Lotsa MD friends and classmates of mine have research positions and no Ph.D.
Of course, they went to Hopkins, where the default mindset is that you will become a medical scientist in addition to becoming a physician.
I’m sure other med schools support this option also.
For the real hard-core types, Hopkins does have a 6 year MD/Ph.D program too.
Six years? How do they manage that?
Sleep is for the weak.
OK, I’ve gotta say something.
Muad’Dib, if you don’t already have a Bachelor’s degree, you’ve got to do some serious soul-searching here.
Why didn’t you get your Bachelors the first time? If you’re a reasonably smart guy, there’s got to be a reason you didn’t go straight on to college and get your BA in 4 years. If the circumstances in your life that caused you not to graduate from college haven’t radically changed, there is no possible way you’re going to go on to graduate work, let alone complete your BA/BS.
Sure, doing actual research is a whole different ball game than going to school. But if you really want to do research you need that union card.
That said, there are ways you can do research work without being a PhD principal investigator. We have people here on the dope who manage labs and suchlike, and in some fields there is plenty of room for “amateurs” to do important work, Paleontology for example. But neurology isn’t one of them, I don’t think.
It’s not that you have to be super-smart to make it through med school or grad school, sure you have to be smart, but just plain smart is enough, I’ve met plenty of professors who were average smart. But you’ve got to have drive and an ability to focus or you’ll end up quitting halfway through, and rightly so. You’ve got to be driven to put up with the bullshit of academia or the bullshit of medical school and internship. And what’s the end goal? If you want to come out the other end as a family doctor you’ve got a very workable end goal. Going into research is a lot tougher.
Anyway, I’ve seen plenty of smart driven people drop out of academia, just because there’s so much bullshit involved, and the bullshit is tolerated or even encouraged because there are many more people wanting in than there are positions and careers available.
You’ll only have to take the SAT if you’re starting over at a university - I myself have never taken it. I note that you are in California, so the community college-transfer to UC/CSU option is always available. I have a friend now at UCLA Med that started out at my JC. As you may or may not know, acceptance rates to state schools from California community colleges are very very good, although compacted majors will be more difficult.
Now, if you want to transfer to a private school, then you’d have to take your SAT. But if you’d rather stick with our superb state schools, you can avoid both taking the SAT and huge tuition payments while you finish undergrad. Just a thought.
Not to place too much of a damper on this thread, but I feel that someone should soberly offer that medical school admissions is, ahem, selective.
A typical decent-quality medical school will have about 6-10,000 applicants for 150-200 spots.
If you aren’t an under-represented minority (and women are now over-represented, if anything), then people will tell you till they’re blue in the face that there are no, “hard requirements,” but if you don’t have at least I’d guess a 3.5 GPA (depending on the institution, you could get away with much less coming from the Air Force Academy) and a 28 on the MCAT’s, you frankly haven’t got a shot. Do you have any prior record of standardized testing? How did you place on those?
I’m not saying it cannot be done. Many medical schools love to accept applicants that don’t fit the “pre-pro since kindergarden” mold, but at the same time, if you really want to pursue the academic goal of understanding the human mind, medical school probably isn’t the best route to achieve that.
Most MD programs are aimed at producing clinicians (people that directly help people, maybe with a bit of research), so you should figure out if you like “helping people” and you should also consider that going the MD/PhD route will likely leave you in school until you’re 40, but you’re school will also probably come with a salary (that you’ll probably owe back if you don’t finish).
Oh, and also on the negative of the MD/PhD program, I’d say a majority of the MD/PhD’s that I’ve talked to hate their motherfucking PhD advisors, their motherfucking program, and their motherfucking lives, to paraphrase the last one that I visited with. Obviously opinions differ, Crescend seems to like his program, but I question the wisdom of most MD/PhD programs. I thought the division of labor was one of the hallmarks of the modern age. Why does anyone need 30 years of school?
Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays. :dubious:
Speaking seriously, everything mentioned so far requires a very strong commitment. Medical school, graduate school in the hard sciences, and any combination of the two are hard, and if someone has doubts about why they’re there, more often then not, they wash out. I have a friend who started an MD/PhD program, finished two years of medical school, got to the PhD part, said “Fuck this shit” and transferred to the regular medical curriculum. Doing any part of this without a cast-iron motivation is stupid. Medical students come by their suicide rate honestly.
I truly enjoy my program, I like the sort of work I do, and I’m glad to do it. At the same time, it is physically and psychologically draining. Why do I pound my head against the wall?
Because it feels so very good when I stop. 
That MCAT of 28 is understating a bit. If you are applying to med school, I suggest looking at the MSAR (Medical School Admission Requirements). You can buy it or check it out at the local university library. Keep in mind that these are just numbers, though. On top of this schools like to see clinical experience (volunteering in a hospital, shadowing physicians, working in a free clinic, volunteering with the Red Cross, etc), maybe some research experience, community service (essentially volunteering in a non-clinical capacity), leadership, and the list goes on. If you want to get an idea of what your competition is, I suggest checking out www.mdapplicants.com. Many of these applicants are probably a little above average, but you’re still competing against them.
