<p>I am 31 and beginning Pre-Med this fall. I have a family and am restricted to a few schools in the area. I have narrowed my decision to two schools but am unsure which one to pick as they are both good schools.
I did my research and according to U.S. News and World Report they are classified as different types of schools. I wasn’t sure how medical schools viewed colleges. Are they more or less created equal, or can one have a huge advantage over the other.</p>
<p>The schools I am looking into are:
Mercyhurst College, listed as a “Comprehensive College”, and
Gannon University, listed as a “Master’s University”.</p>
<p>Mercyhurst is a bit more selective and has a bit higher average GPA.</p>
<p>If it helps, I am really trying to ready myself for school. I have been doing extra studying in Algebra and other higher mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, and improving my vocabulary and grammar. I know that I am very intelligent and want to go to a good medical school. I aspire to be a specialist surgeon, most likely CT or Neuro. I want to make sure that I am making the proper choices along the way.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>I’m confused as to what stage you’re at. Have you completed your BS and now want to get an extra degree with some extra classes to fulfill premedical requirements? Are you going to college for the first time?</p>
<p>In either case the university shouldn’t matter, but I’ve never heard of either place and am not familiar with how US News has these classifications. Obviously, if you do not have a B.S. or a B.A. or something equivalent, then I don’t think an M.A.-only university is the way to go, because you need a Bachelor’s first. But does USN’s “Master’s” category mean that the school only gives master’s degrees? That’s not clear to me.</p>
<p>Make sure the school you go to has all the required premedical classes: English, Calculus (not Algebra!), Biology, Physics, Chemistry: General, Organic, and (hopefully) Biological. Beyond that, school matters some but it’s not going to sink you unless it’s actually missing one of these courses.</p>
<p>As I’m sure you’re aware, being 35 will be about ten years older than the average medical student. That’s not a problem for the schools – they probably won’t care that much and would be afraid of getting sued even if they did – but it might be a problem for you and your family.</p>
<p>You’d finish medical school at 39. If you go into general surgery, that’s either a five or a seven year program, leaving you at either 44 or 46. A Cardiothoracic fellowship is usually two years after that, leaving you at either 46 or 48 when your career begins.</p>
<p>Medical schools won’t care, and neither will we – that is, we won’t change our advice because of your age. But I just wanted to make sure you knew how long these residencies are.</p>
<p>I am starting college for the first time.
I am not sure where they got the classifications for the colleges and universities, but it isn’t a Master’s only college. I believe that there are percentages of certain degrees to be in a certain classification. They offer pretty much the same as any other college/university.
I have wanted to be a doctor since I was 13. With my parents tumultuous relationship, divorce and other factors, I didn’t do so well in school. I almost didn’t think that I would have the opportunity to go back to school until 2 years ago. Now I want to make sure that I take it serious and my wife and family are on board. They realize the fight ahead and lengthy process. This isn’t some spur of the moment decision. I have done all the research and am fully aware of the years invested in school, residency, and fellowship. If I don’t do this I know that I will only wonder what if…, I do not want to regret passing up a second opportunity.
I do appreciate not being segregated because of my age. I have taken this into factor. I have bought college level Chemistry, Biology, and Algrbra books to study in preperation for this fall. I am also brushing up on vocabulary and grammar, and have the intention of buying a Physics book to study up on as well. This is in addition with Pre-requisite courses that I am in the process of taking, I want to be well prepared to get the grades to hopefully go to a top 20 med school, so I am ready to get involved in community service, taking up a language in school, and anything else to get ahead.
I don’t want to just go through the paces. I am a very competive person and am preparing for a fight. I would rether have a 15-20 year career on what I have waited my whole life for than 35-40 years in anything else.</p>
<p>If these two schools have sent at least some students to medical school in the past, then you can be assured that they each have the core requirements for that purpose.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that either of these universities would take enormous precedence over the others.</p>
<p>There are other topics you may find useful to discuss, but I’ll leave my advice at this and wait until you have questions before providing answers.</p>
<p>I am starting college for the first time.
I am not sure where they got the classifications for the colleges and universities, but it isn’t a Master’s only college. I believe that there are percentages of certain degrees to be in a certain classification. They offer pretty much the same as any other college/university.
I have wanted to be a doctor since I was 13. With my parents tumultuous relationship, divorce and other factors, I didn’t do so well in school. I almost didn’t think that I would have the opportunity to go back to school until 2 years ago. Now I want to make sure that I take it serious and my wife and family are on board. They realize the fight ahead and lengthy process. This isn’t some spur of the moment decision. I have done all the research and am fully aware of the years invested in school, residency, and fellowship. If I don’t do this I know that I will only wonder what if…, I do not want to regret passing up a second opportunity.
I do appreciate not being segregated because of my age. I have taken this into factor. I have bought college level Chemistry, Biology, and Algrbra books to study in preperation for this fall. I am also brushing up on vocabulary and grammar, and have the intention of buying a Physics book to study up on as well. This is in addition with Pre-requisite courses that I am in the process of taking, I want to be well prepared to get the grades to hopefully go to a top 20 med school, so I am ready to get involved in community service, taking up a language in school, and anything else to get ahead.
