DETC Degree--Med School?

I completed my degree from CCU in 2007. It was fine for the time as I was just doing it to get into the Pharmaceutical industry. Now 3 years later, I am considering going to Med School. Any one know a route that I can do this with my CCU degree? My GPA was not great (I was just rushing to get it completed) Silly, I know. As far as I know the big 3 still won't accept a detc degree? Any ideas?

 

Unfortunately, even if you had a RA degree you're not going to get into Med School with a mediocre GPA. As far as I know, your best (and only) hope is to get into a post-BA premed program and absolutely ace the whole deal.

http://college-degrees-programs.suite101.com/article.cfm/postbaccalaureate_premed_programs

 

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Harvard has an awesome one! It can be completed in 1 year. www.harvard.edu ---> continuing education ---> degrees and programs

 

Hi,

I agree with Kizmet and Jennifer regarding your GPA (and the school that you attended) limiting your current chances of being accepted to med school. However, all is not lost. You may choose to either pursue a 2nd Bachelor's degree (preferably in a science subject) or go with a 1 year Postbaccalaureate premed program. The latter option is probably your best bet. If you pursue a 2nd bachelors degree, make sure that you take a full course load. Med schools like to see that you can handle a full course load and achieve a high GPA. Think about it - if you can't handle a full course load of undergraduate courses, how will you make it through med school?

I would suggest the following:

1. Start volunteering (today) at a local hospital or medical facility.
2. Shadow physicians (in several disciplines, if possible) to learn more about the profession and to see if this is what you really want to do.
3. Visit this website to locate Postbacc premed programs in your area.
4. Once you have completed the Postbacc program (with a high GPA, of course), take and KILL the MCAT exam.
5. Apply to medical schools (allopathic AND osteopathic) and hope for the best. Focus on your interview skills. This is important.

Best of luck!

Tom

 

Stupid time out feature!

Have you considered becoming a P.A. instead? You will still need to complete a post-bacc program, but you will spend less time in school (2 years for P.A. school vs. 4 years of med school + 3-5 years for residency). Just some food for thought.

 

I highly doubt a US Allopathic or Osteopathic medical school would accept anyone with a DETC accredited degree. For that matter, I doubt USA programs in chiropratic medicine, podiatry, audiology, optometry, pharmacy and physician assistant schools would consider a DETC accredited B.S. degree.

Of course foreign medical schools such as those found in the Caribbean may consider you but getting licensed in the US is another story. Do yourself a favor and get a bachelors degree with the pre-med requisites from a RA school then get the highest MCAT score possible. The Harvard pre medical diploma looks promising and doesn't stipulate a "RA accredited" degree but you will have to check. See:
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/2009-10/programs/hcp/admission/

I suggest you talk with a few US medical schools in regards to accepting DETC accredited schools.

 

Good idea - I get treated by a PA occasionally at my doctors office.
Here is a PA progam offered by my local CC which does not require a degree but various prerequisite courses are required: http://www.rcc.edu/academicPrograms/physicianAssistant/index.cfm
I have no idea what other US states require.

 

I had a buddy once with a 3.1 GPA get into med school, however he scored one of the highest MCAT scores ever achieved!!!

 

Med School-head the warnings of John Bear, Rich Douglas, etc.

You are talking about the most competitive programs for admission in the United States. A low GPA from Harvard and a very Mediocre MCAT would not make you competitive. If you are serious about this route, I would recommend starting over. A 21 MCAT and a 3.0 grade point is the minimum to apply at most medical schools. Of course the minimum does not make you competitive.

I see no way a DETC degree would be accepted, even with a post BA pre-med program. I am on an interview committee for the college of pharmacy at OU. The requirements are obviously not as stringent as medical school, but a DETC degree would not be considered competitive even over the three year minimum of another school.

I don't mean to say this to discourage you. It's just if this is a serious desire, you probably have 4 years of hard work at a regionally accredited university (problably not at the University of Phoenix, Devry etc.) before you would be considered a serious candidate. Of course a perfect MCAT score might turn heads, but it would take a rare exception I would imagine to be prepared from a DETC school. They are just not equipped to do the quality work in say an Organic Chemistry with Lab (or any science with lab). I cannot see how an online program could prepare you for Biochemistry, Pathology, etc. There are just some things that require being there. Unfortunately the Med School path requires being there in lab, library, etc. for quite some time. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

I am reminded of the warnings about a degree meeting current and future needs. Don't feel bad, they wouldn't take me either (although I never applied to med school and had very little desire).

Tim

 

I have looked into the PA programs. It is my understanding that they do not make that much per year. Am I wrong? My w2 this last year in the Pharmaceutical Industry was $117K. Not a lot, but for the level of schooling, not bad. As a rep, I call on several offices and talk to Nurses and PA's who want to leave what they are doing to get into what I am doing. So I don't think the PA route will work (unless I am wrong about the money?) I would really like to move towards a career where I can hit closer to the 200K range. I am willing to put in more work (even if means going back and starting over with a RA degree) I was just hoping I would not have to do that. I am 35 so age is kind of an issue. Looks like my options are very limited.

