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[NextChapter]

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[offmychestplease]

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[NextChapter]

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[offmychestplease]

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[NextChapter]

On 7/19/2020 at 11:50 PM, offmychestplease said:

McGill OOP accepted 10 people this year from nearly 1000 applications, just so you are aware. That's a 1% acceptance rate and the mode GPA was 4.0 and min was 3.90. Dal OOP is also extremely competitive. Not saying this to discourage you but some things you should know before embarking on this path. 

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[gogogo]

I agree with offmychestplease. Three more points for you to consider:

1. Do you actually think you'd be okay with starting medicine at 30? That's a major life disruption. Basically, you'd have given away your 20s and 30s to academic work. Please consider this seriously. Your life will be on hold until you're ~40. If you decide to marry and have kids during med school or residency, you won't have much time for them (even if you do family medicine, your life during med school and residency will still be nearly all-consuming). I am studying nearly non-stop every day and I started med school at 27. Please make sure that you are willing to sacrifice your 20s and 30s for what, at the end of the day, is just a job.

2. Those who go into medicine from a field requiring more creativity/thinking sometimes struggle/don't enjoy medicine. There are specifically posts from engineers in this forum and in others online where they lament that medicine is just memorization and they miss *thinking* like they did in engineering. I agree with this, too. I came from a field that was more about the big picture and critically thinking about problems. So far, my experience in medicine is that there is almost none of that. You memorize symptoms, indications for tests, etc. and follow guidelines. It feels pretty robotic. So, perhaps reflect a little more deeply about what drives you. It may be that medicine is not in fact the "engaging, challenging and science adjacent career" because, personally, I don't consider clinical medicine akin to practicing science at all. It is basically pattern recognition and you just get faster at that (academic medicine may be different, though the vast majority of doctors are not in academics). I encourage you to read more about engineers who switched into medicine and see if you'd be okay with the transition. Of course, this may be different once you start practicing; I can only speak about med school and my impression of the field.

3. Is there something else closer to engineering that you may enjoy? What about doing a degree in CS and going into software engineering, or doing a masters in data science and pursuing that? These are options that are closer to your field with a good job market/good pay but which would require less sacrifice and would allow you to start working sooner.

[petitmonstre111]

Unfortunately I also agree that this is an extremely risky plan... I am assuming you are based in Ontario? Have you considered relocating to another province? If you want to get better chances at either Dal or McGill, you may need to consider moving to either provinces.

While I totally understand the preference for continuing working full-time, I would encourage you to consider doing the opposite: work part-time, school full-time. I would suggest looking into 2 year accelerated nursing, or consider other degrees that could be completed within 2-3 years using some of your engineering degree, and that lead to another profession that you are interested in. Honestly your current plan really doesn’t seem worth it to me.

[NextChapter]

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[NextChapter]

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[petitmonstre111]

21 minutes ago, NextChapter said:

3. The problem is I'm trapped. No interships means getting a job has been near impossible to do in the time since I've left school and covid has made this all even worse. Bad grades mean I don't qualify for any STEM master's programs (maybe an MBA as they aren't nearly as selective as STEM masters if we're being honest but I don't really want to go down that career path anyway). Just don't really know where to go from here. I can't overstate just how dissatisfied I have been with my life experience since leaving school. Partly my fault for getting bad grades but I didn't know how rough the eng labour market was in general. Many of the people from my graduating class have left engineering. An entire second bachelor's in CS when I'm not really keen on being a SE is a tough sell but I appreciate the suggestions.

Have you looked into enrolling into an M.Eng? Many of them offer internships. This is a great way to compensate for your lack of experience. I know many people that did this to get a proper engineering jobs. How long have you been out of school? Which engineering degree? I certainly empathize with your struggles, and there may be ways out of them. Have you reached out to mentors in the field, other graduates that were successful in securing meaningful employment? I know this wasn’t what your post was about, but if you want to chat about engineering careers, feel free to PM me.

[takasugi]

Applying to one school is such a bad idea. Also, Queen's criteria is so weird and unknown. You might get an interview one year, improve your app but not get an interview the next year.

If you are serious about medicine and want to target one school, move to a province that's easier to get into and tailor your app for that school. Go to the North if you can (you will get an advantage at multiple schools), or go to Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Maritimes. Even BC. Get out of Ontario. 

