Seeking advice from doctors as well as those who have med school, pharmacy, PA, and similar training.
I have a nephew who just graduated with a BS in Biology from a state university. His intention has always been to go to medical school and be a practicing physician. He will be taking the MCAT in the Spring. While there are a couple of physicians in his extended family, both went to med school in Asia, so they don’t necessarily have the relevant experience for the nephew’s next step.
The bad news: his final overall GPA is 3.3. He is smart and well-spoken, but some tough classes when he first transitioned from community college to the university set him back (he had a 3.9 GPA leaving CC).
He is looking for “I wish I knew then what I know now” from MDs and others with relevant experience (including PAs, pharmacists, other allied medical, etc). Of course he has spoken with his school and other counselors, but he places a higher degree of confidence in the experiences of those that have been through, or at least attempted, the process.
The number one question on his plate is: what can he do at this point to improve his chances of getting into a US medical school? With a side dish of: is it even realistic to expect to get in with a 3.3 GPA? With a garnish of: if getting into a US med school is unlikely, has anyone any experience with a Caribbean school?
Finally, for dessert: if med school is out, what would be realistic alternatives? Physician Assistant? (and I’m not implying PAs are “second rate” or only take the med school rejects) Pharmacist? He’s trying to be as realistic in the outcomes as he can, and think about what his options would be should he not get in to med school.
It has been a long time since I applied and I have no personal knowledge of the acceptance process, but I do not believe 3.3 is a game ender … under 3.0, yeah. Kick ass on MCATs of course. Interview well. Have some angle that makes him special and different; be able to explain how that unique feature he’d bring to a medical school class, that angularity, would help round out the group.
And consider Caribbean med schools or an Osteopathic program. I know (have hired and have had become partners with) a graduate of each. Each very smart, very personable, great critical thinking skills, great communication skills. Just either did not test well on MCATs or did not pull off a high enough GPA, but knew what they wanted to do. Got great educations for the same reason I got a great education at a fairly big name US school - because we each made it so. Got into good residencies and are amazingly well qualified. Also very popular with patients and excellent diagnosticians.
Nothing wrong with a career as a PA or a nurse practitioner either, and honestly the way medicine is evolving they will be relied on more and more. Saves a lot of debt and time, which really must be considered.
To really answer more completely though I’d need his answer, his honest one, not the one he’d give in an interview, to why he wants to be a doctor.
I’m not in a position to answer ‘doctor’ questions, but I would also point out the various interesting non-doctor jobs including respiratory therapists, registered nurses and the like if your nephew is unable to get into medical school as a doctor.
I agree with DSeid’s appraisal (I have no idea how tough it is to get into U.S. med schools these days with a sub-3.5 GPA, but it’s certainly possible if something compelling sets you apart from the rest of the herd.) Foreign schools should be evaluated carefully to see how their grads are doing. Many, once they get into a decent U.S. residency program do fine and their med school origins are forgotten.
If there’s a strong interest to do something in the health care field and it wouldn’t be viewed as a disappointment, other options besides med school should be explored. Just don’t have much hope for chiropractic school (besides the quackery problem, I hear job opportunities in chiropractic have become quite limited and grads are saddled with big debts from their, uh, training).
Thank you so much for the responses thus far; they are very much the kind of feedback he is looking for, including the suggestions for alternate medical-related careers.
I’ve interrogated him a few times as to whether he is pursuing this path because of family pressures or because he genuinely wants to be an MD. He is comfortable with me, and confirms this is his personal goal. As to the deeper why question, I will try to get a candid answer to that in the next day or so.
I know this is anecdotal and a sample size of exactly one, but a friend’s son graduated from a Caribbean school three years ago and never did find a U.S. residency. He’s living with Mom now, up to his coccyx in debt, in his 30s and wondering what to do for a living.
mmm
My college GPA was similar to that and I got in to a good US med school in 2004. But I had to apply twice and I got in off the wait-list. In order to get an interview he needs something on his application to make them less concerned about his grades. I had impressive MCAT scores and research experience after college to compensate for my grades. Even then there are some schools that simply won’t be interested in someone with grades that low. Once he gets to the interview stage he needs an explanation for the grades that doesn’t sound like a whiny excuse. My explanation was that I was in 2 choirs and an intercollegiate sport and I spent too much time on those things and not enough on studying. Some people seemed satisfied with that answer and some didn’t but everyone asked.