 

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but since when is $117,000 per year "not a lot?" Where I live (Oklahoma), six figures is considered a lot of money and a very good living. Of course, our housing costs are lower than the national average, but I have lived all over the country and always considered anything over $100,000 to be a darn good salary. I'm older than you, and have yet to hit $100,000 per year in salary, and I changed careers at the age of 41. Basically, I started over. Considering your (relatively young) age, I would say you are doing well.

 

Not a bad salary at all. The pharmaceutical industry is downsizing, but who isn't these days? Perhaps given your background it might be a little more pertinent to take a look at graduate schools in the biomedical sciences to make yourself more valuable to your pharmaceutical company. I don't know how much chemistry, biology, etc you have.

Many pharmacists and PA's do not make that kind of money without putting in the hours. Count your blessings, there are a lot of people who would love to be in your shoes. Here in Oklahoma or any of the other 50 states.

 

$117,000 is an incredible salary where I live....very few people make that much. If you are making $117k per year and not satisfied, then you are probably living in an expensive part of the country. How much one makes is completely relative to where one lives.

 

There really aren't too many options for hitting a salary like that...RA degree or not. The two options that readily come to mind are going to med school and being a physician or going to law school and passing the patent attorney bar exam.

 

Gamom,

Why don't you see if you can find an RA school that accepts NA credits in transfer and finish an RA bachelor's degree? You might be closer to degree completion than you realize.

 

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Really nice forum called Old Pre Meds (google it) that has great suggestions about med school as well as how to develop a plan as a non traditional student.
A few things that seem to be (nearly) agreeded upon-
BA/BS undergrad doesn't matter but needs to be RA
Sciences done at a community college will get a smirk
Take the Post-Bac if you can afford it, and ace EVERY course.
If you get a "B" redo it and if you get a "C" find a new career.


For my own suggestion, the track of medicine is all science. Even for a PA it's all science, so unless you are a specifically "science-kinda-guy" this is going to be really really hard. I don't know squat about science, but I'm completing the science pre-med series as what's called an "independent" meaning I'm taking my classes wherever I want. (I'm not going to med school- I'm going to nursing school with aspirations of graduate work). In any event, science is so central to the work, that I'd just suggest start taking some science classes at your local community college. Until you start memorizing neuro receptor sites 6 hours per day, you might think it isn't that bad. Here is the 2 year curriculum I'm working through (I'm finishing my first year) , and what you need to think about before you even go onto try and launder your NA bachelors into a RA bachelors.

Intro Biology
General Bio 1
General Bio 2
Intro Chem
General Chem 1
General Chem 2
Organic Chem 1
Organic Chem 2
Microbiology
Anatomy and Physiology 1
Anatomy and Physiology 2
Physics 1*

*you might need an algebra prereq

 

Thanks for all of the great advice and feedback. 117K is not bad at all. I hope I did not come across as not grateful for my job because I am. It is just in my personality to always look to improve and grow. Plus the industry I am in is just not the same as it was and very scary right now. I feel that if I don't have a back up plan things could get scary in the future. I have already escaped a couple of lay offs, but since I am the sole provider of my family it is a little nerve wracking.

Surprisingly after being in the pharma industry I have become more of a "science gal". But then again we will see. LOL. I think I will go the NA transfer to RA bachelors. Now if I can just remember which schools those were! Back to the search feature...

 

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I know for sure you can launder through APUS. I don't know how they handle completed degrees though, so maybe you would have to do a new degree with a major in something else. Still, that would only be about 30 credits- and you could integrate sciences into that. I don't know the layout of their majors, but if you did premed sciences locally, you could use a few of those along with the residency requirement at APUS. They do have some sciences with labs that are offered totally online- and it's CHEAP.

Apologies for saying "science guy" I was just using slang lol.

 

Hi Jennifer,

I just took a quick look at the APUS online science courses. While it's great that they offer these courses via DL, they do not appear to be intended for science majors. Along with that 2nd bachelors degree, gamom will need to make sure that she completes science courses intended for science majors. However, if gamom intends to complete a 2nd bachelors and then pursue a post-bacc program, then APUS might be a good option for her.

 

My wife's friend with DETC accredited degree was accepted to and completed a Caribbean Med school and passed all the board exams in US. (I don't remember
if it was St Luke school of medicine or another)

Then she couldn't find residency/internship that will accept her, years of trying without much in her age of 51. So she ended up becoming a RN.
Got well paying job as RN and progressed to Nurse Practitioner. Then once doing well as NP and good relationship on the job she found internship.

She took a huge cut in pay for some time wile an intern and then finally became MD.