Nursing and Pre-med?

mom2boys
Tue, 08 May 2007 11:41:04 +0000

As a former instructor in a BSN program, I have had students come to me and discuss their plans to go on to med school. Is there resentment about nursing students going to med school? I would have to say yes, but it is not an overwhelming resentment. Nursing education is very intense, time-consuming, etc. It’s hard from an instructors point of view to have invested so much time and effort into training new nurses, to see someone plan on not working as a nurse but just using this education as a stepping stone. The nursing shortage is near a crisis and we need every nurse we can get.
Having said that, I did work with the students to get in their pre-med prereqs. Just so you know, organic chem sequence is not part of nursing curriculum so you will have to fit in a whole year of orgo somewhere (on top of all your other courses).
Most nurses that I have known that have gone on to med school (including nurses I have taught) have worked a few years as a nurse while they went back to school and took the rest of their prereqs (calculus, pre-med bio, orgo etc…) The nursing curriculum is very structured and it is difficult to get many of the premed classes in while you are a BSN student. Most colleges do offer nursing bio, chem, math etc and those class times are structured around the other nursing classes and pre-reqs. You may find it difficult to fit other chem, bio sequences.
Think carefully of what you really want to do in life. If you feel nursing is right for you, then go for it. It is a great profession with many, many careern options. Becoming an NP is definitely something to consider (need to earn a Masters though). If premed is what you want, then focus on that instead. If you look upon your nursing major as something to do while waiting to do what is your heart’s desire (become a doctor) then rethink. It may be hard to do well in your classes if your heart is just not in it.