Will This Hurt or Help My Application?

[ShinySephiroth]

I have been looking at statistics Goro linked about what application items are statistically shown to matter in how successful medical students end up being and thus are ranked in importance for adcoms. I noticed in there Paid Employment - Non Medical is ranked low, while Paid Employment - Medical is a whole tier higher in considerations. I was a blue collar worker in production for nearly 8 years and then was hired to be a design consultant/sales rep for a wholesale fixture company. After a while (because of the stuff I'd been learning during my MBA courses) I became an administrative assistant and also do some data analysis for stock reorder points.

So I have about a decade's worth of experience working in blue/white collar jobs, 40 hours a week while going to school fulltime (which greatly helped contribute to my 3.0 uGPA). I spoke with my employer and told them I need to finally put school as my top priority and am stepping down to a max of 17 hours a week so I can take the last couple of classes I need and study for the MCAT. I was planning on speaking about my commitment to medicine by showing that I literally threw my career away and ruined the upward trend I had in climbing the corporate ladder because of my love and commitment to medicine.

Something has begun happening for me recently, though: I am in talks of starting an invention. This is all extremely preliminary still and may not happen, but I like planning ahead and seeing perspectives on the options I have before me and am interested in the wise advise of SDN on this. I have had this idea since 2013 when I took Physiology (which I actually did well in, oddly enough - due to my history doing poorly in BCPM courses) and decided it would be an amazing thing to try. I have spoken with a CEO/bioengineer I met and we are meeting in a couple of days to go over how we would begin the process of patenting this idea. I am also meeting that same day with a neuroscientist/MD to seek advice/collaboration from someone with actual working experience in this field (need to be humble and know I can't do this alone!). I am over the moon that things seem to be going in the right direction!

My concern is two-fold: Will it look bad for me in the fact that it won't look like I blew my chances at a comfortable career to go to medical school but actually look like I traded my office job for the "cool life" of an entrepreneur? That's not what's going on at all and I'm deathly afraid of what's going to happen to my family and me financially (I mean, this could result in good money but the odds of that happening are slim to say the least). I am pursuing this to increase my CV and help my work schedule be more flexible instead of being at the mercy of my employer, having to be at my job certain times in the day and having to be on task there. I'm just afraid it will look like I'm not sacrificing anything and I will look cavalier in my med school app. Like I'm just some guy (pretending this thing happens and is moderately successful) who ventured into biotech and is now wanting to become a doctor. It's the furthest thing possible, but I'm afraid of appearances.

My other concern is a small one: will it look like I lack dedication if I leave my current job to pursue this? I worked at one place for 8 years, got a pay increase and promotion at the next job I was only at for two years, then left to get a patent from the time I do leave until I apply to medical school.

I also wonder if I'm overthinking it, but at the same time... I'm not getting any younger and I want to have more than three decades being a medical physician. I also don't want to waste a ton of money on applications to do it wrong the first time around. I am trying to be as efficient as possible for my first round.

As a sidenote: These past couple of months have been eye opening for me. I feel as if I was suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect: I thought I was cruising along doing well, but then I started really looking at the intensity and training needed for the MCAT and what it's supposed to mean and I suddenly realized how far off the path I'd strayed in my path to being a physician. I have bent over backwards and am killing myself trying to fix my broken application stats, and I'm actually having fun doing it. I got involved in a research project and they are putting me in as first author, I am an associate for another team, I shadow once a week, and I'm still juggling MBA courses at night and work during the day (I wish I didn't need money LOL). It's making me not only appreciate the challenge of trying to become the man I need to be to become a physician, but it also is causing me to think on the "what if".

Where would I be now had I gotten involved as an undergrad? How many publications would I have? Shadowing and research hours? Would I be years into my idea having a patent and being sold to people to help them with their condition? Would I have actually had a competitive GPA because I would've actually studied?

But also... would I have the amazing three children I currently have? Would I be expecting my fourth? Would I be living in a small apartment wondering if my family will eat tonight? Would I have had the experiences I have had that help me understand why patients get scared when their physician tells them they have to miss work for their condition's treatment so I can empathize with them when they say, "But... but I can't miss work!" Would I be happy?

I know it's not healthy... I can't help wonder, though. I wish I didn't! It's a sunk cost and shouldn't be thought of... but here I am.

Anyway, thank you for indulging my ramble. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

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[Goro]

I will be happy to help you, but can you ask your questions without the Tolstoi-esque novel?