[tallshirts]

The main concern I am going to respond to, that others have raised, is age. It really doesn't matter what age you are when you start school, except that as you get older you can't stay up as late and you need to plan your time better because you can't burn the candle at both ends. I think that whole "do you really want to put your life on hold until you're 40" argument is a bit ludicrous. I am in the process of switching careers from one profession to medicine (I start med school in a few weeks). I'm 34, and if all goes to plan I will be a physician by the time I'm 40. What is the average age of retirement for family doctors? 60? 65? Some work until they're much older than that. Personally, I would much rather have a shorter career that I like than a long one that I feel trapped by.

I also don't see the need to put things on hold. I am in a stable relationship and will be having a kid in November. Too many people see being in a relationship/married as some sort of conflict with their career, when in fact it can be useful to stave off burnout. Having a supportive partner and a little guy to come home to sounds like a pretty big value added, rather than any sort of sacrifice. You know what else I've learned in my "old age"? Boundaries. I know that in order to maintain my health, there are things I need to do - eat, sleep, stay active. A lot of students who have only been students get lulled into this fantasy that student life requires all-nighters and constant studying, when that's simply not true.

Everyone's experience is different. If you feel compelled to go to med school, then by all means try your darnedest to do so.

[gogogo]

9 hours ago, NextChapter said:

Thanks for the reply.

 

1. Well you're right the commitment is no joke but let me say that I've had massive difficulties getting an eng job (and therefore any job really) since leaving undergrad. Yes the thought of that sacrifice is very daunting but I don't really ever want to deal with the idleness of unemployment ever again and medicine seems like the cost to get through it all can be justified by the massive amounts of economic security. Economic security isn't my only motivation because I've also really enjoyed studying science all my life which is why I picked eng in the first place. However that kind of leads to my thoughts on your second point.

2. I'd never thought about that. I figured as someone who solved engineering problems in school, medicine would be vaguely similar but in the context of human biology. That's kind of concerning to hear you say. I'll research what other engineers have said about switching to med. Can you expound on your own experiences/feelings a bit more if you don't mind.

3. The problem is I'm trapped. No interships means getting a job has been near impossible to do in the time since I've left school and covid has made this all even worse. Bad grades mean I don't qualify for any STEM master's programs (maybe an MBA as they aren't nearly as selective as STEM masters if we're being honest but I don't really want to go down that career path anyway). Just don't really know where to go from here. I can't overstate just how dissatisfied I have been with my life experience since leaving school. Partly my fault for getting bad grades but I didn't know how rough the eng labour market was in general. Many of the people from my graduating class have left engineering. An entire second bachelor's in CS when I'm not really keen on being a SE is a tough sell but I appreciate the suggestions.

I feel like I could've written your post a year ago. I also first studied in a scientific field with poor job prospects and saw medicine as a perfect solution: it's scientific, has great salary + security, and it allows me to communicate with people--all big plusses to me. Now that I'm in med school, I see it a bit differently. I can only speak about medicine from the perspective of someone in their first year (who is also burnt out from studying all the time), so you may to wait for staff to comment on what I'm saying too. But to reply directly:

1. Economic security is very important. Again, I know how you feel because of my previous field and how after all of my sacrifices, I was faced with an undesirable financial situation and job prospects. But make sure you enjoy medicine because otherwise, no amount of money will compensate for the misery it causes you. This is a very common path to disappointment that many doctors are on. I had heard of people saying "don't go into medicine" before I started and I didn't understand where they were coming from. It seemed like a perfect job to me. But I am starting to understand their feelings now that I'm in the field. Just do you due diligence to figure out if you like medicine for the right reasons.

