Doc227: I totally sympathize. I did what someone suggested you do -- I got my EMT-B, and I'm working as a tech in a really excellent ER. I'm loving the experience... but I'm still wetting my pants to think of the academic stuff ahead. I'm plenty smart, IQ-wise, but I never got the hang of being a really excellent student. I don't do amazingly well on standardized tests.
So I hope you'll know, I dig where you're coming from. And when I say what I'm going to say, I hope it'll come across in the spirit I intend it, because it's what I would do, and will do, if my own MCAT (in 2005, if all goes to plan) turns out <20.
Study hard, take a practice test every 4 weeks, and also do that real-world-experience thing. More is better, but it's never too late. Then re-take that bad boy, and do your utmost to spank it hard.
And then, if it just isn't coming together in that way that med schools happen to like... think about other healthcare careers. There are always going to be people who would make great doctors, but can't get in the door. Fight like hell to overcome your obstacles, but at some point it's honorable to consider other paths. If my choice was to stand still and retake the MCAT year after year after year, hoping for a seat in med school, or go forth and find another way to contribute, I'd only bang my head against the wall so many times.
Other programs might involve study that works better with the way your brain is programmed. Other schools might not have the need to be so number-centered.
My own research tells me that PA school is no easier to get into than med school, but yuo may find otherwise in your research. And the world needs good nurses in a serious way. Heck, the world is so short of nurses right now that adequate ones can get excellent jobs. And anyway, a good nurse can make a bigger difference in the life of a sick person than anyone else, anyhow. Radiology techs have a pretty kickin' thing going. EMT's and Paramedics have all the best stories. Everybody right up to the guy who restocks the supply room shelves is doing important work, and has the right to feel proud.
Don't feel like you're a failure if you don't happen to fit the med school mode, is all I'm trying to say. The test-taking and GPA stuff may or may not matter when you're a physician, but it definitely matters while you're an applicant and a student. It's a necessary evil, and it tends to inordinately reward poindexters with scary levels of focus and ambition, true. But docs need to hold all that trivia in their heads, and know when and how to perform the right procedure or get the right test, that one time in a thousand it's needed. Not all of us are going to make it to the land of long white coats, and that's cool too. We might belong somewhere nearby.