I have been looking at statistics Goro linked about what application items are statistically shown to matter in how successful medical students end up being and thus are ranked in importance for adcoms. I noticed in there Paid Employment - Non Medical is ranked low, while Paid Employment - Medical is a whole tier higher in considerations. I was a blue collar worker in production for nearly 8 years and then was hired to be a design consultant/sales rep for a wholesale fixture company. After a while (because of the stuff I'd been learning during my MBA courses) I became an administrative assistant and also do some data analysis for stock reorder points.

So I have about a decade's worth of experience working in blue/white collar jobs, 40 hours a week while going to school fulltime (which greatly helped contribute to my 3.0 uGPA). I spoke with my employer and told them I need to finally put school as my top priority and am stepping down to a max of 17 hours a week so I can take the last couple of classes I need and study for the MCAT. I was planning on speaking about my commitment to medicine by showing that I literally threw my career away and ruined the upward trend I had in climbing the corporate ladder because of my love and commitment to medicine.

Something has begun happening for me recently, though: I am in talks of starting an invention. This is all extremely preliminary still and may not happen, but I like planning ahead and seeing perspectives on the options I have before me and am interested in the wise advise of SDN on this. I have had this idea since 2013 when I took Physiology (which I actually did well in, oddly enough - due to my history doing poorly in BCPM courses) and decided it would be an amazing thing to try. I have spoken with a CEO/bioengineer I met and we are meeting in a couple of days to go over how we would begin the process of patenting this idea. I am also meeting that same day with a neuroscientist/MD to seek advice/collaboration from someone with actual working experience in this field (need to be humble and know I can't do this alone!). I am over the moon that things seem to be going in the right direction!

My concern is two-fold: Will it look bad for me in the fact that it won't look like I blew my chances at a comfortable career to go to medical school but actually look like I traded my office job for the "cool life" of an entrepreneur? That's not what's going on at all and I'm deathly afraid of what's going to happen to my family and me financially (I mean, this could result in good money but the odds of that happening are slim to say the least). I am pursuing this to increase my CV and help my work schedule be more flexible instead of being at the mercy of my employer, having to be at my job certain times in the day and having to be on task there. I'm just afraid it will look like I'm not sacrificing anything and I will look cavalier in my med school app. Like I'm just some guy (pretending this thing happens and is moderately successful) who ventured into biotech and is now wanting to become a doctor. It's the furthest thing possible, but I'm afraid of appearances.

My other concern is a small one: will it look like I lack dedication if I leave my current job to pursue this? I worked at one place for 8 years, got a pay increase and promotion at the next job I was only at for two years, then left to get a patent from the time I do leave until I apply to medical school.

I also wonder if I'm overthinking it, but at the same time... I'm not getting any younger and I want to have more than three decades being a medical physician. I also don't want to waste a ton of money on applications to do it wrong the first time around. I am trying to be as efficient as possible for my first round.

As a sidenote: These past couple of months have been eye opening for me. I feel as if I was suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect: I thought I was cruising along doing well, but then I started really looking at the intensity and training needed for the MCAT and what it's supposed to mean and I suddenly realized how far off the path I'd strayed in my path to being a physician. I have bent over backwards and am killing myself trying to fix my broken application stats, and I'm actually having fun doing it. I got involved in a research project and they are putting me in as first author, I am an associate for another team, I shadow once a week, and I'm still juggling MBA courses at night and work during the day (I wish I didn't need money LOL). It's making me not only appreciate the challenge of trying to become the man I need to be to become a physician, but it also is causing me to think on the "what if".

Where would I be now had I gotten involved as an undergrad? How many publications would I have? Shadowing and research hours? Would I be years into my idea having a patent and being sold to people to help them with their condition? Would I have actually had a competitive GPA because I would've actually studied?

But also... would I have the amazing three children I currently have? Would I be expecting my fourth? Would I be living in a small apartment wondering if my family will eat tonight? Would I have had the experiences I have had that help me understand why patients get scared when their physician tells them they have to miss work for their condition's treatment so I can empathize with them when they say, "But... but I can't miss work!" Would I be happy?

I know it's not healthy... I can't help wonder, though. I wish I didn't! It's a sunk cost and shouldn't be thought of... but here I am.

Anyway, thank you for indulging my ramble. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ShinySephiroth]

My concern is two-fold: Will it look bad for me in the fact that it won't look like I blew my chances at a comfortable career to go to medical school but actually look like I traded my office job for the "cool life" of an entrepreneur? That's not what's going on at all and I'm deathly afraid of what's going to happen to my family and me financially (I mean, this could result in good money but the odds of that happening are slim to say the least). I am pursuing this to increase my CV and help my work schedule be more flexible instead of being at the mercy of my employer, having to be at my job certain times in the day and having to be on task there. I'm just afraid it will look like I'm not sacrificing anything and I will look cavalier in my med school app. Like I'm just some guy (pretending this thing happens and is moderately successful) who ventured into biotech and is now wanting to become a doctor. It's the furthest thing possible, but I'm afraid of appearances.