2. I do not consider medical practice a science. Maybe this changes when you are staff and again, maybe it's different in academic centres where you come across rarer diseases and need to figure it out. But so far, it's a ton of memorization. The students doing really well in my class are not that focused on the "why" of the disease, but rather, just the "what." They can, in a split second, list the common symptoms of any disease, the way to diagnose it, and the first-line medications/management. This is very different from conceptually thinking about a problem to come to a creative and critically-planned solution. When you practice, from my perspective, it seems like almost everything you see in clinic becomes mundane and you just get faster/more efficient at recognizing what the problem is. You follow algorithms. For example, if a patient comes in complaining of fatigue, you are taught to follow an algorithm to rule out the various causes of fatigue and narrow down your diagnosis. There isn't that much thinking in this, especially after you've done it 20x, because you're just following the steps until you have your diagnosis. And then when it comes to medications, you again just look it up to find which medication is the best fit for your patient. If you want more detail on what the practice of clinical medicine is like, just search "[disease x] american family physician" in google and go to the page to see how doctors approach a disease (here's an example). This is just family medicine, but my impression of other specialties so far shows me that it's pretty similar. As for specific examples of engineers going into medicine, here's an example (scroll to the response by HeyNow_HankKingsley, an engineer who didn't enjoy medicine). Here's another thread (look at what elevation and MarsRover have to say). I want to emphasize that I'm just a med student, so please see if staff agree with this assessment or they think medicine is scientific with a lot of critical and creative thinking.

3. Lots of people in tech are also self-taught. Maybe consider that as well. I know the dissatisfaction you feel, but maybe take some time to reflect. Don't make a decision out of disappointment. 

[gogogo]

49 minutes ago, tallshirts said:

I also don't see the need to put things on hold. I am in a stable relationship and will be having a kid in November. Too many people see being in a relationship/married as some sort of conflict with their career, when in fact it can be useful to stave off burnout. Having a supportive partner and a little guy to come home to sounds like a pretty big value added, rather than any sort of sacrifice. You know what else I've learned in my "old age"? Boundaries. I know that in order to maintain my health, there are things I need to do - eat, sleep, stay active. A lot of students who have only been students get lulled into this fantasy that student life requires all-nighters and constant studying, when that's simply not true.

Everyone's experience is different. If you feel compelled to go to med school, then by all means try your darnedest to do so.

Congratulations on making the career switch. I did it too and medicine is better than my previous career. I am also "older" than the average med student, though not that much (27). 

I do not agree with you about how med school and residency won't force you to put life on hold, however. By "on hold," I don't mean life has to stop. You can for sure get married, have a kid, buy a house, etc. if your circumstances allow. So instead, by "on hold," I mean not have as much time for those things as you would want. I am speaking as a med student in a long-term stable relationship and who has older parents in my class. Med school is all-consuming, especially clerkship. Residency is probably the same. Of course you can "make it work" during this time. But I don't think it's ideal. I am putting off kids for after residency because I can't imagine how I'll be a parent while I'm studying all the time. My partner is extremely supportive and understands why I barely have time to spend with her. Even when we do spend time, I am studying 90% of the time. The fathers and mothers in my program are going through the same thing. They don't have much time for their family and it's the partner who is shouldering most of the domestic duties. So of course, you can get through med school and residency while being a parent, but it's a very, very tough ride. Many of the younger students in my class also broke up with their partners pretty soon after med school started.

Your experience may be different and I hope you find a way to make it work!

[NextChapter]

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[offmychestplease]

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[gogogo]

19 minutes ago, NextChapter said:

Thanks for the reply and I will for sure reflect on all of this for a few more months and speak to more people. My response isn't meant to be dismissive just giving you my perspective after reading your threads (and others) about eng-->med and changing careers to med in general, coincidentally I read one that you yourself posted in. Tbh I was not as dissuaded as I thought I would be. For the few negative responses there were a number of people who concurred with my grievances about the engineering profession in Canada and many who were careful to point out that non-medical professions generally speaking have their own share of troubles. As an engineer I would have relatively less stability than doctors (currently dealing with it rn as I am unemployed), eng's deal with their own version of office politics and bureaucracy, salary progression is like 55k-->120k at best unless you go into management but then what was the point of engineering, very few jobs are innovative design jobs I percieved engineering to be when young, and some have to work 50+ hours anyway. Basically I'm just trying to say as a young kid picking engineering out of high school my perception of it was highly unrealistic. Perhaps medicine won't work out and in a few years I'll look back and laugh at this thread I started but I know for sure there is no way I'm staying in engineering until I retire.