I would avoid going to a Caribbean med school unless he really can’t get in to a US med school. I’m currently in residency and I know quite a few people who went to St. George’s and most of them are comparable to people who went to school in the US. But in my opinion there is slightly higher percentage of duds among those residents I know that came from Caribbean schools. Could just be confirmation bias but that’s been my experience. If he goes that route he needs to make sure the school has opportunities to do clinical rotations in the US. This gives him a chance to meet people and make connections before residency applications and hopefully overcome some of the stigma associated with going to a Caribbean med school. Even if he kicks ass in med school his residency options will be more limited than someone with a similar record from a US school.
If he opts for a different medical career other than physician he should find something that he is truly interested in. For example a nurse is not a second rate doctor. It’s a different but related career with different educational and practice priorities. So don’t go to nursing school unless you actually want to be a nurse.
He needs to be interesting. While he may fall below some arbitrary cutoff for the best of the best schools, there are still a lot of schools where he won’t. Grades and MCATs only get you past the first stage. After that, they want people who are diverse, interesting, and charismatic. I also second the idea of not ruling out osteopathic schools; their graduates are equal to any other doctors and they may have fewer applicants because of bias.
If he applies and doesn’t get in, I recommend doing research-especially at a school he wants to attend. If he can impress current faculty, that may go a long way.
Thank you all so much for the answers thus far - each one is appreciated, and everyone has provided good information.
While he is doing his MCAT prep school work, he is also looking for a job in the field (hospital, doctor’s office, etc). He specifically wants to avoid working at, say, the CDC - not because he hates lab or research work, but that he’s been told that a concentration in a research field would imply that he is not that interested in practicing. Whether that is a valid concern I have no idea (and he probably doesn’t either, but that’s the advice he had been given).
Among other “sweeteners”, would a Master’s degree seemingly improve his med school chances?
As to being “diverse, interesting, and charismatic”: he is diverse, of a sort (he’s not white), and while not Hugh Grant-level charming, he is handsome and well-spoken and can speak confidently and charmingly. Interesting? Well, he wasn’t on the football team, he’s not a master of a musical instrument, nor a poet or any of a number of noteworthy things. He, like myself, is “average” in the interesting department (true, with myself there is a lot of unexpectedness beneath the surface, but that isn’t necessarily “interesting”). I’m not throwing water on psychobunny’s statement - I’m taking it as truth, as it most probably is true. And what it sounds like is: he darn better outperform on his MCAT, because he doesn’t have many other arrows in his quiver!
Is that assessment likely accurate, at least for the norm?
I know a guy who had a low MCAT score so he got a MPH degree and then got into med school. Getting a MS degree in biology or a related field may also help.
Sorry, Asian descent does not count as diversity to a medical school.
A Masters that means something to what he wants to do in medicine might help make him stand out, yes. Like that Master of Public Health (MPH) did. Actually likely to be a useful set of tools to a physician in the next several decades.
Which is why he should know for himself why he wants to be in medicine today.
Depending on his long term career ambitions an MBA might be useful, with an interest in healthcare services. Or a Masters in Social Work. Or Comp Sci. Or taking two years to work for an NGO delivering healthcare in challenging environments. Or a Masters in education … But not just to buff his resume, to further his real goals, whatever they are.
I know you meant well by this, but the phrasing makes me stabby, 'cause:
thank you thank you thank you
It drives me up the friggin’ wall when people say, “But you’re so smart,” or “You’re so good at this” and follow it up with, “…why didn’t you become a doctor?” I didn’t become a doctor because I knew I’d be a good nurse! Nurses are not doctors light!
