New Generation of Medical Students: Never Too Late
The medical student peering into a microscope and scribbling notes about a tissue slide she had been studying paused long enough to admit “there are times when I am totally buried under piles of information, and I wonder why I am doing this.”
“Then I remember,” she said, “that all along in my life, in the back of my mind was the thought that I very much wanted to be a doctor.”
Meet Jean Forman--at 46 a grandmother and a first-year student at the USC School of Medicine.
At an age when thoughts of retirement enter the minds of some physicians, Forman is just starting out. And she is not alone.
Carl Gottschling, until a few years ago a fighter jet radar intercept officer in the Marines, is, at age 39, also a first-year medical student at USC.
“I think I’ll have a few gray hairs by the time I go into practice,” he joked.
Forman and Gottschling reflect what has become a quiet new national trend: Not only are more older people applying for medical colleges, but more are being accepted.
Getting on in years, but kicking up their heals.
“It was about seven years ago, and three of my four kids were in college,” Forman recalled. “I had married right out of high school, I had three of my kids in a row, and now I found myself sitting down and asking: ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life?’
“I had never been to college. I went down to Long Beach City College and registered. I didn’t tell anybody. For the first time in my life, this was something for me, and it didn’t matter what anybody else thought. I took two classes, psychology and accounting, to see if my brain was still working. I got straight A’s and wound up going full time. I remember that one day I stopped in the hall and found myself smiling, because being in college was where I wanted to be. After I finished there, I thought I should be practical and become a CPA. I was accepted by the USC School of Business and actually went down and registered.
“Then I came home and started crying, because I had always wanted to be a doctor. We had a family doctor when I was a little girl in Seattle, and when he walked in, you just knew everything was going to be OK. It fascinated me that someone could do that.”
Forman’s second oldest son, Scott, was then attending the UCLA School of Medicine. She said she figured it would be too late in life for her, and would be too difficult.
“But I withdrew from the business school, and instead started taking science classes at UC Irvine,” she went on. “I majored in biology, and got my degree last June.” Her classes had qualified as pre med.
The previous September she had taken and passed the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), even though she felt she would be considered too old.
Last year, according to Dr. William Nerlich, associate dean for admissions and student affairs, there were about 3,200 applications for admission to the USC School of Medicine. A screening committee narrowed these down to around 700 for interviews. Of these, only 136 got in. Forman and Gottschling were among them.
For 11 years, until 1981, Gottschling was in the Marine Corps, much of that time spent flying in the back seat of F-4 Phantom Jets.
“You eventually realize, though, that you won’t fly forever. And I couldn’t envision myself flying a desk.
“After I got out of the service, I got a bachelor of science degree in biology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio,” the former captain said. “The thought of becoming a doctor had crossed my mind, but my grades weren’t good enough. I knew that my proficiency in science wouldn’t have done me much good for the MCAT.”
Years earlier, while on a Marine exercise in South Korea, he got to observe service physicians doing what they could in some of the villages. “What we take for granted as basic medical care, and what is the case elsewhere in the world startled me,” Gottschling said.
A seed for a new career began germinating.
After Bowling Green, the former officer attended Cal State Fullerton, this time majoring in chemistry. Last spring, older and wiser, he was again graduated, this time well prepared for the MCAT, and now one of the lucky few in this semester’s medical program.
“I think my mom in Ohio is probably as happy as I am,” he said. “She always told me I could accomplish anything I wanted to.”
“There are certainly more older students than there were years ago,” said Dr. June Marshall, associate dean of student affairs at the USC School of Medicine. “Not only do they adapt extremely well, but they bring maturity to a class, which is important.”
At USC (a typical national example), consider these figures for medical matriculants:
- In the 136-student class of 1981, only six students were over the age of 25, and the top age was 32.
- In the current class of 1991, there are 29 students over the age of 25, and the top age is 46.
At the UCLA School of Medicine, according to a school spokesman, the number of entering students over age 25 (in a class of 140) increased from 15 in 1977 to 20 this year.
