Pt Assistant Certification to Med School

[Thanatos]

Well right now I'm I'm the middle of my pt assistant program at my community college, and I have recently began thinking about the possibility of becoming a Sport Medicine Physician M.D or perusing an MD in something related to exercise/fitness pharmacology.
I know I haven't even gotten my associates in science yet but I need to start weighing my options, and planning for the future.
BTW I am only 20 with just a GED to rely on besides numerous references: many from the top orthopedic surgeons, sports med mds, and pt/ot clinicians in my area. I also have a large amount of outpatient clinic experience as a patient, as far as pt and ot is concerned. I am a straight A student that does quite a bit of volunteer work; but I am still rather afraid that I won't be accepted into a premed program, let alone an MD program with my past academic failures. Let alone the fact that I would be around 25 by the time I *hopefully* get accepted into the first year of med school.

Is there anyone here that can give me any guidance in the subject of applying to school, and the prospective outlook of my plan? Just to make it clear, I do plan to be a practicing pt assistant while I'm still working on my bachelor level degree/premed schooling.

 

[Jerry Atrick]

First off, don't worry about your age....you'll be fine.

Also, don't worry about the pre-med thing either. With your grades and credentials, I am sure the bachelor's programs will be happy to take your money. Also as far as I can remember, most "pre-med" people actually just major in biology and tag the pre-med thing onto their transcript. I may be wrong, so somebody please correct me.

Right now, your biggest obstacle will be the MCAT. I used to share an apartment with a guy who is now a doctor and that dude studied for like a year to take the MCAT after he made a low score the first time he took it.

My advice to you is to keep up the volunteer work. Keep up the straight A's and you'll get into that pre-med program. Study your ass of for the MCAT. My friend applied to 10 med schools and only got accepted to one. With all the application fees, he spent over $1000 doing it. It was worth it.

Now what I'm about to say is not advice......it's more of comment that you can accept or decline. It makes no difference to me.

If you want to make straight A's in a bachelor's program, you may find yourself not getting any sleep because you're studying and working that job. Sometimes something has to give. Just remember, keep your focus on the long-term. Apply for every scholarship and grant that is out there. I know that student loans are frowned upon, but that big nasty thing will save your ass when you realize that making A's in school IS YOUR JOB.

 

[Roger&Me]

Yeah, just go to any college, major in some science (chemistry is best, but I'm biased ), and pre-med just means you have to take a lot of biology if you're not already doing that.

But if you're not going to make all A's, don't even bother trying to get into med school. You need to stay above a 3.5 gpa at the very least, and that's considered the bare minimum for med school admissions (combined with a solid MCAT score, and all that other bullshit stuff that med schools like to see, eg. volunteering at hospitals, or traveling to save the dying babies in uganda or whatever).

And money shouldn't be too big of a concern, because if you're making grades that are suitable for med school admissions, you will likely end up on some sort of a scholarship anyway.

 

[Thanatos]

Well I'm maintaining a 4.0 GPA right now with lots of volunteer experience.
In my area, the two best universities have an actual pre-med program. If I get an associates in science, would I just have to get the other credits like chemistry and such instead of going pre-med? I'm uninformed on the subject to be honest so I really appreciate the replies.
If all goes right I'll have be a certified physical therapist assistant soon, but I don't know where that leaves me in the traditional pre-med programs curriculum.
Be honest guys, does it seem at least fesable for me to become an MD in the next decade or so, including residency? Either way I need a phd level education, because the pt field requires a doctorate in my neck of the woods to be newell certified. It just seems like a waste to be a PT if I could get a medical doctorate in roughly the same time period.

From what I can tell: you guys are just saying that pre-med is an extensive biology and chemistry program. Should I look to get a bachelors in PT instead and then go for MD level grad school. Bear with me, I'm young and I don't have a lot of recourses besides the physicians that I am under the care of.

Isn't MyDoorsAreOpen an MD? I wish he could advise me a little bit.