Undergraduate Proposal

[Anjunadeep02]

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Hello everyone:

I am 24 years old, been a paramedic for a few years, and am working toward my goal of becoming a PA or MD/DO. I am about 50 credits into undergraduate, so I've got a good chunk of my general education and science classes done. I am deciding what I want to major in and everyone says that biology or chemistry are the best "premed" degrees if you intend on going to PA or medical school.

We all know that there is no such degree as "PreMed", but whenever someone says it we immediately draw the conclusion that they are a biology or chemistry major. There is no way that I am the first person to propose this, but, why not create a degree that will better prepare a student for medical school? I mean, biology is important and is the foundation for medical school, but getting into the zoologies, marine biologies, plant biologies, etc is a little bit out of sync in my opinion, which are requirements for a biology degree. I understand that you can technically get into medical school with any degree as long as the science concentration is fulfilled, but there needs to be a degree specifically designed for medical school.

Why not create a bachelors degree in human anatomy and physiology? I think that we need to readjust how we are training our future doctors and provide them with a more effective education. I mean, make me take a pathophysiology course or hit me hard in foreign languages - they will better prepare me for my work as a physician. In my opinion, everyone should start learning spanish if you are American because of the huge hispanic prevalence, especially regarding patient care. Spend more time making me more culturally diverse, bilingual, and increase my knowledge base in human anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, or other medical classes. Botony, plant biology, zoology - they are great, but they don't help me in medical school. I mean there is about 18 credit hours in a biology degree that are practically useless. Why not substitute those classes with classes that will better benefit me as a physician? If I graduate with a biology degree and for whatever reason PA or medical school don't work out, I'm stuck with a biology degree. I hope I like working in a lab or want to get my master's degree and teach because that's all I'm left with. Verses graduating with a human anatomy and physiology degree, it unlocks basically anything in the health sciences.

As awkward as this sounds, I am considering getting a BSN. Not necessarily because I want to be a nurse, but because the degree itself is so great and will better prepare me as a health care provider. It's practically right in line with biology, but has more of an emphasis on the human body, patient care, hollistic concepts, and gets me thinking in the "medical" mindset. Now, I understand that they are trained on the nursing model, but there is still a lot of great things to take out of nursing school - much better than an undergraduate degree in biology in my opinion. In addition, I can start earning a great salary while finishing my BSN, because you only have to have an associates degree in nursing. Some hospitals even offer tuition forgiveness so I can get my undergrad paid for and it will decrease my debt in medical school. I'm also increasing my patient contact hours because of the huge clinical requirement for a BSN, so there are many positives to getting a BSN.

Anyways, there's no way I'm the first person to think of this. There has to be a reason why we're still living in the old ages where biology and chemistry are the generic tracks for medical school. I'm sure it has something to do with money, it always does.

Thanks, sorry for the prolonged rant/concern/proposal

 

[prettyNURSEtoMD]

Let me chime in. First in my most humble opinion major in what you want. Do what you want, as long as you have the required prerequisites and you do well in them and do well on the MCAT I don't see why majoring in say philosophy would be wrong. Medicine is going to take up a lot of time. So enjoy this undergraduate year and take what you are interested in.

Now as far as the BSN idea. No no no. I am a BSN nurse and my opinion is formulated from wanting to be a physician this entire time, not doing it and now it's frustrating going to work. Now the clinical knowledge I have sustained is phenomenal. I've made a lot of connections, utilized every single opportunity to learn. Every time my patient comes from CT or xray I personally look at the scans so I can see what everybody else sees. I look up all my patients lab abnormalities and if I don't understand I ask my doctors. It has been an extreme blessing but the level of frustration is high when I can't do what I want to do because it is out of my scope. In nursing school your information and what you learn will deter so far off and you'll have so many unanswered questions. There were so many times I would ask questions in class and my prof would respond "don't worry about that nurses don't need to know it leave it up to the doctor" and I would have this lingering unanswered question.

TL;DR

Pick A major you want to major in. Have fun do well in your sciences. Kill the MCAT

BSN-reevaluate your rationale behind this

 

[DokterMom]

What kind of job would you get with an undergraduate 'Pre Med' degree but no medical school?
Kind of labels you a 'Rejected from Plan A' person any time someone reads your resume...

 

[Frostbite22]

What kind of job would you get with an undergraduate 'Pre Med' degree but no medical school?
Kind of labels you a 'Rejected from Plan A' person any time someone reads your resume...

This completely. You have to realize that not everyone will end up going to medical school. I have two friends that one was banking on vet school and the other was banking on med school, both got biology degrees but no practical experience in a smaller town and are both working food service. If I could do it all over I probably would've decided to be an engineer, but that's just me.

As for OP's second paragraph I'm not sure what school you go to but we had a degree in physiology at my undergraduate school. Different schools have different majors. RN sounds like a great idea, but I think it takes away from people that are striving to be nurses. If you want the hands on experience be a CNA, EMT, scribe.

 

[Lucca]

BSN is for nurses, don't go into nursing if you want to be a doctor right away.

I agree that the way we admit students to medical school needs to change.

If we truly want to assess the doctor shortage in this country then a lot needs to happen, but we can't have an 8 yr, 300k+ pathway expressly designed to admit hyper-achieving, super-intellectual types and then expect them to jump into primary care. That's bull and basically everyone knows that. The problem with graduate medical education is the same problem undergraduate science education has: It's designed for academics.

The whole school system here is designed for academics. I remember an education specialist said we strictly train our children "above the neck and a little bit to the right" - neuroscience aside, that's accurate. Medical School relies entirely on the diversity building of undergrad in order to have a holistic class but we know from all the hoops that we have to jump through that the two "correct" answers are "serving the underserved" and "academic medicine". Top medical schools, after all, are designed to pump out academic physicians and yet are expected to uphold this standard of filling the primary care gap when we all know that 90% of the peds/pcp/fm matches from top 10s are going to subspecialize in a northeastern urban area.