Also I don't want to get too ahead of myself but don't medical careers have a lot of flexibility? If I ever did get accepted to med school and found out the typical clinical medicine job isn't for me I feel like I still have many options. MBA-->hospital/business management, consulting, academic medicine, entrepreneurship, locum style practicing, in-patient vs out-patient choice, etc.

I am not at all trying to dissuade you. Medicine, from a purely career standpoint (pay, respect, impact, stability, autonomy, etc.) is very good and very hard to match in another industry in Canada, as long as you know what you want from life and pursue a specialty that fits that (e.g., if you want money, probably don't go into peds; if you want lifestyle, probably don't go into neurosurgery; if you want a specific location for work, probably don't go into general surgery, etc.). I will point out the many pitfalls in other careers for people who think that the grass is greener in other careers. Most other careers don't enjoy the purely practical benefits that doctors get. And that part is fantastic for doctors.

I was specifically responding to your idea that medicine provides a career where you get to practice science every day. If that is what you are looking for, I don't think medicine is the right pick, because I don't consider most medicine that scientific in practice (it is obviously based on scientific research, but most doctors don't want to deal with that). 

P.S. Some of the issues you pointed out with engineering (low stability, office politics, hours) could end up being issues in medicine too. So, just be careful about which specialty you pick (if you decide on medicine). Specifically, some specialties have less stability (e.g., many surgical specialties have a poor job market); most hospitals have lots of politics; and hours are usually long. But back to my point above, if you know what you want from life and know what you are willing to sacrifice (e.g., I've heard that you have to pick two of the three: money, prestige, and lifestyle), then you can find a specialty in medicine that will provide that.

[petitmonstre111]

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[Butterfly_]

I think in your 5 year plan you should also factor in that even after getting your degree and mcat done, you still may need to apply 3+ times before getting in. 

Also, just applying to 1-3 schools is very risky. You should get a proper degree and apply as broadly as you can. 

I was working full time prior to applying medicine and actually quit my job so I could study full-time. In the last year before quitting, I saved up a bunch of money and then lived off savings. 

Also in medicine, to be a successful doctor, i think it's more about interpersonal skills and knowing how to talk to people rather than about the science...the humanity aspect is key...at least that's what I've realized so far from my clinical rotations and what my preceptors have been telling me. 

If you want a very creative and highly scientific career perhaps there are other choices out there for you.

Furthermore, regarding job stability, it really depends on the specialty that you go in to. I know many in ortho, internal sub specialties, and other surgical specialties that have lots of difficulty finding staff positions after residency. They have to do several fellowships before getting a full-time job ~ that's like 10+ years of studying medicine...so don't forget to factor that in too. Family medicine, however, looks quite good as a job market, but it probably doesn't have the creativity and science that you're looking for. 

All in all, best of luck on your journey.

[Psych]

Hey! It seems like you've given this choice a lot of thought, and many people have provided very useful viewpoints. I just wanted to echo the concerns of only applying to one school, ESPECIALLY Queen's, as well as give my personal experience. The first big issue with Queen's is its very small class size. They have only 100 spots (the smallest in Ontario except for NOSM), but 10 are for QuARMS and a few others are reserved for specific populations (I'm not too knowledgeable about this but I believe they have a few spots for those in the military, etc.) + people who defer, so really you're looking at only 80-85 spots. For 500+ interviewees and 5000+ applicants, that's statistically a very low  chance of getting in. Not to mention, Queen's is notorious for being a "black box" in that their selection process is largely unknown and even seems a bit random at times.

Personally, I was fortunate enough to receive three interviews to Mac, Ottawa, and Queen's this cycle. I attended in-person interviews at Ottawa and Queen's (Mac was cancelled), with Ottawa being my first interview. I didn't feel that good about my Ottawa interview. I didn't think I bombed it, but I definitely messed up on some questions and felt at best pretty "meh" about it. By contrast, I felt great about Queen's. Other than one MMI station which was a bit rough, I felt like I killed the other 5 stations and the panel. I was at least expecting a spot on the waitlist.

