[WhompingWindows]

My dream job was to be an MD. I went to a grade deflationary undergrad, UChicago, and was too interested in music, social life, and sleeping to achieve a high GPA. I scored 90th percentile on the MCAT and had choruses, piano, humanities, and research in my background, but merely having a 3.35 GPA meant I got 0 interviews after 11 applications to medical school.

How devastating is that: you dream to be an MD for a decade, you work on it for 5 years, spend thousands of dollars prepping and applying, and you receive ZERO responses from a human voice, just automated email replies? Okay, dream A was quashed, so then what?

I fell into programming for healthcare. I'm not good at it. I struggle to understand basic SQL joins, intermediate R, and intermediate statistics. I can barely solve beginner-level coding interview questions and I never pluck up the motivation to build side-projects, given all the "real life" chores and hobbies distracting me. I lost my last 2 healthcare coding jobs for being too outspoken with my criticisms and opinions. I didn't have the political savvy or grit to swallow my objections and play nice.

I'm still looking for my next position. I want to use SQL, R, and statistics to solve real-world problems in healthcare or climate. This isn't a dream, but it's interesting, it'll pay better than anything else I could do, and I can tell myself I'm lessening suffering and improving human lives. For this next post, I'm going to have to find a place that accepts my openly disagreeable nature, or just swallow it down and say "Yes, Sir" to whatever my bosses demand.

[halfmatthalfcat]

Is applying to 11 medical schools considered a lot? Where they all like A tier med schools or were you willing to settle for something less prestigious?

I’m just asking because I’d imagine you’d be able to get into _a_ med school with your academic credentials but maybe not the best one? I’ve also never applied to a med school so I could be talking out my ass.

[WhompingWindows]

It's not a lot, it's pretty standard. The chances of getting into any of them are very low these days, some schools get thousands of apps for 100-200 spots, leaving an acceptance rate of 5-10%. I'd wager they WANT this to improve their "Newsweek" Ratings, shake my head, think of all the shortages of doctors are bright-eyed 23 year olds who get rejected and have to repeat the process, all to maintain exclusivity (and due to limits on how many residents/interns we can train at once).

I didn't apply to the top-tier schools. I knew my GPA would be an algorithmic non-starter, a human wouldn't even look at a GPA under 3.5 in many schools. Also, I'm a white male biological sciences major, not exactly a rare type for medical schools applicants.

Keep in mind, UChicago Bio Sciences had courses I was required to take, that had graduate students and actual medical students in them, that had the median student with an 80 average. How sadistic is that? A classroom full of brilliant students, and half of them will get C's and D's? You can guess which half I was in...

In the end, it may have been a blessing, because MD school is VERY expensive and time-consuming, and I would've been a poor doctor like family medicine or pediatrician, so I'd be financially way worse off and probably a lot more stressed if I had succeeded down that path.

[analog31]

Acceptance rates are a meaningless figure. The reason is that if there are 100 applicants, and 100 spots, and every applicant sends out 100 applications, the acceptance rate will be 1%, but they will all get spots. Dating myself, I once commented that acceptance rates have gone down because of the laser printer.

The qualities that you mention in your above post might have made you unhappy as a doctor, even if you had gotten in. I live in a town where you can't swing a cat without hitting a doctor. Most of them strike me as people who would have gotten 4.0 GPA's for the pure enjoyment of it, i.e., competing for a 4.0 was in fact a dream job for them while it lasted. Their kids all have 4.0 GPA's as well. Those who have social lives tend to be older. Many end up switching to part-time status or retiring early. The rich ones all had family money to invest and are not solely dependent on salary income.

[volkk]

You sound exactly like one of my best friends. He couldn't get into med school due to very average MCAT scores and so he started working in research making pennies. After some odd years of that and racking up a ton of credit card debt, he had a go at a coding bootcamp and found a job as a senior engineer making over 130K almost quadrupling his salary. Not sure whether that speaks more to his intelligence or to our industry. I'm happy for him that he doesn't need to worry about next months rent anymore, though

[sjg007]

You could probably still become an MD if you really want it. Go volunteer, maybe in a 3rd world country. You might have to retake some of the qualification classes too. The Caribbean med schools seem to be a good deal. I know a guy who went from being a professional chef to MD in his thirties. There's going to be a big shortage of doctors and I think covid burnout is probably a thing too.

[killtimeatwork]

> I fell into programming for healthcare. I'm not good at it. I struggle to understand basic SQL joins, intermediate R, and intermediate statistics.

Maybe you're just overwhelmed and don't allocate enough time to learn each of those concepted? Joins in particular are a very simple concept that could be understood in a weekend of reading tutorials and playing with them. Honestly, the worst thing about them is probably the naming/syntax confusion across database engines.

BTW regarding studying medicine: here in Poland, in every city with a medical school, I see US students who are getting their M.D. here (they're easy to notice as they congregate in Starbuckses and study there). Many look like they're in their late twenties or in their thirties. Maybe it's a route for you as well?

[WhompingWindows]

Just about joins in particular. I get them now, but I struggled joining hospital tables together because they had around a dozen different ID keys that all meant something different - patient, provider, hospital, clinic, room, and these could vary geographically, so many of them were not "unique" and you needed to combine multiple ones. It's not so much the JOIN that was tough, but the universe of tables and keys we had to contend with at the hospital.