What's the most unusual first, etc. career anyone here has had?

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rph3664

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At my old hospital, we had a resident in his 40s whose first degree was in engineering, and when he found the job less satisfying than he expected, went to the police academy and did that for about 10 years. He was starting to burn out on that around the same time that he realized that he didn't mind taking patients to the ER and decided to attend medical school.

I used to work with a fellow pharmacist who had a classmate who was an OB/GYN. :wideyed: You read that right - a physician went to pharmacy school and not the other way around. This person was from a family of physicians and went into it because that's what was expected of him, and decided after a while to do something else.

However, the biggest :eek: moment came after I rediscovered a band called Starcastle that enjoyed middling success in the late 1970s, when I was a tween, and Googled the band members to see what they did later on. The local album-rock station would play what we now call "Deep Tracks" late at night, and several months ago, I was noodling around on You Tube and stumbled onto one of their songs, which had been a favorite of mine and I never knew until that moment who did it or what it was called. Being a prog band, it was a no-brainer (no pun intended) that they were probably smart guys, and I did know that the keyboardist is better known for his computer programming work than he is for this, and one of the guitarists is an executive for a refrigeration company and sometimes does acoustic sets at a local wine bar, one that seems to have a, ahem, "mature" clientele. ;)

But none of that prepared me for what I found when I Googled the drummer. You guessed it - he's a physician. Imagine someone Googling their doctor and finding out he used to be......a.......ROCK STAR?!?!? :wow: Even more ironic is that he went to Rush University, and they did a lot of shows with the then-fledgling Canadian power trio. :bookworm:
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Forgot which school exactly but a former NFL player went to a Caribbean medical school and now is practicing...you can't make this stuff up!


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Before I knew her, one of my friends had a pharmacy intern who was Miss (our state) - in other words, she competed in the Miss America pageant. My friend said she was one of the nicest people she has ever known.
 
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And then there's the ice skater Debi Thomas. What a tragic story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/debi-thomas-olympic-skater-trailer_us_563bad15e4b0307f2cac80c1

Anesthesiologist Loraine Comanor narrowly missed being on the 1961 U.S. figure skating team, who all died when their plane crashed in Belgium. :(

Tenley Albright is also a figure skating champion turned physician. What's especially remarkable is that she enrolled in Harvard Medical School in the late 1950s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenley_Albright
 
Guess I might as well post a link to the song that prompted this thread in the first place. It's called "Fountains".



Their best known song is "Lady of the Lake". It's probably really obvious why they were never a Top 40 band; their record company's insistence that they try to do so ultimately destroyed them.

 
I made a living as a professional musician and writer for about 2 years in New York. That was pretty interesting. For the last four years, I've been in the military. I wouldn't consider that weird really, but you mentioned being a police officer, and working on a warship is actually pretty crazy at times. I've done some things that most people will never get to do or even imagine.
 
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Chelsea Rick was crowned Miss Mississippi during OMS-1.

I was a towboat deckhand for years. Pushed barges on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Arkansas Rivers and the Intracoastal Waterway from New Orleans to Corpus Christi.
 
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"Although there are no laws (that I know of) protecting client privacy in a strip club, I consider my clients' privacy to be just as valuable as my patients' privacy, and so all the stories I write about are going to remain as anonymous as I am."
http://strippermedic.blogspot.com/
 
Gurby said:
"Although there are no laws (that I know of) protecting client privacy in a strip club, I consider my clients' privacy to be just as valuable as my patients' privacy, and so all the stories I write about are going to remain as anonymous as I am."
http://strippermedic.blogspot.com/
Click to expand...

A bit early for you to be prepping for clinical psych rotations.

Although I found her conversion to feminism in response to how men behave in strip clubs not short of hilarious.
 
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Elect Technician. Engineer, manager, engineer, manager, industrial worker, Americorp volunteer, elementary special Ed teacher, tutor, day trader/investor, Psychologist, business owner (practice and ins billing service), director/exec director, chairman, professor, researcher..

Now consultant before starting med school. Also in the middle volunteer cemetery director and lots of community work. Lots of overlap in careers and by measure have been a success at all of the careers.

It took me a while to get that medicine was really what I was looking for. Can't say that about any other career I've tried. Probably leaving some out as well.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
 
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I have met former corporate lawyers, high school bio teachers, musicians(not famous), respiratory therapists, writers, engineers, and business owners who are now residents and practicing physicians. Seriously waiting to meet a Hollywood actor turned physician. Ya'll know the commedian Ken Jong (The Hangover franchise, tv show Dr Ken) was an actual doctor before he became an actor.
 
I used to disarm bombs and stuff. People joked that it was "only rocket surgery", but it really wasn't that complicated.
 
