People who become doctors later in life, after ending a first career: why and how they do it

Not that this is anything most of us would likely want to try in our lives at this point, but I thought it might be something we could learn about, why some people do it, just out of curiosity if for no other reason.

It's certainly not all that common, but it does happen.

That a person has been successful, possibly even thriving, in some career during their early-to-mid adulthood years, say around age 30-40, but then they make the decision, for whatever reason, to pursue, with all the effort and challenges that it will surely require, a later-in-life second career as a medical doctor.

So why do these people do it, knowing that it will likely be an enormous undertaking for them to do this, in a number of ways, with no guarantee of success?

A couple of doctors giving video accounts of why they "made the jump" from an earlier career to medicine:

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=doctor+second+career+site%3awww.youtube.com&mid=590381418dfb1bc1df0b590381418dfb1bc1df0b&form=vire

And there are a number of articles out there about this, varying in aspect covered, amount of detail, etc.

From some of them:

MOTIVATION

“My illness opened my eyes to the field of medicine,” he said. “Trying to understand the science behind my condition and what my doctors did to cure me—eventually enabling me to lead a life that was unencumbered by pain—was so impactful for me. I thought that if I could help others the way my doctors had helped me, I had to pursue that possibility.”

"I come from a family of educators,” she said. “So going into teaching was just what you did ... But then I thought, ‘No. I absolutely know what it is I’m supposed to do, and it isn’t this ... I sold my house and moved in with my parents while I went to medical school.”

"Now a pulmonologist at the Mayo Clinic, Cowl said that his background as a reporter helps his medical career ... Interviewing skills are extremely important medical skills, and not really emphasized enough in medicine,” he said. “I think that as a reporter, you really have to listen to get the story. Doctors don’t do that as much or as well.”

"She pursued a degree in dance while taking premed classes at Cornell. “I’ve always really liked science,” she explained. “So I was switching between dance and premed ... (She) ... began to focus less on a dance career and more on contributing to society as a physician ... Now a cardiologist, she directs the Women’s Heart Center at Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute in Detroit."

"They lived in a rural area that lacked adequate healthcare. Dr. Russell quickly realized that with proper treatment, tragedies like this (death from illness of a childhood friend) could be avoided. “I thought to myself, ‘I am going to fix this situation. I am going to be a doctor in a rural town that needs me,’” she recalls."

“One of the benefits of medical schools requiring that applicants engage in shadowing is to give applicants a sense of what life as a physician is like,” he said. “Beginning a career in medicine requires a tremendous investment of time, energy and money. Making sure this is the right path for you up front is critically important.”

"(To give himself some academic background) ... He enrolled in a post-baccalaureate program at Portland State University ... It took about two years ... I had a full load of science classes every quarter, including summers."

STATS

"... the average age of a student matriculating into medical school in the United States is 24 years old."

"... people do enter medicine later in life — and some physicians may not begin practicing until their late 30s, 40s, or even 50s."

" ... recent years have seen an increase in first-year medical residents over the age of 29 in the U.S. and Canada, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges."

"As the number of first-year medical residents has increased overall, the percentage of first-year residents over age 29 also increased — from 35 percent of the total to 35.2 percent from 2012 to 2016."

FACTS OF THE MATTER

"Medical school is typically four years, but residency is another three to eight years. Keep in mind that after you are accepted into medical school, it will be at least seven years before you are independently practicing."

"Medical school and the residency that follows are rigorous and physically demanding, often involving intensive study and long hours on your feet. Someone who is starting medical school should consider their own personal health and what they have to give to their studies and a potential career change."

"Most medical schools require that you have at least a bachelor-level degree and that you have completed certain courses in chemistry, biology, and other sciences."

"As someone who may have previously been in management or another leadership role, beginning again at the bottom of the totem pole takes some adjustment.”

"If you do not have any background in the medical field, you will want to gain some kind of medical experience, both to strengthen your application and to get an idea of what being a doctor is actually like. There are many ways to do this, including volunteering at a hospital, shadowing a doctor, or getting a clinical job in a hospital or medical facility. Most medical schools will want to see some kind of healthcare experience in your past."

ADVANTAGES OF BEING OLDER

"Entering medical school as a nontraditional student could create some challenges, but your experience and maturity may benefit your medical school application, your student performance, and your new career goals."

"Your age could work to your benefit in an interview by showcasing the experiences you have had throughout your life and impressing your interviewers with your accomplishments."

" ... had a greater understanding of patient needs because of his rich life experiences prior to attending medical school."

" ... he gained experience as a stockbroker, a financial analyst, a computer programmer and consultant, and an outreach worker helping with HIV prevention. This range of different professional ventures helped (him) develop a multifaceted skill set while also providing him with the confidence that comes from new life experiences. Before long, he felt empowered to set his sights on medicine."

