How old is too old to study medicine?

[Denim]

How old is too old? It seems most Caribbean MD applicants are early to mid 20’s. How about late 20’s and 30’s?

[Groove]

I turned 30 my first semester at SGU. My roommate was 36. We had a smattering of guys in their 40s and one was in his early 50s. My roommate was a practicing lawyer and flunked out. The guy in his early 50s is now a practicing GP in Canada. I know one of the guys in his mid 40s could not pass his second USMLE step exam and dropped out about halfway through. I'm currently a practicing emergency physician in the Southeast US.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's more about the individual and not the age but it does get more difficult to discipline yourself to the rigors of academics the older you get. Contrary to my classmates, I found the first 2 years of intense book study to be much more difficult than the last 2 years of clinical rotations and "hospital work". Good luck.

[Denim]

Thanks Groove
Would you say most freshman at SGU were fresh out of undergrad or did most have some experience behind them?

[Groove]

Thanks Groove
Would you say most freshman at SGU were fresh out of undergrad or did most have some experience behind them?

Hmm, I'm not really certain and would have to see some statistics. Anecdotally, my impression was that it reflected a pretty typical medical school class with the majority of students not too far from undergraduate school. Those of us who were older were a definite minority.

[shanelowney]

It’s never too late if you are ready to make the commitment to at least 7 years of school and residency. It is very demanding but manageable also few of my classmates were in their 30’s as well.

[Groove]

I agree to some degree. 30 was definitely doable for me but I'm in my mid forties now and I can't fathom drumming up the energy to do that again at my current age. I think it definitely gets harder the older you get and the farther you've been away from school. That being said, I wouldn't change anything and I'm definitely blessed to have succeeded in my efforts. It was a lot of debt for me. I went to SGU and after residency I owed almost 400K. It took a few years of aggressive payments and foregoing retirement savings to be able to pay it all off. I'm still playing catch up with my retirement.

[shanelowney]

Hy Denim,
Absolutely you can do in any age period & even Mature-Age students could make better doctors because of their life experience.