r/premed • u/Dependent-Bicycle-42 • 11h ago

❔ Question Career switch - building application while working full time in med device industry

I’m currently 24 working in the medical device industry in orthopedics, specifically product management. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about the business/operational side of healthcare through my role. However, I know my true passion is delivering healthcare more directly, physician to patient.

I studied biology in undergrad and finished with a 3.81. Im currently studying for my MCAT and hope to take it early next year to potentially apply in May given I like my score. I’ll need both volunteer and clinical hours, how have others accomplished that while working full time (when your job doesn’t already count for hours)? Regular hospital volunteer networks? Weekend scribing? I’d love to hear more ideas and any advice from those who switched from big industry into medical school.

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u/DrNickatnyte GAP YEAR 11h ago

I work full time and have gotten almost all my clinical volunteering in a hospital ER (did majority during undergrad and grad school). My job does give me a good amount of clinical experience too all while studying for the MCAT

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u/StupidityHurts NON-TRADITIONAL 10h ago

DM me. I’m non-trad coming from ortho device. Might be able to help somewhat.

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u/Actual_Radish_8229 9h ago

Hi! I am also in ortho med device. Feel free to PM me! I will be applying next cycle. 

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u/MitochondrIonicBase 11h ago
  1. You also have to take general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics which are often not required for a bio degree.
  2. Your prior career will help you come off as more mature than someone going straight through but otherwise it's a pretty standard gap year activity. Particularly as the economy sucks and more and more nontrads apply to medical school, you need to check all of the boxes to avoid being screened out: hundreds of hours in clinical volunteering, 50+ hours shadowing, nonclinical volunteering, etc. As a nontrad myself, I felt like it was not really feasible to create a strong application in one year while working full time.

You are expected to get ~50 hours of shadowing, 150h of clinical volunteering, some non-clinical volunteering, etc. It also takes a while to begin volunteering, there is a ton of bureaucracy and background checking involved. Alongside MCAT studying, that's a lot to do by June, when applications go out.

This is an incredibly long road, so an extra year to have a solid application shouldn't be a deterrence IMO.

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u/Dependent-Bicycle-42 10h ago

I went to a UC so we had to take all chemistry, ochem, and physics with labs, so luckily that front is covered!