How can I apply to med school after doing Masters in Engineering?

[messmania]

About me: I am 30 years old, have Masters(thesis based) in engineering from India. I had been working for the past 5 years as a Web Developer. I recently moved to Canada (Toronto) as a permanent resident.

TL;DR: If I want to apply to med school, how can I go about it? I do not have the pre-reqs (as I did my undergrad and graduation in engineering) or any extra-curricular.

I have always loved biology and now want to pursue my interest in that field. It has been 10 years on-off since I have been thinking of switching my field but always got lost in the current situations of education, work and life.

Possible path: I am considering doing an undergrad in the field of biology, as I am not too sure about med school at this point. I do not want to make another career switch without being completely sure about it. I am partially eligible to apply to med school right now since I have a Masters, provided I do the pre-reqs 'somehow'. I want to keep my options open in case I want to do something in the field of Biology other than med school (or in case I do not get through med school). I am have done research only with regards to University of Toronto and University of British Columbia's criteria for MD program as of now.

I would appreciate anyone who can provide me with inputs. My main concerns at this point is:

1. I plan to align my courses for the first year (undergrad) in such a manner that I complete the pre-reqs for med school in first year,  in case I become sure of going to a med school at the end of first year. If I plan to discontinue the undergrad program, will the courses completed count towards my pre-reqs?  Does university give credits for the courses completed if a student drops/withdraws from the program?

2. Can I drop the undergraduate program and go to a med school (if accepted) considering I did my pre-reqs in first year of undergrad, do medical schools consider this as valid pre-reqs? If not, would I have to drop college and do pre-reqs as post-bacc or non-degree studies for another year?

3. I also found that some med schools do no have this requirement of pre-reqs, can you please tell me if targeting those would be a better choice? Is there significant difference in the quality of education compared to UofT or UBC?

Thank you so much for reading it all
I would appreciate any help or suggestions!

[Engg2Med]

Hi @messmania I am also in  similar situation. I have a bachelor and master's degree in engg. I am preparing for MCAT. As you will read on this forum, undergrad GPA is KING!! I would suggest looking at your Bachelor's GPA to see how close it is to the competitive GPA for MedSchools. If you scored high enough GPA or % in undergrad you may not need to invest time in doing another undergrad. For your questions #1 and #2, I would say its best to email Med schools. May be other senior members on the forum can help address them. 

For question #3: If I were you, I would apply to as many schools as possible to keep all options open. Don't know about the quality of education for UofT v/s UBC. Mcmaster, Queens, UWO don't have prereq requirements. Queens has lower cutoff for Grad students (as per their website). UofT has prereqs but they give credit to Grad students (confirmed this last week by emailing them). Check their admissions website for more details. Also, UofT prereq is 2 FCEs in any life science and 1 FCE in social sciences, humanities, or a language which is not a lot if you consider registering for these courses. I am planning to do the same.

Also, I have recently applied for WES Evaluation of my undergrad degree so I will know where I stand. You might want to do that before enrolling in a second undergrad. You may not need one if you have a good GPA already. When you apply to Medschools, you will need to get WES evaluation anyway so you might as well get it done now and save some time later when you apply.

Happy to connect and stay in touch if you want to talk more. Feel free to PM me.

Good Luck! 

[messmania]

@Engg2Med Thank you so much for replying.

My undergrad GPA is 3.7 and my masters GPA is 4. I am not intending to do another degree for improving for GPA but for keeping my options open.

As I mentioned I am not entirely sure if I want to go into Medicine, I just know that I want to do something in the field of Biology. At this point, I don't want to make a decision of working towards a med school without being 100% sure about it. So I want to form a base in the field of Biology by doing an undergrad. If I decide to pursue med school, I would want to drop my undergrad and focus on med school prep but not sure how pre-reqs situation will work in this case.

I have WES evaluated Masters degree, will I have to get my undergrad evaluated as well?

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For your questions #1 and #2, I would say its best to email Med schools. May be other senior members on the forum can help address them. 

I am not entirely sure if it is right to ask university about a situation which involves me potentially dropping their program. I have no idea in this regard. 

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Also, UofT prereq is 2 FCEs in any life science and 1 FCE in social sciences, humanities, or a language which is not a lot if you consider registering for these courses. I am planning to do the same.

Can you tell me how are you planning to do these? I have read about non-degree studies and post-bacc programs (I did not find info about credible post-bacc programs from a univ). Are there other ways to go about it?

Good luck for your MCAT prep!  

[Engg2Med]

If and when you decide to apply to Med Schools, you will require WES evaluation of your undergrad grades. They don't consider the GPA that your international university issued transcript has on it.

For prereqs, I am currently looking at courses offered by Athabasca. From what I can tell, post-bacc programs are more prominent in US and not so much in Canada so I am not really exploring them.