BSN Degree , Any Good??? (help needed....)

[Guest darronolson]

I am interested in attending medical school in the future and am trying to decide on what i should get as my undergraduate degree.

I am interested in getting my "Batchelor of Science in Nursing" (BSN) , so if i can't get in to med school i have something to fall back on , and was wondering if it holds any credibility to Medical School addmitance.

Has anyone ever got into medschool with a BSN instead of a conventional 3-Year pre-med Batchelor of Science????

 

any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

thanks

darron

[Guest cheech10]

I'm sure I heard there were some nurses who got in, but I don't know where. As long as you get the required courses (and I imagine Nursing shouldn't be a problem here) with excellent grades, you should have as good a chance as anyone.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Hi Darron,

 

We had a question very similar to yours in the past:

 

pub44.ezboard.com/fpremed101frm0.showMessage?topicID=325.topic

 

Of note is that one of our moderators was a nurse in practice who subsequently re-entered university for medical school. However, I think you need to assess whether you would be happy working as a nurse. If you think that you would be completely unhappy working as a nurse, and you are only enrolling in that degree as a means to enter medical school, then my suggestion would be to study a different degree and leave that spot open for someone who truly wants to work as a nurse.

 

While there are many examples of other heath professionals re-entering university to become doctors (I have former pharmacists, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists in my class), they are in the significant minority. You may well be asked about your committment level for medicine during your application process as it may look as though you're "jumping ship" out of nursing.

 

This is all just my opinion. For information on some other health professions that many people may not know much about, check here:

 

premed101.com/career.html

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest aneliz]

I attended an info session in March for the BScN program at Western with a friend. The academic counsellor for the nursing program addressed this question. She said that while it is *possible* to use nursing as a 'premed' program it is not as direct a path as a traditional science degree. The nursing students at Western DO NOT take traditional med pre-req courses like general chemistry, biology or organic chemistry. Instead, they focus more on applied 'nursing' courses right from first year. (Courses like: 'the self and society, nutrition and foods, nursing theory and practice, etc.) To get the required med pre-reqs would require using all of your electives (which are very limited) to do first year science courses. You would also need to use your summers to get the rest of the pre-reqs that don't fit in to your elective time. She stated that very few of their nursing students have historically gone directly from their BScN to an MD program, however, some do go back to school to be a doctor after they have graduated and worked for a few years. I don't know the details of any of the other BScN programs, but I imagine that they are likely similar. So don't assume that you will automatically be able to get all of the med pre-reqs from a BScN degree. It is a specialised, professional degree program designed to produce good nurses, not prepare people to enter med school.

 

If you really want to use nursing as a back-up, you should consider some of the two year post-BSc nursing programs. I know that there is one at UofT. You do a regular science degree, which lets you get your pre-reqs more easily, and then, after you graduate with a BSc (assuming that you didn't get into meds), you apply to the post-grad nursing program and do your clinical training and you have a BSc and a BScN in six years.

 

Good luck!