- Joined
- Jul 16, 2012
- Messages
- 169
- Reaction score
- 206
I'm a non-trad student and went into a biomedical sciences PhD program right after undergrad, but have since decided that I want to move toward laboratory medicine and get an MD/PhD if possible. Or just an MD.
cGPA: 3.66
sGPA: ~3.8
MCAT: Took 6/21, waiting for the scores...(target score is 30)
grad school GPA: 3.8
Shadowing: <10 hours ER doctor, going to start shadowing a pediatric surgeon next week (I'm hoping 8-10 hours per week)
Volunteer: no clinical volunteer experience, but again, starting that in the next week or two at the county hospital
I'm enrolled in a PhD program right now, just finishing my second year, but I want to stop at my master's so I can put that on my application. I have spent the past 2 years doing full-time biomedical research and a year and a half before that doing part-time research.
I'm starting to get worried about my lack of clinical experience. If I start now and continue through the application process and through the interviews (if I get any), will that help?
Will dropping from a PhD to a master's degree hurt me in the application process do you think? People keep telling me to finish my PhD and then go for the MD, but that could be 4 years from now, and I want to get the first 2 difficult years of med school out of the way ASAP because anything could happen later in life that could prevent me from doing so (such as kids). Med school I've heard is much less conducive to having a family than graduate school.
Also, the reason I applied to graduate school straight out of undergrad was that I had no interest in medicine. I'm realizing now that basic disease research is really far removed from the actual disease, none of the research I'm doing now will help anyone in the near future. I would like to move toward patient-oriented research and laboratory medicine.
cGPA: 3.66
sGPA: ~3.8
MCAT: Took 6/21, waiting for the scores...(target score is 30)
grad school GPA: 3.8
Shadowing: <10 hours ER doctor, going to start shadowing a pediatric surgeon next week (I'm hoping 8-10 hours per week)
Volunteer: no clinical volunteer experience, but again, starting that in the next week or two at the county hospital
I'm enrolled in a PhD program right now, just finishing my second year, but I want to stop at my master's so I can put that on my application. I have spent the past 2 years doing full-time biomedical research and a year and a half before that doing part-time research.
I'm starting to get worried about my lack of clinical experience. If I start now and continue through the application process and through the interviews (if I get any), will that help?
Will dropping from a PhD to a master's degree hurt me in the application process do you think? People keep telling me to finish my PhD and then go for the MD, but that could be 4 years from now, and I want to get the first 2 difficult years of med school out of the way ASAP because anything could happen later in life that could prevent me from doing so (such as kids). Med school I've heard is much less conducive to having a family than graduate school.
Also, the reason I applied to graduate school straight out of undergrad was that I had no interest in medicine. I'm realizing now that basic disease research is really far removed from the actual disease, none of the research I'm doing now will help anyone in the near future. I would like to move toward patient-oriented research and laboratory medicine.
