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Law School Grad Thinking About Medicine?


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Hi all!

 

So I'm currently in my last year of law school, and have realized throughout my degree that I absolutely do not want to practice law. I was initially torn between law and med when deciding on a professional degree, and chose law because I had fairly ideological views on what I could do with it. I did my undergrad in neuroscience and really enjoyed it, and am very passionate about health care. I'm planning on writing my MCAT this summer and applying to med schools for the 2018 year, and just wanted some insight on whether having a law degree may hurt or help my application? I've done a ton of extracurriculars throughout my law degree, but mostly associated with the legal field itself- hoping it's not too problematic that I haven't done much in the health care field in the past 3 years. 

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stay in law..make bank.

your passion for healthcare will be drained once you see how broken the system is and how hard it is to provide good care. 

 

I would disagree. Don't stay in something you will be miserable in. I know ppl who are absolutely miserable in law and many make less bank than doctors. Law degree will not hurt your chances in med. Not saying that you won't be drained but you can say that the system is broken in many different fields aside from medicine.

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stay in law..make bank.

your passion for healthcare will be drained once you see how broken the system is and how hard it is to provide good care. 

Make bank?

 

Only a small percentage of lawyers make close to what the average physician makes.

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ha...
work hard...put that hard work u'd need to get into med and in med, to law.
my friends articling right now on bay street are pulling 100k, plus benefits, and all these perks.
if you like it, and have the chance, keep working hard in law and you'll be laughing.
the pay gradient is slower, but the chance to kill it is there. 

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Thanks everyone! The only thing I'm concerned about is my law school grades, not sure how much they will factor in. First two years I was very mediocre, this last year of law school I have been doing well above average. Undergrad GPA was 3.9 in the last three years, so I'm hoping that will be taken into higher consideration. I'm also from NL and applying to MUN which will is helpful. 

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Don't do medicine, long hours, low pay, no jobs. Its a career where you spend your 20s in the hospital suffering and a real risk of being unable to find a job at the end. Sure not all specialties are like this, but enough of them are like this that considering you have a law degree are likely in your mid 20s choosing medicine is just such a big mistake. 

 

You will be eschewing starbucks latte's, company offered yoga and sharp looking people in clean business suits for the beautiful smell of incontinent bowels in dirty wards that have not been updated since the 70s and half the pay, double the training time. 

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Don't do medicine, long hours, low pay, no jobs. Its a career where you spend your 20s in the hospital suffering and a real risk of being unable to find a job at the end. Sure not all specialties are like this, but enough of them are like this that considering you have a law degree are likely in your mid 20s choosing medicine is just such a big mistake. 

 

You will be eschewing starbucks latte's, company offered yoga and sharp looking people in clean business suits for the beautiful smell of incontinent bowels in dirty wards that have not been updated since the 70s and half the pay, double the training time. 

Bad day on rotation?

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Bad day on rotation?

 

Actually great month, but 1 in 2 call w/o post call days messes with your brain or shows you the reality, your pick  :P Note to future students though, you DO NOT have to do 1 in 2 call w/o post call days it is actually against the "rules" but it sometimes does happen but you always do this stuff voluntarily. 

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Don't do medicine, long hours, low pay, no jobs. Its a career where you spend your 20s in the hospital suffering and a real risk of being unable to find a job at the end. Sure not all specialties are like this, but enough of them are like this that considering you have a law degree are likely in your mid 20s choosing medicine is just such a big mistake. 

 

You will be eschewing starbucks latte's, company offered yoga and sharp looking people in clean business suits for the beautiful smell of incontinent bowels in dirty wards that have not been updated since the 70s and half the pay, double the training time. 

well said.

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Which specialties are like what Edict said?

 

Mainly surgical specialties (gen, neuro, cardiac etc). General rule is that if you were able to sleep you stay post-call, if you aren't able to sleep if theres a good OR case for you, you should stay for at least that case. Senior surgical residents will probably not take post call days if they involve OR time. If you are on service (doing a rotation in your specialty) you are more likely to not take post call days while if you are off service you are more likely to take post call days. 

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Actually great month, but 1 in 2 call w/o post call days messes with your brain or shows you the reality, your pick  :P Note to future students though, you DO NOT have to do 1 in 2 call w/o post call days it is actually against the "rules" but it sometimes does happen but you always do this stuff voluntarily. 

haha oh, im aware and didnt say i disagreed :P

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Edict, are these the only specialties that have trouble finding work at the end?

