What would YOU do if...

[DrJiggler]

---

Members don't see this ad.

1. You are a 22 year old female.
2. You studied music at a major US conservatory for 3 years, graduating summa cum laude in the top 5 of your class.
3. You entered and completed a formal post-baccalaureate premedical program with a 4.0 gpa your first semester.
4. You came down with a nasty case of mononucleosis your second semester and got an unfortunate 3.65 gpa.
5. You've got good LORs, ECs, research, shadowing, volunteer experience, etc.
6. You have an anxiety disorder and (besides small doses of medication) frequently self medicate with long runs and marathons of Judge Judy.
7. You are registered to take the MCAT in a month.
8. You took two practice tests (AAMC and Kaplan) and scored a depressing 25 on each.
9. You want to go into Performing Arts Medicine and work to eliminate the physical ailments of instrumental musicians since an injury ended your chances at a career in music.
10. You start to re-evaluate, after a few years of planning on an MD path, your reasons for going into medicine and wonder if you are more interested in the FIELD you want to go into than medicine itself.
11. You start to look into PhD programs and realize that you might be able to accomplish your professional goals with that route.
12. You start to consider how nice it would be to have a life.

In other words, you wonder if you always considered medicine because it seemed like the pinnacle of education to you. Being a student is all you know and it seemed like the right path. You love working with people and are interested in treating them, but you see yourself bringing your experiences together through a PhD program too.

Ultimately, you want to research the factors affecting the health of musicians and apply this research to their lives.

Do you cancel the MCAT, get your $110 buck back to apply to the GRE?
Do you suck it up, and take the MCAT to try and keep your "options open?"
Do you try reallllly hard to study even though you are constantly thinking "I don't REALLY have to do this?"
Are you afraid that you are giving up?
You have already considered MD/PhD and concluded it is not the answer.


In all seriousness, you guys always give good advice. I am a longtime lurker and finally (after many previous failed attempts through Google Chrome to register) decided to reach out for help. I'd love to hear your thoughts. : )

 

[Evergrey]

Well I am eating breakfast so I am less inclined to write a verbose post, but I will say that I don't think it would be good to take the MCAT when you don't want to. I was SUPER motivated studying for the MCAT over a 2 month period, but burned out during the last week and my score ended up being significantly below my average test score. Too many pre-meds have given up their long journey because of a failed MCAT attempt. If I were you, I would abandon my current MCAT efforts, NOT register for anything else, and do whatever I could to do soul-searching -- go to the beach, drink beer, watch Judge Judy, do shadowing, talk to a doctor about their profession, etc.

I will also add that I've never thought it a good idea to head into medicine with only one thing that interests you in the field. Personally, I haven't even heard of the specialty you've mentioned. I don't even know if there's a board certification for it. What that tells me is that the opportunities in that field are either few, or that it is small and competitive. Heading into medical school with only one possible career path in mind may not be the best option for you. It's too easy to change your mind about that type of thing, or to get burned out.

Finally, don't be too proud to give up. If it will make you happier, put your plans on hold. You don't have to decide whether or not you want to do medicine right now. What is a near certainty however is that taking the MCAT without being motivated to succeed may very well be a death sentence for your pre-med aspirations. I've always thought life was a process. If something isn't working for you, change what you're doing, then reassess what you're doing, then change, and reassess, ad nauseum. I feel like what you should be concerned about now isn't careening down a path that you don't feel comfortable with, but rather exploring exactly what you want to do with your life. If in the end you decide that medicine is not for you, then the last two years of your life were NOT a waste. You gained some very valuable insight into what you want to do with your life, and it will definitely help you in the future with whatever you choose to do.

Edit: By the way, after reading your post again, I'm not sure that the MD degree will open the doors that you want opened for you. Like I said earlier I haven't even heard of what you want to do, but maybe you can contact individuals currently working in that field and ask them for advice on how to move forward. Their opinions will be far more valuable than most on this forum.