"There are several benefits for physicians who practice medicine after a career in another field. These doctors are well seasoned and usually have the maturity needed to undertake the rigor of medical school, residency and launching their medical careers. They also bring to the table real-world experience. They understand what it means to meet deadlines, complete projects, prioritize assignments and juggle multiple tasks simultaneously."

"Clear and concise communication, listening, problem-solving, collaborating and the ability to take constructive feedback are tools that serve doctors well in their work and are likely already part of older doctors’ toolkits from their previous careers."

Obviously, pursuing a medical degree later than the average student would, and especially after a first career at that, isn't for everybody.

But a common theme in almost all of the sites I read about doing this was that if a person wanted to do it badly enough, it was indeed possible.

As in the case of the Playboy Bunny who is also a medical technician and has plans to become a full MD someday:

https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/playboy-bunny-aspiring-doctor-danielle-lupo-double-life-090006938.html

about her:

"On mornings after a night of serving up “a whole lot of warm Bunny hugs, laughs and smiles” in her custom-made corset, ears and tail, the 25-year-old would slip on a pair of blue medical scrubs in readiness for her shift as a Certified Cardiographic Technician (CCT)."

"Danielle reveals that, after a decade working in healthcare, she hopes to become a doctor one day."

So a person's previous career can be just about anything, as long as his/her determination to work hard and actually become a doctor in the second act of life is there.

I suspect that most of us have probably always assumed that the doctors we have seen, or are seeing, all went from a pre-med college program directly into medical school in their early days. And that may have been the case for most or even all of them.

But wouldn't it be interesting to find out that some of them actually worked, perhaps even for years, at some non-medical job before making the move into medicine?

Learning that might affect how we see them, that they may have a broader view of life, a different experience, than we may have expected.

How interesting it would be to find out that our urologist, oncologist, etc., was in fact an English major, or a boxer, or even a jet pilot in a previous working life? (I found real-life examples of all three of these).

But in any case, I imagine the satisfaction and reward of those who pursue this goal of becoming a doctor later in life, and eventually achieving it, must be substantial indeed.

Sources of above quotes:

https://www.ama-assn.org/medical-students/preparing-medical-school/changing-careers-what-it-takes-start-over-and-become

https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/18/doctor-medicine-second-career/

https://www.aucmed.edu/about/blog/guide-on-becoming-doctor-later-in-life

https://www.sgu.edu/blog/medical/becoming-a-doctor-later-in-life/

https://medical.rossu.edu/about/blog/tips-on-becoming-a-doctor-later-in-life

mattam:

You make an interesting, and good, point when you say

"A 40 year-old starting med school will be around 50 years old by the time all training is done. Many would consider this a waste of resources since such a person's career would be relatively short."

In fact, I found that point made on several sites when doing research for this thread.

A common response to it that I found, however, for justifying training of older students, bearing in mind that they might indeed only be able to offer a shorter practicing career, was the matter of "return on investment."

The example given for that was recruiting doctors for family practice in rural areas, which in many areas is a challenge.

But the point made was that many "non-traditional" med students, such as older individuals, indicate a greater willingness to consider practicing in such areas, because they "simply want to help," and the "lure" of practicing in a "big city" isn't as strong as it might have been for them at a younger age.

And if the older person makes this point during the interview for getting into med school, the school may likely take notice, and consider this in its decision whether to accept the person.

So in this kind of situation, maybe it's a trade-off: between less return on investment in terms of practicing time, but more done in terms of supplying the rural need for doctors.

VinceInMT said...
While it wasn’t medical school, in my late-30s I decided to chuck my career (engineering, design, construction in the petro-chem area) and went back to college for a couple years and trained as a high school teacher. There were several reasons motivating the change. While I really liked what I did previously, I am also aware that life is short I want to have as many experiences as I can cram into it and I do that by re-inventing myself every decade or so.

.

I like reading life stories like this.

Cyclone-ISU said...
…A key point was the amount of time that doctors now spend, writing up patient summaries, filling out paperwork, and contacting insurance agencies, to get approval for patient needs……

Several of my running partners work at our local hospital so listening “shop talk” is frequent on our runs. One woman works in IT, training docs on the various software packages and another is a dermatologist there. They are currently beta testing AI generated charting. When the doc meets the patient, permission is asked to record the session. A microphone picks up all the conversation and AI filters out the non-medical chatter, and writes up the chart of the visit. I think the voice to text is Dragon (by Microsoft) and the AI is some proprietary stuff that works with the existing patient records package. So far, they say it’s getting better and better and the idea is to free up the docs from all that record-keeping (probably so they can see more patients and generate more income.)

I’ll see my PCP in June and he’s one of the beta testers so I might get a closer look at it.

BTW, medical software is not inexpensive. Our hospital just did a merger with another one in a distant part of the state. The other one uses a different record keeping system and the cost of expanding and merging the systems is something like a billion dollars. This is one reason that when I was teaching high school computer programming I encouraged my student to go into the software engineering field due to the big dollars in it. Many have, including my own kids, not necessarily in medical but out there in software engineering.