Later in Life Doctor MD/DO

[dewisant]

https://willpeachmd.com/studying-medicin...xr7AZ7sI0w

Will Peach has several articles about becoming a later in life MD or DO Doctor.

[bjcheung77]

Hmm, that's not 'later in life' as I thought, the individual is only 31 years old.. One of members started their Caribbean MD at an even older age if I recall correctly. Then you have someone already 54 in another thread thinking of getting a Bachelors and start on their MD journey...

[dewisant]

Hmm, that's not 'later in life' as I thought, the individual is only 31 years old.. One of members started their Caribbean MD at an even older age if I recall correctly.  Then you have someone already 54 in another thread thinking of getting a Bachelors and start on their MD journey...

To be young at heart seems to be the key.

[openair]

I agree with bjcheung. The Cambridge dictionary defines middle age as "the period of your life, usually considered to be from about 45 to 60 years old, when you are no longer young, but are not yet old" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction...middle-age). Being in the early thirties, the guy clearly does not match the "later in life" profile, although his experience among even younger students may have led him to believe such a thing.

[ss20ts]

If 31 is later in life, I must already be dead! I would never say 31 is later in life. Good grief.

[dewisant]

I am probably too old to do this @ 61.

[jg_nuy]

I am probably too old to do this @ 61.

You never know:

Now, the hard part: After graduating from med school at 62, he'll start 3-year residency:
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/h...206379001/

[dewisant]

I am probably too old to do this @ 61.

You never know:

Now, the hard part: After graduating from med school at 62, he'll start 3-year residency:
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/h...206379001/

I only have 9 Math & Science semester credits as we speak.

[indigoshuffle]

Seems like it's on your mind. Med school is it's own unique thing. I would think the hardest part of being older is the energy toll it would take on the body. You would almost certainly be granted faster admission via a Caribbean school or a school in another country. It's a serious decision. 
You might want to google Dr. Pamela Wible and Dr. Andre Pinesett, lord knows they've talked a lot of people out of it but only if they believed it would be a bad move for that person. I've personally spoken to Dr. Pinesett quite a bit, hence my decision NOT to go. But I am not ageist and I think if you have the financial resources, time, desire, support, MENTAL and physical health status that will support completing med school, then why not? as far as you only having 9 classes or 9 credits or whatever, that's honestly not an issue anymore. Even Harvard med school takes online sciences, so you have lots of options there. UNE, Doane, Portage Learning, your local community college.

As an interesting side note, did you know that going to med school increases your risk of suicide by a whopping 20%? If I remember Dr. Wible correctly I think it's higher than that if you have any prior mental health challenges including ANY issues with anxiety or depression. I wonder how many parents would push their children to med school if they knew that? Looks like there is an advantage to being older, after all!

[GameSlinger]

I was Pre-Med up until I got into the management field and I would have been 50+ when finishing Med School. I created a spreadsheet that helped me calculate the expected earnings over the rest of my anticipated remaining working years. My health was failing so I knew I would not be able to remain a long haul truck driver for another 20 years. I was making well over $100K USD a year but couldn't sustain that. I calculated in my expected costs of schooling (I talked the VA into paying for Med School) as well as several years without income and low income due to residency. My break even point was going to be age 65 so I said why not and went for it.

After getting offered the position of Operations Manager, I had to recalculate my earnings potentials and my break even point was now 70+ so I switched from Pre-Med to Business courses. That combined with my huge amount of credits from the military training me for electronics is how I have over 200 credits, but didn't have a bachelors degree. I am now working on combining all those random credits into a laundry list of different degrees to force my new employer to give me even better roles. I am hoping to get into their Space Exploration group.

Good luck to everyone that decides to go for Medical school. I believe there is no wrong answer for if it is too late, it is only too late when you believe it is for your situation.