Your undergrad major does NOT have to be a biological science. I’d say the majority of applicants have a BS in some hard science, but they take all kinds. Med schools do require some pre-med courses such as biology, chemistry (inorganic and organic), physics, math, english, with some requiring more like biochem, genetics, cellular biology, and it goes on.
On top of this, applying to medical school is expensive. It’ll run you about $180 for the primary application, plus $30 for every other school after the first one you apply to. If schools like your primary app (consisting or your transcripts/grades, your MCAT, your personal statement, a summary of your extracurriculars), they will send you a secondary. Many schools will send you a secondary even without looking at your primary. Why? Because secondaries are expensive. They’ll run you about $50-100 for each one. Secondaries generally have some more essay questions, and you usually have to submit letters of recommendation (almost always these must come from professors that taught your science courses- no character recommendations). THEN… if they like your primary, your secondary, and your letters of rec, they invite you for an interview. Unlike grad school admissions, you will have to pay to get there. Then you interview with one to two to however many faculty, MDs, current med students. Finally you wait anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 months to find out if you’re accepted, put on the waitlist, or flat out rejected.
I’m not trying to discourage anybody from applying to med school, but it’s definitely something you want to think over carefully. If you want good advice on the whole process, I suggest looking at the pre-med forums at www.studentdoctor.net . I haven’t even touched the MD vs DO difference, in-state vs out-of-state schools, Caribbean/foreign schools…
I have a question along the same lines, so I guess this is a place to ask. Say I have a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Mathematics (earned concurrently). Also say I’ve been working full time for a while now. My college GPA sucked (Overall: 3.0 Major: 3.6 IIRC), but my test results typically are not bad. Assuming I can (through some sort of voodoo) ace the MCAT, is there a medical school in the country that’s even going to consider my application? I’ve just always assumed that I’d have to do another B.S. in a bio field and this time get a really good GPA to be able to even apply to med school and have my application considered. However, that’s a pretty tall order in terms of finances – med school loans on top of undergrad loans while not working for seven years is practically unrealistic for me.
I guess what I’m asking is, is there a way to get into med. school without spending two years full time getting a degree in biology. Would it make more sense to try to directly get into a graduate biology program by trying to ace the biology GRE? How would I go about getting letters of recommendation after being out of school for a couple of years?
Note, these are all hypothetical and presume I can self-study into acing MCAT/GREs, which is most likely false.
If there’s been some time between undergrad and your application, then schools tend to be a little more lenient on bad grades. You would still need to fulfill your premed requirements, so doing a post-bac program like the ones linked above is your best bet. Do the program, do well in your classes, do well in your MCAT, get some clinical exposure and volunteering under your belt, and there’s no reason you can’t go to med school.
I should also add, don’t take the MCAT until you’ve taken your prereqs. It’s very much a knowledge based test, and it’s assumed that you’ve taken biology, gen chem/orgo I and II, physics I and II, and some animal physiology doesn’t hurt either. They recently switched it over to a computer format, so you have a lot more options than the previous twice a year it was offered.
A good friend of mine dropped out of college with a 0.4 GPA. He went into the military for a few years, got into a serious MVA, and by the time he got out of the hospital and finished his rehab, he was discharged from the military at age 25 with a significant medical disability. Wondering what to do, but his interest in medicine piqued by his experience, he returned to college. He put in a solid performance taking the required pre-med courses, got into med school (where I met him in his 2nd year doing volunteer mentoring work), did a psychiatry residency, and is now a happy, board-certified psychiatrist at the ripe age of 40, and loving it.
25 is a fine age to start up again. Go for it.
Heh, what is it about being 25 and wanting to become a doctor?
I’m the same age thinking about the same thing. Graduated in December with a BA in English and now considering going back for the sciences.
If I were in your position, I’d go to the local university’s website and find an online catalogue. It’ll tell you what you need to have (test scores and the like) to get in, but, more importantly, it’ll have course descriptions.
In the psychology department, try to find a course called “Physiological Psychology” or “Neurological Psychology” or similar; the description should say that it’s a study of the brain. It’s generally going to be a pretty high-level course…mine was in the 4300 series. See if you can take that class, just for fun. Every school I’ve ever seen allowed for that kind of thing, even for students not enrolled in a degree program. NeuroPsych will get your feet wet to the type of study you’re talking about. You’ll learn about the sodium/potassium pump, the blood-brain barrier, all about neurons and glia, and lots of brain anatomy.
You won’t be balancing chemical equasions or anything, just a lot of reading and studying and listening to lectures. If it turns you on, you can get your degree in a hard science (or anything else, so long as you get those pre-reqs) and go on from there. If it turns out to not be your cup of tea, you’re out a couple hundred bucks.
Let us know how it turns out.
Yeah, I know a whole bunch of people applying to med school at 25, +/- 3-4 years. Maybe it’s just sample bias, but many of them are PhDs who would prefer a salary exceeding that of the building janitor.