There were several foreign trained doctors with me in nursing school. Only one of the eight I started with were able to make it through the nursing program. Now I don’t mean to say that nursing school is harder than medical school - it most certainly is not. But these guys couldn’t turn off their “doctor brains” and think like nurses, use nursing diagnoses and nursing interventions. They couldn’t make the right kind of rapport with their patients in clinicals. They may have been very good doctors (or awful ones, I don’t honestly know), but they couldn’t be good nurses.
So I’d suggest he make sure he’s not look at nursing et al as a “fall-back”. He should be looking at his options for what they are, not what they’re not.
Caribbean schools are too risky nowadays. The US med schools are pumping out more grads to fill the residency spots and therefore there are fewer of the leftovers that used to go to the Caribbean docs.
Try for US “allopathic” (MD) and “osteopathic” (DO) schools (and if you don’t know what a DO is, here’s a little primer: Osteopathic medicine in the United States - Wikipedia ). It is often a little easier to get into DO schools than MD schools because a lot of people don’t understand what DOs are and therefore don’t realize that they can do all the same things MDs can.
Make sure he signs up for http://forums.studentdoctor.net which is a great resource for pre-meds.
There are med schools that are heavily oriented towards primary care (resulting in applicants who try to buff their CVs with primary care-type experiences and say they desperately want to be family doctors, whether they do or not). Having a research background might not be a plus at such places, but we do need M.D. researchers and such a background would likely help at other schools (if only as a contrast to the “I looove patients!” crowd).
I have heard that non-science experiences/training are getting more weight these days; how true that is I can’t say. Maybe being a poet-in-residence somewhere would make him stand out.
My medical school class had a poetry major! Every time it was his turn to do notes for our class notes coop he would finish off with an original poem too. (We also had a comp sci major, a former accountant, a former nurse, along with the usual crew of hard science ultra-geeks and the boring traditional folk like me.)
It sounds like getting a US residency is the choke point; if you don’t end up in residency at a US hospital, you’re pretty much out of the game; is that correct?
Assuming the above is true, then the next most-important point seems to be that going to a US school (MD or DO) is immensely more likely to get one into a US residency than a non-US program.
If I am mistaken in either of the above assertions, let me know.
It’s not the non-US school that is the issue, if it is a GOOD non-US school.
I went to Trinity College Dublin, which is internationally recognised as a good medical school. In my class of 120 we had 40 international students, several from North America, the majority of whom went back for their internships and residencies, and who all got into decent residencies. One of the Canadian guys beat 300 other applicants for an anaesthetics residency in his hometown, others are working in Boston, LA, New York, Chicago and Dallas.
There is the phenomenon of the “Irish medical Mafia” of course- a network of former TCD graduates working in US and Canadian hospitals, who tend to have quite a tight network.
Your nephew needs to work on his strengths, and think of actions he took which highlight them.
EVERY med school applicant will be promoting themselves as smart, personable, caring, adaptable and with leadership potential. If you have concrete examples of things which PROVE this, you’ll have an advantage.
Medical schools like people to be well rounded- medicine can only ever be a facet to your life, not the centre of it, because to be good at medicine, you have to be good at being a human being. So, pretty much, the antithesis of House.
If he doesn’t have hobbies or interests, he needs to develop some ASAP.
No-one expects their doctor to be a concert violinist, but if he gets asked what his interests are and can’t think of anything more than “I like to watch films” he’ll have issues.
The Match is a heinous, game-show like experience in which applicants for residencies are matched to openings. It starts with an interview process, then applicants and hospitals each rank their preferences. A computer program optimizes the matches and you learn where you’re going on Match Day.
If you are unmatched on Match Day at a US school your Dean will haul ass to get you a placement from unfilled openings (called "the scramble’). Not getting Matched doesn’t necessarily mean you were a bad candidate. I could mean you didn’t like the facilities who liked you.
If you aren’t a part of the Match, you’re scrambling for the dregs before you’re even out of the gate.