Come May 12th, I was accepted to both Ottawa and Mac but rejected completely from Queen's. I was very grateful for my acceptances, but all this just goes to show (at least in my opinion) that you really never know what the admissions committees are looking for, especially at Queen's. This is all my personal experience of course, but my point is that getting into Queen's seems to me to be a bit of a shot in the dark in that it seems very hard to tell what they're looking for, and having what felt to me like a strong application and interview was not enough to even get me on the waitlist. Take my experience with a grain of salt, but I'd be very hesitant to only apply to one school, especially Queen's.

[totesmcgoats]

On 7/19/2020 at 11:12 PM, NextChapter said:

Thoughts

1. Working full-time and taking 3 courses while getting a high enough GPA will be very exhausting (I'm aiming for 3.75+).

2. A plan to apply to only one medical school is very narrow and therefore risky.

3. The work full-time/study part-time plan is a good hedge. I will be able to make some money. If I don't want to do this anymore I can stick to my current career. It may make my non-trad application stand out.

4. If the years go by and I only get more serious about this and Queens doesn't work for some reason I can always finish the online degree and thus have more schools I'd be competitive for.

5. If this actually happens I'd start med school at 30 (+/- 1 year)

 

Advice or insight would be great so I can alter my plan/thinking before I get too deep in. Thanks.

I just saw this and wanted to give my two cents. I am absolutely rooting for you to succeed in whichever career you pursue. My background is in engineering with a low GPA, didn't decide on med until a year after I graduated engineering and go into Queen's. Some similarities are striking, but my path differed from your plan quite a bit.

I'm a stickler for being transparent, so I'll tell you my stats for you to compare. CGPA was ~3.3 on OMSAS, final 2 year GPA for queen's was ~3.7 out of undergrad (this was still too low in my opinion). I was half a year into my office-labor software engineering job and said to myself that this is not what I want to do the rest of my life after seeing what 20, 30-year employees did. I decided to do a MASc related to medicine and engineering, published a bunch, 4.0 GPA, won some awards in medical conferences and applied everywhere I could. Got interview at Alberta and Queen's (both had special considerations for grad students), and was accepted to queens. This was 2 years after I decided to apply.

In response to your thoughts:

1. Working full time and courses: I would say no if you're dead set on medicine but yes if you're open to not maximizing your medicine chances. If money isn't an issue, it is much better to do a 2-year degree of some sort (either MASc or 2-year computer science programs like BCS at UBC which gives you a full computer science degree). If GPA is a problem, people have tried doing a work term at a lab and getting on a supervisor's good side. Or start with MEng then transfer to MASc. I would suggest to not do just MEng because that disqualifies you from some schools and there is a plethora of resume benefits of doing research). You can also do an internship while on your second degree. You'll still get a salary (~$20,000) as a research grad student if that is what you want to do. This is for two reasons: i) You really, really want to expand your eligibility - med admissions is subjective and has an element of randomnesss and you can spend 6, 7 cycles applying to the same school even if you would've gotten in on the 3rd cycle because you had a bad interview day or something. ii) this moves you upward in the engineering world too, allowing your more diverse engineering or engineering related work, especially the "cool design work" you said you like.

2. Absolutely agree. I was thinking of applying only my in-province school since it seemed like statistically I had the best shot there, but if I did, then I wouldn't be in med school right now.

3. As long as you're doing "something" in engineering, or business, or whatever you want to pursue as your alternative, you're always building your resume. But I would urge you to double check (e.g. contact someone) to make sure whatever degree program you're pursuing is recognized. Absolutely do not assume a program is ok because it "doesn't break any explicit rules" on the website - a friend had that mistake and couldn't apply for a year.

4. Nothing to add here that I didn't say in 3.

5. If it is your dream career (and please experience it a bit by either volunteering clinically or doing work with clinicians), then starting at 30 is not biggie. Lots of my classmates are 30+ even with kids.


But aside from that, I do have some more things to add:

1. Medicine may be really good for you or really bad, you won't really know until you get some exposure. It may be great for you, but the reason it is good will not be the diversity of medicine. I disagree that the allure of medicine over engineering is that it is more diverse - in my experience an MD career is far, far less diverse than what you can do in engineering. Everything you listed that isn't clinical work can also be achieved as an engineer in the engineering world. In engineering there is also pure business engineering, consulting work, technical engineering, management, sales, etc. all in potentially different fields (electrical, computer, chemical, mechanical, mechatronics, geo, mining, biomedical). This is not saying that medicine isn't for you, moreso that you should go into medicine if you are sure you want to do what an MD does. The feeling you have of being "stuck" after going through engineering is far, far, worse if you feel "stuck" after doing an MD and not liking it.