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CBFutureHelper14 said:
I have met former corporate lawyers, high school bio teachers, musicians(not famous), respiratory therapists, writers, engineers, and business owners who are now residents and practicing physicians. Seriously waiting to meet a Hollywood actor turned physician. Ya'll know the commedian Ken Jong (The Hangover franchise, tv show Dr Ken) was an actual doctor before he became an actor.
Click to expand...

The late Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who co-starred in "The Killing Fields", was a physician.

One of the members of the notorious 1990s freak show "The Jim Rose Circus" was a pharmacist. I had always heard that it was Mr. Lifto, but it wasn't; it was the guy who would drop an NG tube on himself and........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rose_Circus

His name is Matt "The Tube" Crowley.

:barf:
 
Not saying it's the most unusual, but I spent ten years before medical school guiding big mountaineering and backpacking trips in the Rockies, Sierras, and Andes. It was super fun!
 
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I took postbac classes with a guy who was a former professional poker player who is in med school now.
 
My father was a professional french horn player for at least a decade. He toured the globe with a brass ensemble for years before he switched to medicine. He has been a practicing neurologist for roughly 20 years at this point. I myself am a lifelong musician (jazz guitar mostly), and I recently made the switch from music to premed. Only difference being I'm younger than my father was when he made the switch.
 
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KyleV said:
Forgot which school exactly but a former NFL player went to a Caribbean medical school and now is practicing...you can't make this stuff up!
Click to expand...
If you want one better, Myron Rolle is a current 3rd year med student who was not only the starting safety at FSU, but a Rhodes Scholar and 6th round draft pick in the 2010 NFL draft.
 
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I was a manager for a retail company. Completely unrelated to medicine. I despised every flipping minute of it.
 
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I can't believe I've mentioned all these athletes-turned-HCPs and forgotten about this one.

Hypothetical question: if you were the fastest marathon runner in the history of the United States (at that time), what would you be willing to do for $100,000 and a spot on the U.S. Olympic team? If your name is Bob Kempainen, aka the Vomit Comet, the answer is :barf: all over yourself ON LIVE NATIONAL TELEVISION.

:whoa:

Pete Sampras did the same thing a few months later at the U.S. Open, which prompted a Dave Barry column, and he won too. :wtf:
 
While I've always worked in computers since exiting the military, I also freelanced as a sound engineer for many years. I've toured a good portion of the country doing sound and lights for several major label bands and have also done pre-production work for a major label band at my studio.
 
I wore steel-toed tennies in a dirt pit trailer for a highway/heavy construction project...counted trucks of bituminous, class 5, pea rock, various assorted concrete types and load counts, and pipe.:cigar:

Go ahead, ask me the difference :D (actually, please don't!) Would not call this a career but I took that job, rolled it into the next job and that into the next and then something or other happened and 30 years later, I was the something or other at a big company with some fancy title when I realized, I'd forgotten who I am. So here I am... :)
 
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Eric Heiden. Olympic speed skater with 5 gold medals to his name, later transitioned to road cycling and was among the first Americans to race in the Tour de France (these feats alone are amazing). Finished his athletic career and got a medical degree at Stanford, and became an orthopedic surgeon.
 
he also testified before congress about student-athletes, so he's pretty much a superhero


but there was also a player for the Denver Nuggets that retired and went to columbia for medical school...and dropped out third year to go back to coaching
-_-

CyrilFiggis said:
If you want one better, Myron Rolle is a current 3rd year med student who was not only the starting safety at FSU, but a Rhodes Scholar and 6th round draft pick in the 2010 NFL draft.
Click to expand...
 
I worked in a niche area of marketing that I guess I can't say because it will be pretty identifying. Nothing as cool or unique as being an Olympic athlete though!
 
KyleV said:
Forgot which school exactly but a former NFL player went to a Caribbean medical school and now is practicing...you can't make this stuff up!


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
Click to expand...

Bumping this thread: A few weeks ago, I saw a piece on the news about a Super Bowl champion from the early 1990s who went to medical school. Might they be the same person?
 
The guitarist for deathcore band Chelsea Grin is going to be starting med school at the University of Utah.
 
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I was an international English teacher for ~5 years and I currently teach college bio labs (as a grad TA).

I suppose unique is relative, but now I feel kinda unaccomplished :/
 
Since it got bumped, I was the dude that trained the dudes that trained the dudes who fly this thing:

This "report" would be hilarious if it wasn't insulting. These cats are talking to the camera like they've just blazed a new trail. We, the contractor team, fielded UASTB C Co back in 2009. Institutional amnesia. The army's (specifically 2-13th AVN) policy seems to be 100% denial of the extent to which they depend on contractor support to accomplish anything.
 
