Sorry if this is a tangent from the normal questions. For the past year, I have thought about going back to school to become a doctor. My resolve solidified a bit when I visit your seminar, which was excellent. The problem is that I am 29 y/o, with no relevant background. I did okay in school though, with a 3.8 GPA when I got my MS in Comp Sci, so I have the capacity to learn. I was wondering if you guys have any advice for someone like me to get into the medical field. From what I have gathered, a timeline may look like this:
If you want to become a doctor, there is nothing about your situation that is “too late”. Lots of people go back later for a medical degree.
The thing you need to decide is whether you’re willing to go through everything it will take, Starting with the pre-reqs and MCAT, applying/interviewing/getting accepted, completing 4 years of medical school, and matching into additional years of specialty training in residency.
It’s not for everyone, but if it’s what you want to do, it’s certainly not too late.
I have a friend who started med school at 50! She went through everything and is a doctor. That being said, with managed care being what it is, you might consider something else. I’m guessing you want to help people and there are much cheaper, easier and less frustrating routes to go down.
Actually, helping people, while nice, is not my primary motivation.
In the modern age of the internet, misinformation spreads like wildfire. It annoys me to no end that quackery persists, and that people fall for them. People such as myself. I fall victim to a lot a lot of pseudoscience, even though I view myself as a fairly logical person. However, if I had just a fundamental understanding of human physiology, I would have not have fallen prey to them.
The reason why I want to be a physician is because I want to be able to suss out misinformation by myself, and be an authority figure that people can come to about these topics. The end goal is to one day combine my experience as a software engineer, data scientist, and physician to create a consumer product that can help people determine if a particular intervention is effective in a cheap and fast way. To do this, I will need to be able to read research paper critically myself, and determine the true significance of the data.
Also, because I am a nerd, who likes new challenges, and want a career that allows me to interact with people on a daily basis, and solve challenging problems. I want to feel like I am making a real impact, and not be stuck at a cube all day. I do not plan on giving up programming. I just no longer have interest in it as a career goal.