Health Care Professionals Group

Is nursing a good stepping stone for students who wish to become medical doctors?

Public Comments

1. I'd very much doubt it. It's a separate career structure.
2. I concur
3. Yes Because you get to see how it fells to work with people who need medical assistant. In addition, have an idea of what other doctors do in the hospital and how they communicate with their colleagues. In addition, if you do not like it then you wont waste many years studying and then do not like it but if you do like it. It could help when you do choose to study it because you will know what to expect. Hope this helps and Good luck
4. Yes, I think it could get you started before medical school. Nursing would get you familiar with the field of mdicine. However, you have to go to school to be an actual nurse. So it would help, but you would taking up four years of preperation of going to medical school to be a doctor.
5. you should ask other people that you trust not the people on the computer!
6. If you have already done your training to be a nurse then yes
7. if you mean, do a nursing degree beforehand, NO. you will end up in so much debt and likely be stuck as a nurse doing the doctors' dirty work! don't consider nursing as an alternative if medicine is really what you want to do. if you don't get in to do medicine first time, either take a gap year doing some worthwhile voluntary or hospital work, or do a science-based degree like molecular biology, which will stand you in good stead if you do decide to reapply. when you're applying to do medicine it's important that you have done some worthwhile work experience, either in a nursing home or voluntary work of some sort, to prove that you are interested and committed to the subject. good luck! x
8. It probably won't hurt, but it really isn't much of a help. I know a few doctors who were nurses first. One in particular had rather a rough time in residency... she had an attitude, but maybe it was just her. Nursing and medicine a totally separate, but complementary, careers. There is a different mindset between the two. Nursing is a good (and required) stepping stone for advanced practice nursing careers, like nurse midwifery, nurse anesthesia, or nurse practitioner. Any of those still need physician back-up/supervision. If you want to be a physician, choose a major that interests you. If that's nursing, great, but don't go into it thinking you will have any advantage in getting into medical school.
9. Like Pangolin, I have known a few nurses who later graduated from medical school and entered the practice of medicine. The ones I knew all became fine physicians. I know physicians who were graduates of pharmacy school, mechanical and electrical engineering, music, classical languages, and one who even went to one year of vet school. But all these persons decided that their initial career path was wrong for them and that they would rather opt for a career in medicine. But ordinarily I don't think it a great career path to medicine.