You may know by now that I do not have a hard science academic background. My undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Language Sciences, and I minored in Psychology. My graduate degree is a Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology. Don’t let the Master of “Science” fool you – the field of speech pathology is a science of its own, but I never had to complete a regular level biology class, chemistry, physics, etc. at the university level.
Fast forward to my unrelenting desire to become a physician…do I really need to take the MCAT??? If so, I’ll need to take all of the hard sciences to even prepare to take the MCAT!!! And just because I go through that process, doesn’t guarantee I’ll succeed on the MCAT….
This was the cycle of thoughts that prevented me from applying to medical school sooner – that, and the fact I didn’t know a school that doesn’t require the MCAT even existed!
To clarify, my medical school – Saint James School of Medicine – does not require the MCAT to be taken by its applicants. They do have scholarships available for students who have taken the MCAT, and the funding level of the award is determined by the score you achieve on the MCAT, but a large proportion of students at my school have never taken the MCAT. And they still graduate. And they still match into residency!
I should also clarify, I do have some level of experience with some of the medical school curriculum content from my undergraduate and graduate degrees. I was required to take anatomy and physiology of speech production, introduction to audiology, and neurology as it applies to speech-language pathology. So, I do have prior knowledge of the musculoskeletal system of the head, neck and trunk, a basic understanding of respiratory physiology, and the anatomy and physiology of hearing. All of this has certainly been helpful in my medical school classes, but it is still very limited in the context of the REST of the curriculum we are also responsible for learning!
The greatest challenge I have found with having essentially zero hard science background prior to medical school is having to learn a new language to understand the content we are being taught. So far, the major courses I have taken are: anatomy & embryology, histology, neuroscience, physiology, and biochemistry & genetics. The most challenging course for me has been biochemistry. When I say it’s like learning a new language, I’m talking about having to understand terms like “phosphorylation”, “dehydrogenase”, “hydroxylation”, and many, many more. There was a period earlier in the term when I felt like I was googling the definitions of terms every 5 minutes, just to understand what the professor or textbook was talking about, to be able to understand the concept they were teaching. This, of course, is time-consuming – both having to look up the definition and then to conceptualize it with the content they were teaching. But now, just over halfway through the term, I am definitely getting the hang of it and understanding this “language” way easier!
Sp, to answer the big question: can you succeed in medical school without a hard science background? The answer is a definite yes!! With the caveat that you will need to spend more time understanding the “language” of chemistry that many of your peers will already have a command of, and it requires a lot of hard work and dedication. But it’s totally possible, and worth it in the end. I think I’ll write another post in the future about determining whether you have what it takes to succeed in medical school without a science background, because it’s definitely important to be honest with yourself about this before you take the leap.
Let me know what you want me to post about next!
Feel free to email me at slptomd@gmail.com with any of your non-traditional/career-changer/medical schools questions.
Talk to you soon!
