I don't have prerequisites for med school. What do I do?

[simplybetter]

   Hi, everyone. I hope that each of you is doing well. Here is my question. I am almost graduating from a college in South Korea, and I suddenly I understood that I want to go to Ph.D to study diseases like cancer or neurology. The thing is that I don't have any prerequisites. I have to complete some courses that will make me to stay in college for one or one and half year. That means. Also, I love doing Computer Science and there is a high probability I will also like doing job in my area and that I will get a good job offer with good salary. I have thought what if I work for 2-3 years in my area and then how can go to a graduate school for PhD program to study neurology? Is there any premed one or two year courses that are accredited within the United States. Actually I would love to aim at good med schools. I just wonder isn't there ANY WAYS to do this? My friend has the same dream but he is already working and he doesn't want to go to ungergrad college to study for 4-5 years. I hope that there are some people who can help me out. Thanks everyone! Have a nice day!

[knp]

What you want to be googling is "med school post bacc"—these are collections of courses for students considering going back to medical school who don't have all of their prerequisites down. I have a couple friends who were humanities majors and did these and are now doing well in medical school. I think all of them are expensive, but I assume some medical salaries could make it worth it, depending, and of course having them only be a year or two saves you both money and time compared to an undergraduate college. I have no idea what requirements for admission, international status, variation among them, or anything else relevant about them might be, but that's the name of the category you're searching for. Good luck!

[juilletmercredi]

Hold on a minute, though. Do you want to go to medical school, or do you want to get a PhD in a biomedical sciences field? Because first you say you want a PhD to "study diseases like cancer: and later n you say you'd love to aim at good medical schools.

If you want to go to med school, get an MD and be a doctor - then there's two things you should know. One, getting a position in a U.S. medical school as an international student is very, very hard. Second, knp's advice about doing a postbacc premed program is spot on.

If you want to get a PhD in a biomedical sciences (which is different from going to med school, even though some PhD programs are affiliated with med schools), then you don't necessarily want a premed postbacc program. Some of classes you need are often represented in a premedical studies postbacc program, but not all of them. Furthermore, it sounds like you want to work full-time while you do it, and many postbacc pre-med programs are full-time.

But there is an easy way to do this: you can just take the classes you need as a non-degree student. Usually you can put in a little rubber-stamp application at a nearby four-year college/university and take some classes as a non-degree student. You'd want to look at PhD programs first and see what kind of prerequisites they have to make sure you are taking the classes you need to take, and then take those.

The other thing, though, is that to be competitive for PhD programs in the biomedical sciences you will need research experience. So if you don't have that, you need to get some, at least 2-3 years (part-time is fine).