Respiratory Therapy vs. Masters

[Guest KineticsChick]

Hi All...

 

I am a med school wannabe for sure! I have wanted this most of my life. I am a recent grad from U of O in Human Kinetics. My gpa is not the best, it is awesome the last 2 years (surprisingly the years I took the harder courses), but I plan to write the MCATs

 

My dilemma is does anyone know of anyone who has been admitted to Med that has done Resp. Therapy? Also, I am debating between this and a masters in physiology, I assume masters would be better for admission?

 

Thanks!!!

[Guest tirisa]

Hey Kineticschick,

 

First of all, the fact that your GPA is great in the last two years is an awesome sign... you clearly do really well when you're interested and challenged. I'm not familiar with the admissions requirements for all the different schools, but I do know that UWO looks at your two best years only, so make sure you apply there, once you do your MCATs.

 

However, your question was regarding Resp. Therapy or a masters, and you said that you assumed that a masters will be better for admissions... however, having a masters is not necessarily an advantage. Some schools consider it and others do not, so you need to look at each schools' requirements. Check the OMSAS website or each individual university website for info on how they consider graduate degrees.

 

However, regarding an additional degree, what has been said repeatedly by several members of this forum is that you need to do what you are interested in taking, not what you think the admissions committee wants to see. Regardless of whether you do a masters or a respiratory therapy degree, you are going to need to invest a lot of time and energy... particularly if you are doing a masters with a thesis... which is not always a barrel of fun. So take what YOU want to take.

 

And if you're doing an additional degree simply for improving your chances to get into med school, then maybe you need to also consider taking a year off and getting some employment experience in some area of the health care system. That way, you can focus on doing a great MCAT and get some job experience that you'll be able to talk about during the interviews that you'll hopefully get.

 

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts...

Good luck.

Tirisa

[Guest monksters]

Hi there,

 

I had applied for respiratory therapy and Masters too after my BSc. I got a spots in both but did not end up taking either partially because I got a good starter job in a respiratory clinic as a tech and because it does take about 3 years for RT and at least 2 for MSc.

 

I think the advantages of taking respiratory therapy are that its very hands on and you could get jobs in Intesive Care Units and Emerg right after graduation with relatively good pay. You usually work in team environments and there is a lot of variety.

 

The quality of the masters program really depends on your interest in the area and the mentorship qualities of your supervisor.

 

I ended up working three years and did a bit of both worlds working as respiratory tech first in a respiratoy clinic and then in a clinical trial. Albiet I had less clinical responsibility then an actual RRT, but I still got to do a lot medical history, lung function, sputum induction procedures and smoking cessation programs. If you look hard enough good opportunities are out there if you poke your head around.

 

Hope this helps

 

Cheers

m