MD to JD Forum

[red eyes]

Hi guys,

I am sure that this question has been beaten to death so much it has turned to glue. Unfortunately, I suck at using the search function, so here I am.

First off, I hope everyone who reads this is having a good day and a nice labor day weekend.

None of this is to brag or any bull like that. I can get my wife to tell me how Awesome I am, so I don't need the interwebs for that.

Well, here it is:

- 36 year old assistant professor at an Emergency Medicine department (AKA ER doctor at a teaching hospital/trauma center)
- Bored to tears now by the field and looking into doing some pro-bono ACLU kind of stuff.
- Money is not an issue, as I can do 4 shifts a month and make 60k Comfortably after taxes.
- Took LSAT a few months back and scored 176
- GPA from Med School = 3.8, and undergrad in physics = 3.8 (both from regular state school - so easy a cave man can do it).

What kind of schools do I need to apply to for getting into the ACLU or other like entities. I don't give a rats behind about prestige, so I am not worried about applying to HLS or Stanford, I am just not sure what kind of schools I should be looking at. Don't worry about advising me to stay in medicine because I am not totally leaving the field. I just need something a tad more interesting in my life right now and I am sure pro-bono civil liberties stuff is where my heart always was.

Any way, thanks for all the advice and your time guys.

[IAFG]

PI hasn't been hiring straight out of school. They just don't have the funding. ACLU is like, the golden ring of PI work, too. Going to Harvard (or Yale or Stanford) would help, but wouldn't guarantee anything.

[red eyes]

PI hasn't been hiring straight out of school. They just don't have the funding. ACLU is like, the golden ring of PI work, too. Going to Harvard (or Yale or Stanford) would help, but wouldn't guarantee anything.

Thanks for the reply, and cool avatar by the way.

I should add, that my main interest is I disagree with everything you have to say, but will defend, to the death your right to say it kind of work. (KKK, here comes your pro bono horse j/k)

I figured it was some what hierarchical like the medical field. I am guessing it will take some 5-10 years of public defense kind of stuff before they even look at you. Does this sound right?

LOL, btw, I first thought you meant Personal Injury instead of Public Interest. I'm not fast enough to chase the new ambulances they have out their (god I loathe those guys).

[PDaddy]

I should add, that my main interest is I disagree with everything you have to say, but will defend, to the death your right to say it kind of work. (KKK, here comes your pro bono horse j/k)

You have a 3.8 in med school and don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"? You also used an unnecessary comma after the word "add". There are also a few other gramatical and/or punctuation errors in your post(s).

Doctors are very detail-oriented. Either your writing skills are poor and you are NOT a doctor, or you are one of the laziest doctors on the planet. Lol.

[red eyes]

OP wrote:

I should add, that my main interest is I disagree with everything you have to say, but will defend, to the death your right to say it kind of work. (KKK, here comes your pro bono horse j/k)

Response:

You have a 3.8 in med school and don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"? You also used an unnecessary comma after the word "add".

Doctors are very detail-oriented. Either your writing skills are poor and you are NOT a doctor, or you are one of the laziest doctors on the planet. Lol.

Why so angry? LoL . . .

To answer your question. I am very lazy.

All of your Medical School exams and your licensing exams are of the multiple guess variety. The only legible thing you have to submit during your career are 2 personal statements. One for med school and one for residency. Our medical charts look like they could have been written by 3rd grade ESL students.

I think I scored functionally illiterate on my MCAT writing portion. That means I can recognize words like Burger King, but can't actually read them. I just know that those two symbols together = yumm.

Yes, doctors can be anal, but not about the things that you seem to be constipated about. We care about "your" hematocrit 2 hours after a car accident. We don't care about "your" proper use of pronouns. I don't know if you have ever had the experience of deciphering a medical chart, but one thing I can tell you, it ain't pretty. We use enough acronyms and bad grammar to make even a 15 year old girl on a T9 cell phone jealous.

Like I said, don't worry about me trying to get my chub rubbed on the internet. I can have my wife do that if I want, so net ego stroking will be unnecessary. Just worry about answering the question, by providing some sound advice.

PS: to make things even more fun, I am typing this all out on a slow android. . . YAY

EDIT: Just saw this, but when did I use Your wrong? Just asking to learn, not be snarky? I don't remember wanting to say you are anywhere . . .

[masterthearts]

Hi guys,

I am sure that this question has been beaten to death so much it has turned to glue. Unfortunately, I suck at using the search function, so here I am.

First off, I hope everyone who reads this is having a good day and a nice labor day weekend.

None of this is to brag or any bull like that. I can get my wife to tell me how Awesome I am, so I don't need the interwebs for that.