Also, going into medicine doesn't mean you won't have a life. I've done a lot of research into that because happiness and free time are both really important to me (and indeed most people). You're not sacrificing your life to become a doctor. You will still have fun moments, parties, road trips, whatever it is that you like doing, when you're in medical school. As you shift into residency you may have to prioritize your education over personal pursuits quite a bit, but depending on your field and the career opportunities you are after, once you finish residency it is possible to live a very full life. Personally, I have an intense need to be intellectually and emotionally satisfied from my work. Most careers are not going to give me that.

 

[DrJiggler]

That is so true.

As far as the field of Performing Arts Medicine is concerned, you are correct. There is no board certification or specialization. It is relatively new and has only been around for about 30 years. But it is certainly active and it is certainly needed. I have been in contact with the major researchers and physicians in the field and they have expressed the interesting situation I am in with trying to enter such a new field.

I guess that is where a lot of this comes from. With no specific way to enter the field there are no real precedents I can follow. Two roads diverged in a wood - I made my own.

A beer and a beach sound like a good idea.

 

[deleted307836]

.

 

[foofish]

I would definitely hold off on taking the MCAT. If you had said you were scoring 35s on the practice tests, I would have said take the exam (since you've been studying anyway and the score is good for a few years) but hold off on applying before you know you want to commit.

But with the combo of poor practice tests AND indecision about whether an MD is the right path, I would definitely hold off. Take the time to do more research into your options and get more experience (volunteering/shadow/employment) in both the MD side and the PhD side. This will help you figure out the right route for your interests and also help when it comes to applying for either one (both in terms of an item on your resume and passion/discussion in your interviews).

As far as the MD route, just a few thoughts. First, keep in mind that most people actually end up going into a different area of medicine than they plan on when they start med school (sometimes it's a small switch, but sometimes it's drastic). It sounds like you have some pretty convincing reasons to know what you'd want to go into, but you might surprise yourself once you're exposed to new specialties. For instance, I have a friend who was absolutely gung-ho about psych....huge background in it before school, including research, one of those people you'd never expect to change course. She's now going into surgery--which is essentially the polar opposite of psychiatry--because she absolutely fell in love with it during third year.

The point of me writing all of this is that you're not expected to know, nor can you really know, what type of medicine you'll go into when you're thinking about medicine. Your job right now is to figure out if you'll be happy with the general career choice of being a physician (which, it may turn out to be that you're not). Even if you don't change your mind about specialty, you need to enjoy medicine enough to survive the 4 years of med school and 3+ years of residency you'll need to do before you can focus only on the niche of Performance Arts medicine.

So in all, I'd take the extra year to truly figure out what you want to do...there's no reason to rush into the decision. For anyone I'd also give the advice not to take the MCAT until you are consistently scoring in a range you'd be happy applying with (at least 30, ideally higher). Good luck!

 

[morning]

Also, going into medicine doesn't mean you won't have a life. I've done a lot of research into that because happiness and free time are both really important to me (and indeed most people). You're not sacrificing your life to become a doctor. You will still have fun moments, parties, road trips, whatever it is that you like doing, when you're in medical school. As you shift into residency you may have to prioritize your education over personal pursuits quite a bit, but depending on your field and the career opportunities you are after, once you finish residency it is possible to live a very full life. Personally, I have an intense need to be intellectually and emotionally satisfied from my work. Most careers are not going to give me that.

Looks like we've done the same research!

From what I hear, medical school really isn't bad as an MS-1 or MS-2, especially once you've become accustomed to the amount of information you have to absorb. It's intense, but it's not going to destroy your life. It's like having a full time job AND you get a lot of time off in the summer, which is pretty nice. If you had graduated and gone into the workforce, you probably wouldn't be getting your summers off, so there's a blessing to count.

MS-3 is supposed to be ridiculous, though. I've heard incredible horror stories about 20 hours days full of getting shat on literally and metaphorically by patients and arsehole attendings.

MS-4 is (apparently) the EASIEST year of medical school. You spend a lot of it on the road at away rotations and interviewing.

Then it picks back up again - your first year of residency, unless you're a genius who got into derm, is like MS-3 on crack.

- This is all my totally unprofessional, inexperienced understanding of the medical school rhythm gleaned from extensive searching on SDN and exhaustive queries of actual med students.

I still would never, ever spend all that time and money to do something I wasn't ABSOLUTELY sure about.