I don’t want to just go through the paces. I am a very competive person and am preparing for a fight. I would rather have a 15-20 year career on what I have waited my whole life instead of 35-40 years in anything else.</p>
<p>sorry, when I checked the post it didn’t show my second reply so I posted it again. Now it’s there, lol.
As I posted above, I am very interested in cardiothoracic or neurosurgery. I sort of have a biased interested in cardiothoracic surgery as I had open heart surgery for WPW (Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome). I also find the advancements in neurosurgery very interesting.
I have spent countless hours trying to find anything that can help. Unfortunately, I don’t always know what to search for. Most of what I have learned is from surfing countless sites and sifting out what is useful. Any advice is more than welcome. If you know of anything that could help me achieve what I want it would be more than appreciated.
I do have another question though. I know how helpful community involvement is. I think that helping out the community is important. I was wondering if you or anyone else had any ideas of things that I can do to have on my application for med school that would not only look good, but that I might also use to get my children involved. I know that I am going to busy with school and if I can spend more time with them and at the same time teach them the importance of being good humanitarians, I would like to do so. Also, how many hours would be competitive?
I also want to rock the MCAT’s. I was thinking of starting soon on studying. I don’t mean anything more than casually studying in my spare time. I see that most people start studying for them about six months to a year before they plan to take them. I figure that if I started studying for them earlier it would make me more competitive. I don’t know much about them other than what is listed on the AAMC’s website.<a href=“http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/start.htm[/url]”>http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/start.htm</a>
Thank you.</p>
<p>1.) How old are the children?</p>
<p>2.) Most people study for the MCATs for like three months. I spent two. I believe it was ASMAJ who suggested that you buy some books early, check in on them after an exam in your premedical requirements to review the material, and then commit yourself fulltime for two or three months. That sounded to me like a very sane suggestion.</p>
<p>3.) Medical schools care less about hours than about whether you can spin them as being clinically relevant and whether you learned from them.</p>
<p>4.) I’m surprised that you had to get split for WPW. I had thought that that was mostly taken care of interventionally. Was this a long time ago?</p>
<p>5.)
Help in what regard?</p>
<p>1.) They are 6,11,and 16. The oldest two are step daughters, I wasn’t 14-15 with kids, lol. Just in case you do the math.</p>
<p>2&3.) Good insight, thank you.</p>
<p>4.) I was 13, so it was around 1989. It has been a while. My parents took me to Charlotte, NC. I thought that I had the procedure at Charlotte Memorial Hospital. I did some research and can’t find that CMH exists, so it might have been at Carolinas Medical Center.
I have a cool story about what happened while I was in there.
While I was in the hospital a special on WPW came up on TV. My parents found out ahead of time somehow, maybe the doctor told them, so they borrowed a VCR, and taped the program. This was pretty cool to watch after I got out of the hospital and I could see what the surgeon did. One of the things that they had talked about, and they showed the procedure, was removing the accessory pathway through catheterization. At the time catheterization was still considered an experimental process and was not yet available for me.
I had a severe case of WPW. I was put on a holter monitor and luckily in Gym the next day we went for a jog around the block. When they analyzed the holter they found that my heart rate was over 400 beats/min, scary since usually I could tell when my heart was racing but didn’t during the jog. So the cardiologist suggested against medication and that surgery had to be done ASAP. I had surgery about a week later.
Soon after my surgery (1990) basketball hopeful Hank Gathers, diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia, collapsed and died in the middle of a tournament semifinal after reducing the prescription of beta blockers he was prescribed. He claimed they impaired his performance. The autopsy was inconclusive as to what exactly killed him.
An interesting series of events shaped my interest in medicine. I was forced to face my own mortality at an early age and knew that they were saving my life. There is no doubt that I probably would not be here without modern medicine.</p>
<p>5.) Anything. It is more than just for school. I love science and medicine. I guess that I just enjoy researching , I am also a bit strategic and have a tendency to overcomplicate things, lol. I guess that I will learn everything in stride.</p>
<p>The sixteen year old, at least, can certainly participate in a wide-range of clinical service activities. One of the ones I always regretted not doing was tutoring children who had missed school thanks to extended medical leaves of absence, and that’s something that I think the two of you could both do, provided of course that she’s interested.</p>
<p>The others may be too young; volunteering in a pediatric cancer clinic as a buddy of some kind? I know the one affiliated with my undergraduate school used a lot of high school and college students as older mentor-type figures; not sure if they’d use, say, a peer six-year old. (I’m not sure if your area is going to have a pediatric oncology in-patient wing anyway; the one I spent time in was pretty specialized and I’m not sure how common they are.)</p>
<p>My suspicion is that very few programs would have room and tasks for a six year old, in particular. If you wanted to do that, you’d probably have to start something of your own initiative.</p>
<p>Hypothetically speaking, if your family had a little band (a la Von Trapp) or something you could go play in nursing homes or hospital wards. Or if you had clown training, you could go “clown around” for pediatric cancer patients. Or something like that. For those of us who lack such talents, you could try and start some kind of initiative: tutoring, mentoring.</p>
<p>Of course, community service is valuable on its own. There’s no need to have it intertwined with clinical exposure, except that that’s a nice way to take care of two birds with one stone. I know that sometimes there are options to match you up with a recently immigrated family or something like that, so that you can serve as a resource for them.</p>