Older medical students have grays, sure, but grit
In the halls of most U.S. medical schools, the average student is 24 years old, still fresh from their last commencement and laser-focused on a career in medicine. But at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, a small but powerful cohort is rewriting that narrative.
These are the nontraditional students — converts to the calling who have pursued other careers, raised families, served in the military, worked in public health or founded startups before making the ambitious commitment to undertake first postbaccalaureate coursework, then MCAT prep and exam, and finally, application interviews. All of this just to become a student once again.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), less than 3% of medical school students are over 30 and fewer than 200 students annually are over 35.
The traditional path — college, followed by one or two years of research or clinical work experience while studying for the MCAT, then acceptance and matriculation — is overwhelmingly the preferred route. Most students enter medical school without ever strongly considering another career or working within an industry or trade. As a result, professional experience and age diversity are rare, despite growing calls for a more representative physician workforce.
Now, meet the Nontraditional Six.
They stand out — but not apart! — at the Brody School not just for their age but their depth of experiences and commitment to their journeys. Among them, a former engineer, a paramedic, a Peace Corps volunteer, a business leader and a laborer. Three are parents — two became parents after starting school — juggling the demands of medical school and raising children. Half are first-generation college graduates. Together, their stories spotlight the challenges of entering medicine later in life, but also the unique strengths they carry with them along their journeys.
Third-year student Meredith Lamm, 28, came from Raleigh.
The What-Am-I-Doing-Here Moment
Meredith Lamm, 28, is a former project manager and business analyst for Cisco in Raleigh. Now, she’s a third-year student.
Her freshman year at St. Louis University, she took an introduction to medicine course only to realize “I didn’t have the conviction that every other kid there had who wanted to be a doctor from childhood. I thought, ‘I’ll do the engineering track and minor in business.’”
But in the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, she had a “what-am-I-doing-here” moment.
Lamm’s daughter, Josephine, was born at the end of her first year of medical school, and her husband deployed soon after. It took disciplined time management — “it changed how I review lectures” — and help from family, but it wasn’t all bad.
“She [Josephine] helped me with perspective,” Meredith says. “I would be way harder on myself today if this were the only thing I was worried about.”
If I Were a Man, I Would Have Done This Earlier
Second-year student Elizabeth Nash, 47, is a nurse practitioner from Raleigh.
Elizabeth Nash, 47, is a certified nurse practitioner, second-year student and mother to three children ages 9 to 16.
Nash has already been a primary care provider to patients; now, she’s hoping to train beyond “the constraints in the system” that they face.
But the decision has been difficult for the family, who lives in Raleigh, and Nash says she did worry “colleagues would judge me for neglecting my family to go back to school.”
“If I were a man, I would have done this earlier and without as much second-guessing.”
One of the discussions leading up to medical school was what her husband wanted to do in his career. A network engineer, he could go gunning for a promotion or start his own business, but instead he encouraged her ambitions, and Nash says that gave her the license to seize her own moment.
Like Lamm, her age and immediate family give her moorings as a student. “I know what works for me. I don’t feel the desire to go out. I take care of myself, do my schoolwork and prioritize my family.”
Second-year student Tim Patron, 35, is from Raleigh.
Who God Created Me To Be
Tim Patron, 35, is a second-year student and former affordable housing developer who worked with nonprofits to serve the homeless and vulnerable.
Patron’s background gives him a systems-level view of medicine.
“Building affordable housing, I saw firsthand how deeply health care and housing are linked,” he says. “I see medical school as the continuation of a mission to use my talents to help people thrive and live into who God created them to be.”
The Brody School of Medicine, with its explicit and successful mission to train primary care physicians for clinics and hospitals in eastern North Carolina and the state, appeals to his own principled, Christian focus.
“Don’t let your different path make you question your place,” he’s learned. “The road less traveled may make you a better physician, not a lesser one.”
Most Are Full Blown Doctors at My Age
Second-year student Dianne Kim, 39, is originally from Washington.
Dianne Kim, 40, MPH, is a Peace Corps alumnae, design firm founder and mother of two.
Kim was a member of the Class of 2026 before her daughter was born, has taken two leaves of absence, and today is a member of the Class of 2028. “You know how they say it takes 6 to 8 weeks to recover from childbirth? Oh, my god, that’s ridiculous. I didn’t feel normal for a year.”
But when Kim was earning her master’s in public health, she traveled to Panama and visited a mental health hospital where, despite substantial gaps in resources, she was moved by the intimacy of the connection doctors forged with their patients. Population health, she knew, would never offer that.