So no, 25 is certainly not too late. I know people who started med school at 40! It’s just a matter of figuring out if you are suited for it, and it’s suited for you. Beyond that, it’s just work.
Did you just watch the movie about Vivian Thomas and Dr. Blalock?
What was the name of that movie? Something about Gods Hands?
Someone brought this up before but…
do you want to study how the brain works or how the mind works?
Maybe you should look into psychology (which would require a BS and, if you want to direct the research, a PhD) and not medicine.
I agree with Nava here. Speaking as someone who has done a psychology degree and is now a medical student myself, I don’t think that medical school would be the right path for your goals.
I think you’d be better off focusing on getting into a school with good undergrad programs for Psychology or Neuroscience. Once you’re in, find a good mentor or advisor among the faculty there to guide you in getting involved in research on campus so that you’ll have a strong application for grad school in the subject.
Fighting to get into a combined MD/PhD program (which is much harder than getting into med school alone because there are fewer PhD slots), then slogging through med school (which would require lots of stressing out over clinical medicine issues that have nothing to do with the brain) would be a big waste of your time and effort, in my view unless you have a special love for clinical medicine.
IF you do in fact see yourself doing clinical medicine, I’d recommend applying to the osteopathic medical schools, who are often more accepting of “non-traditional” students (older, from more diverse backgrounds, etc.) and signing up with the site at http://forums.studentdoctor.net for some good career advice.
Good luck!
As an MD/PhD, now an intern but looking towards a future in clinical research, I would say that if you are interested in neuroscience research (and not in seeing patients) I would focus on getting a PhD.
If you are interested in seeing patients, then you can do an MD with some research electives, an MD with a research track (usually a 5 year program), or an MD/PhD, but I have a sour taste for the whole MD/PhD thing. That is a subject for its own thread. Crescend, I hope it doesn’t leave you with the same.
BTW Qadgop, the Hopkins MD/PhDs that I work with almost uniformly took 8 years to finish. Better than my 9, but hey. 6 year MD/PhDs are very few and very far between nowadays.
The people who entered medical school late that I know have had one of two things happen to them: a) they were engineers/lawyers/teachers/nurses who were not happy and had a clear vision of where they wanted to go. b) they had life changing, powerful experiences which gave them a clear vision of where they wanted to go.
Note the similarity between the two. The path to medical school is hard. Big choke points on the biology classes and the organic chem. More choke points on the MCATs. The weed out a huge percentage of It doesn’t get easier once you get in. Luckily, med schools are pretty good at selecting those who are going to get through, and there is around a 90% graduation rate once you get started. But that only buys you at least 3 years of residency, which is just as much of a bitch. I know this as well as anyone on the planet right now (q3 in the Hopkins CCU, carrying the code pager, etc. living the dream, baby).
Grad school, OTOH, while not without its stresses, is a lot easier to get into (especially for US citizens), although probably harder to get out of and harder to land an academic (or high paying job) once you do.
With all honesty, a 25 year old unemployed bartender who seems to be have a very tenuous grasp on the whole educational system has quite a way to go before that clear vision thing. It is like an asthmatic double amputee posting “I want to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. How do I do that?” Although becoming an MD, a PhD, or an MD/PhD requires probably more overall effort and tenacity.
My advice. Start college, any accredited program will do. Do what you think is interesting but take lots of bio, psychology, and neuroscience classes. Find a mentor that you can research with. Volunteer some time in your local hospitals. Get back to us when you are a sophomore and still sticking with it when you have formulated a clear vision.
Missed threemae’s post. I think “hate” is a strong word but “dislike” is certainly accurate. Certainly the MD/PhD program points directly to the weaknesses of both the MD and the PhD training programs. As I said above, subjects for another thread.
There are good reasons to do an MD/PhD. Mine has left me with skills that I employ in medicine that I think serve me incredibly well. But shit, it took a hell of a long time. And yes, I am 31 and I was in school without break from 1978 to 2006.
As an MD/PhD graduate whose driving interest in life is solving the brain, I should probably chime in…by agreeing with the preceeding posts. Med school is quite useless for gaining insight to how the mind works (although it does lend a certain insight into the group psychology behind the lumbering beast that is modern medicine). Certain very experienced academic neurologists get to pick and choose the kinds of patients they see based on their intellectual interests, but the odds are so low and the price so high of getting there that it’s really not worth it (unless you’re willing to sacrifice intellectual satisfaction for a nice steady paycheck).
The PhD road, while easier to begin, is pretty rough too if you want to put food on the table – funding is at an all-time low while the number of applicants for academic jobs rises each year. The people who succeed work 6-7-day weeks for the first 10+ years of their career as independent investigators, and even the best are on tenterhooks every grant cycle. Sure there’s tenure, but believe me, being tenured with no grant funding is not a pleasant life.
My advice? Get a sugar mama (e.g., marry a doctor like I did). Then you can work in the capacity that interests you and let someone else worry about money-grubbing, all while making a cool $20 to 30K per year. A bit undignified, perhaps, but life’s too short to worry about things like that.