Medical What should my plan to be to go from PA to MD/DO?

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TheBoneDoctah

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Looking for some advice in planning my timeline for medical school. I am currently in my clinical year of PA school and will be graduating in less than a year. I’ve known for a while that I want to pursue the MD route & I know in my heart I will not be completely fulfilled being a PA for a lot of different reasons. Would you advise applying for medical school straight out of PA school or try to work a few years as a PA? Does it look bad to admission committees if I start applying to medical school without even being done with PA school or without truly working as a PA? I also think answering the question of why the switch already would be difficult to answer truthfully. Overall, I think I am a fairly well rounded applicant, even through my science GPA could be higher. My undergrad GPA is a 3.64, science GPA is a little low at 3.2, >4000 hours as a CNA, lots of volunteer work in a free clinic & food bank, played basketball in undergrad with many other extracurriculars, and currently president of my PA class. My grades fell a little bit sophomore and junior year in my science classes, but senior year science classes were 3.7. My post-graduate GPA is a 3.55. I still need to take the MCAT, but have a study plan in place and have been reviewing nightly with Kaplan, Anki Decks, and Khan Academy. The timeline I have in my head right now is take the MCAT in may of 2021, apply in June, graduate and take board for PA in august/September respectively. Does this seem like a good plan or am I rushing things? Any advice on how to go about this would be appreciated!
Personally, I would say you are rushing things. You have spent time and money in PA school and then are just going to throw it away basically without giving it a shot? Wouldn’t you rather work for a bit? You may see that you would rather be a PA when you see what docs have to deal with.

If you work for a year or two and decide you want to go to medical school, then go for it.

This is just MY advice. Others on here may give you different advice. Only YOU really know what you truly want though.

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I would spend some time as a PA first. You can specialize working as a PA and will have tons of flexibility and lots of patient contact, which many physicians -- especially in hospital settings -- are limited to having. The hours of contact will help you more if you do decide to transition to MD/DO, but realize that a lot of what you learn may be somewhat redundant and you'd be paying twice for the same education.

Of course I will stick to my own advice to advisees and say when you pick a career path, it is always better to stick with it. You should love your path early on and commit to at least 10 years of work before thinking about switching due to personal or family circumstances. You're already well into your PA education after having spent time as a CRNA. Switching again will not be viewed favorably by many faculty as they think you have no commitment to staying in health care (which seems silly) and are really fickle when it comes to knowing your role in health care. Add to that the fact that you will have less available to you for graduate loans to cover a third health care education, especially as expensive as medical school is.
 
I would suggest you take some time after PA school. #1 - you need to retake some undergraduate classes to increase your science GPA. #2 - take time to do well on the MCAT. And perhaps most importantly - MD school is expensive, so take this time to save up! Once you've taken the MCAT, I would suggest you just work your butt off for a year (take extra shifts, etc.) so that you are financially set for medical school and don't have to worry about housing costs and can relax financially, which may allow you to focus more on your studies.
 
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