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After the pre-med, I want to be a doctor, is nursing a good pre-med course for me?

Since childhood, I want to be a nurse because I want to take care of patients. But I realized that I am afraid of blood. But I really loved to watch k- #medicine #doctor #nursing #medical drama about medical field and that's why right now, I am confuse.

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Ashley’s Answer

Hi Jen,

I hope all is well. Nursing and Pre-med are two different tracks. With nursing, you complete a Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) and take the state's board exam to get a license. With Pre-Med, you complete a Bachelor's degree in anything, usually students major in a science field, as long as you complete the pre-requisites for medical school. After a bachelors degree, you take the MCAT exam which is the entrance exam to enter medical school. In terms of being afraid of blood, if you really want to enter the health field, I would suggest you contact your local health care professional to see if you can shadow them and get a look at the medical field environment. Who knows, maybe you are not as afraid like you may think. Best of luck on all of your endeavors.

-Ashley Garcia
Thank you comment icon Thank you for your advise. I appreciated it so I just wanna share that I already told my parents that I will be pursuing engineering. But recently I got confuse, so I am planning to stop studying this AY and I will work first because nursing cause too much money and I am from a poor family. I am really confuse right now. Jen
Thank you comment icon Thank you! Jen
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Ashlee’s Answer

Hi Jen,

I understand and I get this question a lot as a University Advisor. As Ms. Garcia mentioned in her comment above, Nursing and Pre-Med are actually very different degree tracks, which comes as a surprise to a lot of students. However, not only are they very different fields within healthcare, also a lot of Professional Medical Programs (which is what you entered into after your Bachelor's degree to become an MD/Doctor) prefer different classes than those taken in the Nursing tracks. This can be seen at most University's Admissions websites. Here they will list pre-requisite (prior) classes that are needed in order to reach degree completion for Biomed/Pre-Med and BSN/Nursing programs. So I recommend researching the University you are going to attend and their Pre-Med and Pre-Nursing program information. In addition, if you are afraid of blood, I would complete some job shadowing observational hours with a Dr., so that you can determine if it's actually the blood that scares you, or sticking the needle in the patient and so on. If blood/bodily fluids is something that you can't overcome, then I would recommend doing further research, in order to determine if there is another area of healthcare that you would be interested in, such as Echocardiography or even Epidemiology. I hope this helps, and remember you can do it!!!
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Yasemin’s Answer

Hi Jen! So both fields are different; if you do want to be a doctor you will be premed and apply to medical school but for nursing you will take certain courses and can obtain your BSN/RN so a Bachelor's of Science and nursing as well. Both fields are wonderful but do have different requirements and responsibilities so that is something to research further and be sure about. However, for either field you will be working with patients and will be seeing blood; in this case I would recommend to get experience in volunteering in a hospital or shadowing a physician or nurse if you can. For applying to medical school both volunteering and shadowing a physician is preferred. Sometimes it can also take getting use to and if you love medicine well it can be something that you overcome! So give yourself time!

Best of luck!
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Estelle’s Answer

I agree with Richard. Nursing is a good major because you can get a job right away if you are not sure you want to go on to become a physician. Aside from that, pick a major that really interests you. If you approach your degree wholeheartedly, your grades will reflect your enthusiasm and intelligence. Remember that medical schools look at your GPA, MCAT scores, letters of recommendation, and personal statements. If you pick a major that you enjoy, the GPA and letters of recommendation will naturally follow.
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Richard’s Answer

Pick a major that interests you so you don't mind devoting a majority of your hours to studying. You will need to get good grades in college in order to apply for medical school. At the medical school I attended, the average GPA is reported to be 3.85, so even one or two B's can hurt your chances of acceptance. Nursing is a fine major. It has the advantage of providing a degree with which you can get a job right out of college if medical school option doesn't work out.
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Jocelyn’s Answer

Nursing and medicine are two different mindsets, as well as different paths. Nursing in general teaches you how to take care of people. This includes everything that effects their life (socioeconomic, lifestyle, stress, nutrition, etc). Med school teaches you how to treat disease processes and investigate why someone is having these issues in the medical sense. I’ve been a nurse for 10 yrs and recently graduated with my master’s as a nurse practitioner.
My suggestion is see if you can do a “ride along” with a nurse, doctor, PA, NP or each one. It would be a shame if you decided nursing wasn’t for you after you were in school.
I and of course I will put my plug in for NP because you get both nursing and medicine side :)
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Judy’s Answer

There is a big difference between nursing and becoming a doctor even though there are many of the same basic science requirements. If you are concerned about the cost of school, unless you think you have the grades and test scores to get full scholarships, it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars more to become a physician. The quickest route to making money is to become an RN with an associate degree. You can work on a bachelor's degree while working full time and your institution will usually pay a good portion of the tuition. Not all of nursing deals with a lot of blood. You could be a psych nurse, a pediatric nurse and many other nursing roles with little to no blood. I am an oncology nurse practitioner and seldom see blood. To make more money you can go to graduate school-I worked full time while going to graduate school and again you can get assistance from your employer. Medical school takes a lot longer and the path includes more blood crossing your path but you could end up with a fabulous profession and really help patients. I agree that you need to investigate with any contacts you know such as your own physician to observe and discuss what was hard and what made it all well worth it. Good luck. Don't feel bad not knowing what to at this point in your life. i didn't have a clue coming at of high school but have been able to translate past knowledge into new careers as my life progressed. Judy
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