My other concern is a small one: will it look like I lack dedication if I leave my current job to pursue this? I worked at one place for 8 years, got a pay increase and promotion at the next job I was only at for two years, then left to get a patent from the time I do leave until I apply to medical school.

 

[Save a life]

Wow! Long post, I tried to read through all of it.

So if I'm understanding your question correctly, you are wondering how having non medical work history and possibly some biomedical entrepreneur will affect your app?

Your work experience will look good and some school love career changers but unfortunately my experience was that adcoms favor stats over experience. I had okay stats but tons of work experience in the medical field. I got 3 II's and so far one acceptance. I feel that people who have better stats and maybe less experience do better when applying. Adcoms seem to take into account that people are working but still favor higher stats. I worked about 30 hours per week while in school and 50 hours a week while doing the MCAT, schools liked this but I bet they would have liked higher stats more... One of my friends didn't work while studying for the MCAT and took the Kaplan course, he nailed the MCAT. Does that mean he is smarter than me or that he had more resources?? I would argue it's the latter. It's unfortunate but the reality of the process.

 

[ShinySephiroth]

Wow! Long post, I tried to read through all of it.

So if I'm understanding your question correctly, you are wondering how having non medical work history and possibly some biomedical entrepreneur will affect your app?

Your work experience will look good and some school love career changers but unfortunately my experience was that adcoms favor stats over experience. I had okay stats but tons of work experience in the medical field. I got 3 II's and so far one acceptance. I feel that people who have better stats and maybe less experience do better when applying. Adcoms seem to take into account that people are working but still favor higher stats. I worked about 30 hours per week while in school and 50 hours a week while doing the MCAT, schools liked this but I bet they would have liked higher stats more... One of my friends didn't work while studying for the MCAT and took the Kaplan course, he nailed the MCAT. Does that mean he is smarter than me or that he had more resources?? I would argue it's the latter. It's unfortunate but the reality of the process.

Oh, I completely understand that I shot myself in the foot. I'm sorry if I made it seem like I thought having full-time employment would be seen as a valid "reason", because I know it's not. I messed up so far and I'm just trying to fix it. I'm just curious if trying to patent my invention will hurt my application i.e. leaving my job to do so.

And thank you for reading my long post. I just have a lot on my mind and it came out in the post.

 

[gyngyn]

I'm just curious if trying to patent my invention will hurt my application i.e. leaving my job to do so.

It will have no detectable effect.

 

[ShinySephiroth]

Well I guess that's great news for it reflecting negatively and bad news for it being a positive haha

 

[cellsaver]

I am in talks of starting an invention...... am over the moon that things seem to be going in the right direction!
Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

less than 2 percent of inventions make it to market. Additionally, they require lots of money and time. You don't give the impression time is on your side and you didn't mention angel investors. You are starting at a deficit and yet you want to be a physician. The top 10 Big Pharma companies have got billions of dollars and yet most of their inventions never make it to market.

Your most important widget for getting into medical school is you. You have to convince a medical school that you are *IT*. Someone will eventually buy what you are selling (you) with enough reach and frequency, messaging, marketing, etc. However, first you have to polish your product (you), and then target your audience appropriately.

Word to the wise: nothing ever goes as planned. You can have your goals (and you should), but don't count on them materializing the way you foresee. Be thankful that is the case, though. Often times, the net result exceeds your wildest dreams

gopher it!

 

[wholeheartedly]

Well I guess that's great news for it reflecting negatively and bad news for it being a positive haha

Yeah, I think you're over thinking it. I know you kinda want to sell the whole "hey look I worked in a non-medical field for a long time but I dropped everything to pursue the dream" thing. That's fine, but if you've got this other thing going that you're passionate about, just run with it. Life is too short and you never know where it's going to take you. Whenever you do get to the point of applying, just be honest about your motivations and I think you'll be fine.

 

[ShinySephiroth]

Yeah, I think you're over thinking it. I know you kinda want to sell the whole "hey look I worked in a non-medical field for a long time but I dropped everything to pursue the dream" thing. That's fine, but if you've got this other thing going that you're passionate about, just run with it. Life is too short and you never know where it's going to take you. Whenever you do get to the point of applying, just be honest about your motivations and I think you'll be fine.

Thank you very much. I am looking into seeing if this is even a feasible idea and seeing what comes of it. I appreciate yours and everyone else's help. And sorry for being so neurotic about it.