crystal clear in my head keeps resisting my efforts to put it into words, and I really do need to have an eloquent answer for all of this by the time interview season begins. 😱