 

They also are the specialties where you will have trouble finding work... unless you work harder then you have a chance.

 

TBF, there is work in general surgery rurally, but if you want to be in a big city you may have trouble.  

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Edict, are these the only specialties that have trouble finding work at the end?

 

 

If you are geographically constrained, there are a bunch of specialties that are no longer viable to pursue unless you're willing to undergo more training. It includes most if not all the surgical specialties and a bunch of the internal medicine subspecialties most notably cardiology and nephrology. I heard both rads and anesthesiology job markets were worsening as well albeit not as bad as the surgical and some of the IM subspecialties.

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Hi lawdoctor,

 

I am a lawyer who ended up going the medical school route.

 

I definitely do not think that having a law degree will hurt your chances. I do believe it will help you stand out from other applicants and let you bring a different perspective to your application. This is particularly true during the interview process.

 

I believe many (most?) Canadian medical schools consider only your undergraduate GPA and basically ignore your law school GPA. I think this is what MUN does but I would double check. It might be an issue if you failed any classes in law school but barring that I wouldn't sweat it. Even then I'm not sure it would be a huge problem given your strong undergrad GPA.

 

As for extra curriculars, I wouldn't worry too much about having mostly legal-related experience, but you almost certainly will need some medical experience. 3L is pretty slack, so see if you can get started on something medical ASAP.

 

I'm not sure what your plan is for after graduation, but if it's still an option at this point I highly recommend articling and writing the bar. It will give you something to do in the interim and being able to say "I'm a lawyer" instead of "I graduated from law school but am not a lawyer", in my opinion, lends considerably to your credibility. It also keeps more doors open down the road (or so I'm told).

 

If you have any more general questions I am happy to respond here; if you're wondering more specifics send me a PM.

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If you are geographically constrained, there are a bunch of specialties that are no longer viable to pursue unless you're willing to undergo more training. It includes most if not all the surgical specialties and a bunch of the internal medicine subspecialties most notably cardiology and nephrology. I heard both rads and anesthesiology job markets were worsening as well albeit not as bad as the surgical and some of the IM subspecialties.

 

This is important advice, do not pursue medicine if you want to be some sort of procedural specialist and your plan when your 40 is to be living in Toronto or Vancouver unless you are interested in doing multiple fellowships +/- PhD and work your butt off. 

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so if most surgical specialties (Cardiac, General, Neuro, Vascular etc) have very long work hours + need to do fellowships/MSc + hard to find job in urban areas then why does anyone even go into them (excuse my ignorance) when there are other specialties (Family, EM, Derm, etc) with more tolerable hours + no need for fellowships to get a job + much more jobs in urban areas??? 

 

Because some people love the work so much they do not care about the lifestyle, prospects etc. Remember if i added up all the people who went into Cardiac, Neuro and Vasc together they would still be less than 2% of medical school grads. We are talking about a very small minority of people here who are interested in that kind of lifestyle. They are careerists and will make big sacrifices to their lifestyle and salary to do these jobs. Some will regret, but many won't. 

 

The reality is that doctors in fields like Cardiac, Neuro, Thoracic, HPB, Trauma, Vascular and Interventional Cardiology all of them sacrificed their 20s and early 30s lifestyle wise for their jobs and most of them still sacrifice on a regular basis doing emergency surgeries at night every 5 days. None of them will let you waltz into their fields without putting in a similar amount of effort they did.  

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I believe many (most?) Canadian medical schools consider only your undergraduate GPA and basically ignore your law school GPA. I think this is what MUN does but I would double check. It might be an issue if you failed any classes in law school but barring that I wouldn't sweat it. Even then I'm not sure it would be a huge problem given your strong undergrad GPA.

 

OP, I would double check with the schools themselves whether they consider your law school GPA.

I know some schools, like Mac and UofT, will look at your law school marks.

 

McMaster:

 

 

Is my professional school degree considered a graduate or undergraduate degree?

Canadian professional degrees are generally undergraduate degrees. These include law, engineering, the DVM, and teacher's college degrees.

 

UofT:

 

 

GRADUATE APPLICANTS: Are professional programs such as Dentistry, Law or Chiropractic College considered graduate programs?

 
No. Marks from completed years of university undergraduate professional programs such as Dentistry or Law are calculated as part of the undergraduate GPA. College marks (including Chiropractic, Naturopathic or Homeopathic programs) are not included in the GPA calculation. 
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