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rph3664 said:
At my old hospital, we had a resident in his 40s whose first degree was in engineering, and when he found the job less satisfying than he expected, went to the police academy and did that for about 10 years. He was starting to burn out on that around the same time that he realized that he didn't mind taking patients to the ER and decided to attend medical school.

I used to work with a fellow pharmacist who had a classmate who was an OB/GYN. :wideyed: You read that right - a physician went to pharmacy school and not the other way around. This person was from a family of physicians and went into it because that's what was expected of him, and decided after a while to do something else.

However, the biggest :eek: moment came after I rediscovered a band called Starcastle that enjoyed middling success in the late 1970s, when I was a tween, and Googled the band members to see what they did later on. The local album-rock station would play what we now call "Deep Tracks" late at night, and several months ago, I was noodling around on You Tube and stumbled onto one of their songs, which had been a favorite of mine and I never knew until that moment who did it or what it was called. Being a prog band, it was a no-brainer (no pun intended) that they were probably smart guys, and I did know that the keyboardist is better known for his computer programming work than he is for this, and one of the guitarists is an executive for a refrigeration company and sometimes does acoustic sets at a local wine bar, one that seems to have a, ahem, "mature" clientele. ;)

But none of that prepared me for what I found when I Googled the drummer. You guessed it - he's a physician. Imagine someone Googling their doctor and finding out he used to be......a.......ROCK STAR?!?!? :wow: Even more ironic is that he went to Rush University, and they did a lot of shows with the then-fledgling Canadian power trio. :bookworm:
Click to expand...

Cage fighter became a family practice doc. Another was a weapons dealer that became an anesthesiologist.
 
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AttendingAdvice said:
Cage fighter became a family practice doc.
Click to expand...
635750219497055924-1338272725_mzUHtGU.gif
 
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I've been a mortician for 8 years. Biological anthropology before that. I guess it's not much of a stretch, wanting to become a forensic pathologist :dead:...
 
I did Teach for America, taught 4th and 6th grade science and social studies. Not super unusual but it was definitely an interesting time for me lol. I've been a clinical research coordinator at a hospital for the past 5 years and will be leaving this summer to matriculate.
 
I started a food truck before med school. Still run it too.
 
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I delivered roller skates for awhile.

Why not?
 
i graduated high school, went to mechanic school and did that for a couple years, then got out and drove a semi-truck for 6-7 years prior to med school.
 
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I've had a lot of jobs, but for a while I worked as a shepherd.

I always have to specify that as a shepherd I took care of sheep, because everyone assumes that it has to be some metaphorical title. Nope. Sheep, a whole flock of sheep. I had a crook and everything!

I've also made Jewish ritual objects and art semi-professionally, but it was more of a part-time job than anything.
 
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rph3664 said:
At my old hospital, we had a resident in his 40s whose first degree was in engineering, and when he found the job less satisfying than he expected, went to the police academy and did that for about 10 years. He was starting to burn out on that around the same time that he realized that he didn't mind taking patients to the ER and decided to attend medical school.

I used to work with a fellow pharmacist who had a classmate who was an OB/GYN. :wideyed: You read that right - a physician went to pharmacy school and not the other way around. This person was from a family of physicians and went into it because that's what was expected of him, and decided after a while to do something else.

However, the biggest :eek: moment came after I rediscovered a band called Starcastle that enjoyed middling success in the late 1970s, when I was a tween, and Googled the band members to see what they did later on. The local album-rock station would play what we now call "Deep Tracks" late at night, and several months ago, I was noodling around on You Tube and stumbled onto one of their songs, which had been a favorite of mine and I never knew until that moment who did it or what it was called. Being a prog band, it was a no-brainer (no pun intended) that they were probably smart guys, and I did know that the keyboardist is better known for his computer programming work than he is for this, and one of the guitarists is an executive for a refrigeration company and sometimes does acoustic sets at a local wine bar, one that seems to have a, ahem, "mature" clientele. ;)

But none of that prepared me for what I found when I Googled the drummer. You guessed it - he's a physician. Imagine someone Googling their doctor and finding out he used to be......a.......ROCK STAR?!?!? :wow: Even more ironic is that he went to Rush University, and they did a lot of shows with the then-fledgling Canadian power trio. :bookworm:
Click to expand...
Dish washer
 
First job, bookkeeper straight out of high school.
 
FrkyBgStok said:
i graduated high school, went to mechanic school and did that for a couple years, then got out and drove a semi-truck for 6-7 years prior to med school.
Click to expand...

Not long after I graduated in 1994, there was a middle-aged female physician in my area who closed her practice and became an OTR truck driver. She even saw patients at truck stops in states where she was licensed. This got on the national news.
 
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