From the second we step into elementary school the system grinds its cogs to try to mold one of two things: A high achievinr, lofty minded intellectual and a copy-paste everyman just identical enough to serve the military well. The second half isn't a joke, high school was designed to make people who thought and acted the same in order to feed good soldiers into the military. I'm not saying everyone in the military is the same, I'm just illustrating a point and I don't want that to be the focus of my post.

So why don't I agree with your solution? Because it doesn't solve anything. It still takes four years to graduate from undergrad and apply to medical school and all you have accomplished is that incoming med students have the opportunity to forget EVEN MORE medicine before they actually begin to practice in residency. Furthermore, all of your "pre-med" degree graduates are wholly uninteresting. The Biochemistry degree is kind of turning in the default pathway for pre-medical students and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I am a student of Biochemistry (with a Philosophy degree on the side). The medical applicant will become even more cookie cutter at a time in the medical profession where we need more cross-disciplinary perspectives to help us better this byzantine system - especially disciplines like business, economics, and politics.

On a more personal note, I wouldn't want someone who I was going to admit into learning medicine for the rest of their life to start learning that as soon as possible since that just shows lack of a long-term appreciation for education. However, I recognize that pathway is not for everyone.

My main point: There needs to be another pathway for a medical career. A dedicated "underrepresented" specialty pathway where a qualified student can take the pre-reqs, MCAT in two years and then do preclinicals for the other two and jump straight into clinical rotations after step 1.

The problem with that is that most students in the United States are not mature enough to handle this kind of responsibility or curriculum but, then again, we don't really want most students. We want students ready to serve underserved areas and communities. With this new pathway we can cut the dog and pony show of pretending to be interested in primary care (not that none of us legitimately want to go into PC but most of us do not and the statistics speak for themselves) and just go straight out and say what it is you actually want to do.

 

[Anjunadeep02]

I appreciate all of the responses and everyone's opinion on the matter. I suppose I should just work toward a degree that I will enjoy instead of doing the routine and generic biology or chemistry degree. I'm done with 3/4 of my science prereqs for medical school anyways, so I suppose I could maybe consider other options. I just fear that getting a degree in psychology or sociology will earn me a reputation of "taking the easy way out" in life. No offense to folks with those two degrees, but it's no secret that a lot of students choose them because either they are undecided about what they want to major in or they realize they are easy and not very science demanding, unlike engineering or medicine.

I understand that some of you believe that people should enjoy their undergraduate time by excluding medical type classes. However, I think it would be more beneficial for the student to go ahead and begin developing their critical thinking and medical decision making process while in undergrad. In my opinion, it will only help them later when they finish medical school. My message was intended for those students that are confident and committed and have made the final decision to pursue PA or medical school. I have over 10,000 patient contact hours due to working full time in EMS for the past 6 years, so I am quite sure that this is what I want to do. All I'm suggesting is for our money hungry elitist leaders to make a degree that will better prepare students for medical school, even more so than the generic biology or chemistry degree. It's no secret that our country is falling behind in education and I believe that this is directly tied to teachers brainwashing children in elementary, middle, and high school that earning a bachelors degree in ANYTHING will bring a wealthy salary and help you live the American dream. No one is going to technical school anymore or getting actual skills. However, this is a different subject and I'd rather just focus on the topic at hand.

Thanks again to everyone for the replies. I've still got some time to decide, so I'll keep doing some research.

 

[Patros]

You're right that you are not the first person to think about this. I am sure everyone in medical schools admissions (both applicants and adcoms) muses over the best ways to handle admissions all the time.

1) Creating a "pre-med" major has some massive problems: You're creating a useless degree outside of medicine. We already have 55-60% of applicants being rejected from every medical school with low-demand degrees like biology and chemistry, imagine if you have a utterly useless B.S. in "pre-medicine"? You wouldn't even get a job in research, like you can with bio or biochem.

2) Schools "recommend" the courses they really want you to take, such as genetics, biochemistry, physiology, and statistics. Organic chem, physics, and inorganic chemistry are just fundamentals for everything else, and often weed-out courses. Besides, I think everyone in all sciences should have a basic education in physics and chemistry, doctor or not.

3) You think there is some kind of conspiracy by the "hungry elitist leaders" somehow brainwashing us into biology and chemistry? I assure you that the folks in D.C. and Wall Street couldn't give any less of a damn what you major in. They are human beings with their own problems.

4) There are a multitude of healthcare-related professional degrees already that fulfill your criteria. You already mentioned nursing, which handles the patient-care part of medicine well but isn't as in-depth in biomedical sciences as say, biochemistry. Have you considered a degree in Health Sciences, or whatever the equivalent is at your university? It is basically the precursor to public health; it has fewer biology courses and more topics on human health and healthcare-delivery. Or perhaps Clinical Lab Sciences (sometimes called "medical technology")? This is the applied form of biochemistry, and usually you get certified as a medical lab tech at the end. However understand that by majoring in a professional degree such as nursing, you are taking away a spot from someone who really wanted to be a nurse instead of just using it as a stepping stool to becoming a doctor.

5) Regardless of what you pick, understand that no major (even one that you make up) will adequately cover all medical school topics. That's why medical school exists! And it's also why your major doesn't really matter.

The Biochemistry degree is kind of turning in the default pathway for pre-medical students and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I am a student of Biochemistry (with a Philosophy degree on the side)

Another biochemistry/philosophy person? This is a more popular combo than I thought!