2. If you wanted to know how "medical school" thinking differences from "engineering thinking", there is far less "figure out how this system works through mathematical, logical arguments" or "build a solution for this specific problem". A lot of things we learned are from observational science. There is still problem solving, but in a very, very, different way. Message me if you want more details on this so I won't spam a wall of analogies. There is almost none of the cool research-and-development work like your capstone/thesis projects in engineering, especially when you practice unless you go into research (which makes far, far less money).

3. It's great that you are open to the possibility medicine isn't for you and you may "fall back" on engineering. That is absolutely fine. So it seems what you should do now is strategize what time investments give the safest yield to provide you opportunities in non-medicine while also giving you time to have a chance at it. E.g. maybe you do some coursework, get on an instructor's good side, get into some research programs and make great connections and get a job at a kickass medical engineering company. From there maybe you either really like it and stay or you've built an incredible resume to apply to med.

4. I apologize that this is presumptive because I don't know exactly what programs you qualify or don't qualify for. If you're not working, I'd highly suggest to exhaust a list of potential school targets for your next few years. It's common for engineering graduates to be "stuck" with a low GPA (and say, a niche area like geological engineering) with no jobs. But there were plenty of opportunities and resources offered to me to "advance" my education in the form of second shortened bachelor degrees and several different institutions (remember that the undergrad school doesn't matter as long as it's accredited), or grad programs that didn't require a high GPA. 

5. Be very strategic on your "volunteering activities". Going through engineering, you may have skills like SolidWorks, circuit design, programming, fabrication, etc. (don't know what exactly you studied). These are amazing skills that are very unique. You can pursue great clinical projects with them e.g. 3-d printing implant models which will show that you have the acumen to approach clinical problems with a unique skillset. Everyone and their mother has the trifecta of hospital volunteering + student club exec + some community service (these are good, but won't make you stand out.

6. Perhaps you can talk to an engineering advisor about your current position? I loved the R&D world of engineering but couldn't find any positions out of undergrad unless I was okay making pennies. But there are lots of engineering opportunities that aren't "office labor" which it seem like both you and I hate that aren't advertised openly on indeed.com or wherever.

7. Whatever schooling you do, absolutely rock it.

If you have any more questions and want to discuss, absolutely feel free.

[NextChapter]

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[neurologist19]

I am not commenting on the technicality of taking part-time courses, etc. However, as far as age, I see this argument of "holding out on life" for 10 years or whatever and I roll my eyes everytime I see it. Maybe it is my age (28) and different types of experiences I had in life but I believe you are the person who decide how much work to put in your career, studies, etc.  Believe me, any sort of high-status job in these days takes a huge chunk of your days, whether it is an lawyer, university professor,  financial advisor, or a doctor.  I am working in Tech industry and anytime I see those complains about dealing with grumpy people, long working hours, etc, I imagine that the same post could be written by a software engineer working at Amazon or Tesla. If you want to progress in any sort of industry, you should work long hours and deal with all sort of unpleasant people for .... the rest of your life. It is called life. Even in medicine, the mindset that after 10 years and finishing residency you will go on the "vacation  mode" seems a bit cartoonish to me. I know doctors in my family who are quite old but they work like a fresh grad student, leave early and come back home late, working on weekends, etc. I also know med students who cruize through med school because they do not care where they will wind up in and they are fine with any specialty/residency place. Your career is what you make out of it. You decide how much time you want to dedicate to it, no matter if you are a first year med student or an attending doctor. 

Also at the end of the day, the pain and regret of never trying never leaves you unless you try and see for yourself if something was for you or not.

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Regarding the job security aspect, it is quite interesting that many people do not fully grasp the anxiety of being jobless and living on the verge of letting go with any economic fluctuation. I personally prefer working 12 hours (hell even more) a day as a med student and resident and have a 100% job security rather than dealing with anxiety of "potential unemployment" and maybe homelessness after a few months when they saving are all soaked up virtually all the time.