“Most students who want this for themselves are full blown doctors at my age,” she says, “but I wouldn’t trade any of my experiences.”
“Before family, hey, the sky’s the limit! But with a partner and a family, there are things I must consider.”
Convincing Myself To Take the Next Step
Jeff Lambert, 47, was at points a construction worker, an artist and a surgical technician following his four years at ECU three decades ago.
First-year student Jeff Lambert, 48, is originally from Clayton.
A first-generation graduate, his family’s hopes for him topped out at full employment, maybe in a spinning mill.
“After [college], I went back to the family business, framing houses, digging footings, taking out septic tanks, replacing them.”
Applying to medical school took a decade of rumination.
“I had a loving family and good home environment, but we just weren’t ‘those people,’” he says. “I have spent the bulk of my life taking the next step by convincing myself to take the next step.”
As a surgical technician, his mentor once asked him if, deep down, he worried he did not actually wish to care for people.
“That hit me. I thought, ‘If the question is, do I really want this, it’s yes.’ Yes, I really do.”
Today, he’s found that the hardest thing about medical school aren’t the tests but believing in this new story he’s writing for himself.
“It’s not about being smart,” he says. “It’s about committing yourself.”
Medical School? Maybe 10 Years Ago But Not Now
First-year student Michael Artalejo, 44, originally from Fabens, Texas.
Michael Artalejo, 44, is an Army veteran and certified EMT paramedic.
His path to medicine began on the battlefield. As an Army infantryman in Iraq, he began treating both soldiers and civilians when medical staff weren’t around, often improvising because “in Iraq, we didn’t have medics to go around.”
When he returned home from deployments, he took emergency medicine courses at a community college. Eventually, he earned certification as a flight paramedic.
Once, he and his wife were buying secondhand furniture from a doctor, and Artalejo shared with the physician his interest in applying to medical school. “Oh, no, medical school is not for you,” the doctor told him. “Maybe 10 years ago but not now.”
That sat heavily with him. “It was just one of those little pieces that you pick up that matches your suspicion.”
The former soldier is also the son of a teenage mother who put herself through college and who taught him, “There’s nothing wrong with trying and not succeeding, but don’t quit.”
He set aside the physician’s discouragement and applied to 15 medical schools — the national average is 16.
“I wasn’t too old to still have new dreams,” he says.
No Imposters Here. No Islands, Either.
The Nontraditional Six spoke candidly about imposter syndrome. Lambert and Artalejo say the way they can sit with it today is a sign of growth. Lamm said she’s more confident now in “not knowing.”
“You must be psychotic if you don’t feel some amount of imposter syndrome,” Nash says.
Elizabeth Nash, Tim Patron, Dianne Kim, Jeff Lambert, Michael Artalejo and Meredith Lamm are a few of the students at the Brody School of Medicine who had careers before going back to school to become physicians.
“But reframe it,” Patron offers. “Feeling out of place often means you’re bringing something new and valuable to the table.”
Meanwhile, for the three parents, family is a source of strength, not a distraction. Nash calls her husband her “life coach.” Lamm says motherhood reduced her earlier anxieties.
“Med school won’t be something you do alone,” Kim says. “From the outside, you see the MCAT, the application process, the long days of classes and review — you don’t see all of the people supporting you.”
For Patron, there may be something still more mysterious at work.
“It’s scary at times not knowing exactly how the story will unfold — medicine wasn’t my first career or even my second — but I trust God’s hand is in it.”
These students stand as beacons for all those wondering if they have a second act as physicians.
“You’re going to figure it out,” says Lamm. “But you’re not going to have the same experience as everyone else — and that’s OK.”
They stand together, too, to call for reconsideration of what might be an overly conformist admissions system. In a profession that demands empathy, adaptability and lifelong learning, nontraditional students offer a formidable model.
“You can look at medical school stats and most have about one older student per class. Brody consistently has several,” Nash says. “I’ve always felt welcomed like it’s no big deal that I’m older. I have young classmates I socialize with. It will always be that our priorities are different because I have a family. That’s OK. We bond in other ways.”
“I only want the medical education I’m looking for so I can continue doing what I’ve been doing, saving lives in disadvantaged areas, carrying medicine to where it hasn’t gotten,” Artalejo said. “Since I’ve been here, with my classmates, that is exactly the type of people I see to my left and to my right. It’s not ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ here.”
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