Well, here it is:

- 36 year old assistant professor at an Emergency Medicine department (AKA ER doctor at a teaching hospital/trauma center)
- Bored to tears now by the field and looking into doing some pro-bono ACLU kind of stuff.
- Money is not an issue, as I can do 4 shifts a month and make 60k Comfortably after taxes.
- Took LSAT a few months back and scored 176
- GPA from Med School = 3.8, and undergrad in physics = 3.8 (both from regular state school - so easy a cave man can do it).

What kind of schools do I need to apply to for getting into the ACLU or other like entities. I don't give a rats behind about prestige, so I am not worried about applying to HLS or Stanford, I am just not sure what kind of schools I should be looking at. Don't worry about advising me to stay in medicine because I am not totally leaving the field. I just need something a tad more interesting in my life right now and I am sure pro-bono civil liberties stuff is where my heart always was.

Any way, thanks for all the advice and your time guys.

I would tell you to just do some volunteer work at your local soup kitchen to get the personal satisfaction you are seeking.

[Ixiion]

I should add, that my main interest is I disagree with everything you have to say, but will defend, to the death your right to say it kind of work. (KKK, here comes your pro bono horse j/k)

You have a 3.8 in med school and don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"? You also used an unnecessary comma after the word "add". There are also a few other gramatical and/or punctuation errors in your post(s).

Doctors are very detail-oriented. Either your writing skills are poor and you are NOT a doctor, or you are one of the laziest doctors on the planet. Lol.

Uh. Dude, he used the right 'your'.

YOUR right to say it.. not you are right to say it. It's the possessive term. I have a right to say something, not I am right to say something.

K? Maybe you really shouldn't be correcting people. -_-

[sunynp]

You could probably get into a top school. I don't understand your question- are you asking which school is likely to get you to do public interest work? Probably Yale.

I think you need to understand more about legal hiring. It isn't at all like medicine. There are way too many qualified lawyers and very few jobs in PI. You sound a little naive about law and hiring. Also, while I know you are a great student - law school is graded on a mandatory curve. You can't be certain you will get the grades you need to even get into the PI field.

Honestly, I know you mean well, but wouldn't you be better off volunteering the skills you already have?

[02889]

A potential (though not particularly easy) option for getting involved with the ACLU and making your career more interesting is to make yourself a sought-after expert witness in civil rights litigation cases. Without knowing more about you, I can't offer specifics, but groups like the ACLU have go-to physicians and doctors in, say, cases where a doctor in Alabama needs hospital privileges to see patients but no nearby hospital will admit a black doctor, or when an abortion provider in South Dakota needs licensure through a local health board and they won't give it to him/her because of the nature of his/her practice. Civil rights cases involving medical issues are very common and are often worked on by the ACLU or similar groups. The experts are often pretty involved, go through depositions, etc.

Something to consider before jumping into law schools and many years of grueling work before you finally, 7-10 years from now, reach the type of work you think you want to do.

[Verity]

PDaddy is an idiot. Check his posts for confirmation.

BTW, OP, you should go talk to a lot of lawyers to get an idea of what you're getting into. The descriptions you gave of what kind of legal work you'd like to do are, forgive me, sort of naive and silly. Law isn't a crusader's dream. 90% of the time, it's probably more boring than whatever you're doing. And even if you get one of the highly coveted, near-impossible-to-get hotshot ACLU jobs, which won't come until after law school and several more years distinguishing yourself as a hotshot attorney, and some luck, even then it's probably not what you think it is.

Keep your day job.

[sunynp]

A potential (though not particularly easy) option for getting involved with the ACLU and making your career more interesting is to make yourself a sought-after expert witness in civil rights litigation cases. Without knowing more about you, I can't offer specifics, but groups like the ACLU have go-to physicians and doctors in, say, cases where a doctor in Alabama needs hospital privileges to see patients but no nearby hospital will admit a black doctor, or when an abortion provider in South Dakota needs licensure through a local health board and they won't give it to him/her because of the nature of his/her practice. Civil rights cases involving medical issues are very common and are often worked on by the ACLU or similar groups. The experts are often pretty involved, go through depositions, etc.

Something to consider before jumping into law schools and many years of grueling work before you finally, 7-10 years from now, reach the type of work you think you want to do.

This is good advice. I know that the physicians committee for human rights needs help too. A got a volunteer through them to help with an asylum case I did pro bono work on.

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/

[Tom Joad]

Just go to Yale. No grades, bro.

[09042014]

I should add, that my main interest is I disagree with everything you have to say, but will defend, to the death your right to say it kind of work. (KKK, here comes your pro bono horse j/k)

You have a 3.8 in med school and don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"? You also used an unnecessary comma after the word "add". There are also a few other gramatical and/or punctuation errors in your post(s).

Doctors are very detail-oriented. Either your writing skills are poor and you are NOT a doctor, or you are one of the laziest doctors on the planet. Lol.

They don't test or teach writing in med school or physics school bro. How stupid are you?