start out as something else in the medical field such as a nurse, etc. and then later become a doctor? How many doctors would fit this bill? 0.5% 1% 5%?
My father was a school teacher, medic in the Korean war, pharmacist, hospital administrator, and then a doctor. I know about a dozen other medical doctors (cousins, friends of the family, etc), and my father is the only one out of the group that didn’t take the direct route.
The best data I can find is this pdf containing the data for those who took the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test) in 1999. Of those who took the test (of whom less than 30% entered medical school the next year), 5.6% reported their undergraduate major (p. 30) as “specialized health,” which includes pharmacy, nursing, and physical therapy as well as majoring in “pre-med”.
My personal experience leads me to believe that the number actually in medical school is considerably less than this. I am a second-year medical student, and in my class I can only think of one person who had a previous career in healthcare–one of my classmates worked as a physician’s assistant before returning to school.
Many others in my class have held paid or volunteer positions in healthcare, but that is usually not as a career but more as a way to evaluate whether they like healthcare, and to improve their application.
My mother was a med tech(among other things) for several years before she went to med school. My brother worked on an ambulance and in an ER before he went. So that’s two.
-Lil