That there is a new breed of doctor on the horizon, with less of a career span but with more maturity at the outset, is a national reality.
Joan Hartman Moore, director of education with the Assn. of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C., supplied statistics for all medical schools in the United States, covering three age groups and comparing 1978 with 1986 (the latest year for which the figures are available):
- In 1978, 65.4% of the applicants were age 23 or younger, 31.8% were between the ages of 24 and 31 and only 2.5% were older than 31.
- By 1986, 59.2% of the applicants were 23 or younger, 34% were between the ages of 24 and 31 and 6.5% were 32 or older.
- In 1978, 75.6% of those who matriculated were age 23 and younger, 23% were between the ages of 24 and 31 and only 1% were over 31.
- By 1986, 68.2% of those who matriculated were age 23 and younger, 27.2% were between the ages of 24 and 31, and 4.3% were 32 or older.
“We call them atypical applicants,” Nerlich said of the older hopefuls. “The typical ones are those who go directly into medical school after getting their bachelor’s degrees.”
Most atypicals, Nerlich said, have been away from school a while, having tried another field, then come to the conclusion that their calling should be in medicine.
Part of the USC application process, he explained, is a one-page, essay-type personal statement. Quite often, Nerlich said, the older applicant will write that he or she always had an interest in a medical career, but was deflected for financial reasons, or that their undergraduate grades wouldn’t be competitive enough, or perhaps that they had a father who was, say, an engineer, and wanted the son or daughter to follow in his footsteps.
“They do have this advantage--their personal statements are often unique,” the associate dean said. “With kids right out of college, their biographies all tend to sound the same.
“Since the statements of the atypicals often stand out because they are so interesting, I think it helps in their selection to be interviewed.”
Marshall emphasized that, once accepted, “just because they are older, they don’t get any special treatment--otherwise we would be setting up double standards.”
Such treatment probably wouldn’t be needed anyway. “As you grow older, you become more efficient,” Marshall said. “You learn to budget your time better. You aren’t as easily distracted. You have more focus.
“And that isn’t meant to degrade the younger students in any way. They will continue to be the majority in the classrooms.”
“Age is no longer a consideration for an applicant,” Nerlich added. “At one time there was the thought that if one candidate would be able to bring to medicine about 40 years of practice and another 25 years, all other things being equal, you would have favored the younger person.
“Now, with the increasing experience of medical schools with older applicants, we have all come to instead appreciate the stability they may bring.”
“The studying itself isn’t that hard,” Gottschling said. “What is difficult for me is to realize that at my age, I don’t have a lot of money. I’m basically going through medical school on government loans.”
The former Marine aviator, who is single, takes classes from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, drives to his South Pasadena home to study until 10 p.m., and studies most of his weekends.
Gottschling said that, considering what he saw in South Korea, he might join the Peace Corps after he becomes an MD.
Or he might choose anesthesiology. “Being a radar intercept officer appealed to me in that, I didn’t have control of the plane but I was an essential part of a team,” he said. “Now, in the same sense, I don’t see myself as a surgeon, but rather as part of a team again.”
Forman, who has two grandchildren, said her current routine is worth it--”but for the time being you give up your life.”
Like Gottschling, she generally attends classes until 5 p.m., but rather than heading directly to her Long Beach home, she prefers to study on campus until 10 p.m.
“One weekend I took time out to go to a restaurant for my grandson’s birthday. I felt guilty because I wasn’t studying.”
What lies ahead is two years of classroom work, then two years in a rotation of hospitals--”and to me that’s being a doctor,” she said.
Actually, when it becomes official, Forman may set up a family practice here in conjunction with her son.
Meanwhile, one thing that keeps her persevering is a gift from daughters Kathy (a teacher) and Mindy (marketing rep), and sons Scott (doctor) and Todd (high school senior).
It is a plastic clipboard, engraved with the words: “Dr. Jean Forman. We love you, Mom.”
