Becoming a doctor - please help!

[doctor01]

I'm currently in high school right now and I've had in mind to become a doctor for a while now. It's only been recent that I started to look more deeply at the different professions, and I've been hearing many stories about being a doctor.

The advice that I seek from this forum is about colleges and which path I should be taking after high school.

I live in IL and I'm not that smart; I have a 4.3 weighted GPA and 3.5 unweighted. I'm planning on going to U of I at Urbana for my undergraduate and I just wanted some advice where to go from here on out...

1. Do medical schools consider where you went for undergrad as important?

2. I heard how anesthesiology is a path that does not require you to see much blood.. as ironic as this may sound, I don't really want to take a path that requires a direct contact with the internal organs or blood.

3. I'm pretty much ignorant when it comes to different fields so please help me out in choosing a possible career for me.. I know I wanted to become a doctor since I was a child, but I'm not sure where to go exactly and it all seems confusing to me...


Thank you for your help.

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[Hifey]

I'm currently in high school right now and I've had in mind to become a doctor for a while now. It's only been recent that I started to look more deeply at the different professions, and I've been hearing many stories about being a doctor.

The advice that I seek from this forum is about colleges and which path I should be taking after high school.

I live in IL and I'm not that smart; I have a 4.3 weighted GPA and 3.5 unweighted. I'm planning on going to U of I at Urbana for my undergraduate and I just wanted some advice where to go from here on out...

1. Do medical schools consider where you went for undergrad as important?

2. I heard how anesthesiology is a path that does not require you to see much blood.. as ironic as this may sound, I don't really want to take a path that requires a direct contact with the internal organs or blood.

3. I'm pretty much ignorant when it comes to different fields so please help me out in choosing a possible career for me.. I know I wanted to become a doctor since I was a child, but I'm not sure where to go exactly and it all seems confusing to me...


Thank you for your help.

1. No, you can get into medical school from any undergrad in the country. You're fine.

2. I wouldn't be picking a career out just yet. Medical school is a lofty enough goal and your mind will change about what specialty you want. I promise. In HS, I wanted peds, then switched later to Oby/gyn and now I'm at possibly anesthesiology. Also, Anesthesiology as a profession may not be as gory as surgery but DEFINITELY you will encounter these in med school and possibly residency training.

3. The good news is that you don't have to choose a speciality right now! If you want to be a doctor you need to focus on your GPA, do some extra cirriculars that interest you and definitely including shadowing/hospital volunteering, get some Letters of Rec, and kill the MCAT. If you do all this successfully, you may get into a medical school. Nothing is guaranteed but this is the outline.

good luck and don't stress out this early on otherwise you will burn out quickly. Seriously, ENJOY senior year in high school. It's awesome. Embrace it. Leave all that other stuff for college when you're starting out gain.

 

[mangomadness]

lol. you have a while to figure out what you wanna do.
but anyway, lets try and answer your questions

1. in my opinion, it doesn't really matter where you went to undergrad. just do well whereever you're at. of course, it depends on individual med schools if they wanna look really closely at where you went.

2. if you don't wanna look at blood...id prob suggest looking at dif careers. an anesthesiologist is present during surgeries, where there is lots of blood. soooooo....yeah, everyone sees blood. even if you're not a surgeon, you'll still be doing rotations where you will see blood. lol.

3. you don't need to pick a specialty right now. if you don't know what you wanna do, or have a general idea of what interests you, you have a LONG time to figure that out. hell, a lot of med students dont figure that out until rotations anyway.

good luck!

 

[doctor01]

Thank you for your replies! Your answers to number 1 are encouraging, to say the least. I didn't think the U of I was good enough for med schools..

But when you say that it differs from med school to med school, then do schools like Harvard or other prestigious med schools look at the undergrad school?

I'm a bit stressed out because I'm worried schools that are considered to be more prestigious will place more emphasis on the name of the undergrad you attended..

Other than that, thank you! It's good to know that I have a fair amount of time before choosing specialties, so I'll just be trying my best in college.

 

[Morsetlis]

Besides getting good grades and not partying too much, do these extracurriculars:

1.) Join a pre-med club on campus. This will expose you to a lot of things. Consider getting an officer position.
2.) Shadow doctors of various specialties for about 50 hours total.
3.) Get clinical experience--either hospital volunteering or CNA/EMT/Phlebotomy or something that exposes you to patient care.
4.) Get involved with research, preferably clinical, although basic science works just as well (but is harder to publish from.)

If, after doing all 4, you still want to be a doctor, finish all your pre-reqs (ask a counselor at your college which classes you need to take to fulfill both your major and pre-med pre-reqs). Then take the MCAT. Then apply.

A 3.80-4.00 GPA from Podunk State University beats a 3.30 GPA from Harvard.

You need to stop thinking "I'm not that smart" and start thinking "I'm gonna set the ****ing curve for this chemistry class". Then do it.

 

[Ischemic]

Thank you for your replies! Your answers to number 1 are encouraging, to say the least. I didn't think the U of I was good enough for med schools..

But when you say that it differs from med school to med school, then do schools like Harvard or other prestigious med schools look at the undergrad school?

I'm a bit stressed out because I'm worried schools that are considered to be more prestigious will place more emphasis on the name of the undergrad you attended..

Other than that, thank you! It's good to know that I have a fair amount of time before choosing specialties, so I'll just be trying my best in college.

First, you're a long way off from applying to medical schools and I would suggest you worry first about making the grades before worrying about your chances with a top medical school. If you don't make grades you won't have to worry about getting into med school much less a "top" med school. So focus on your GPA. That being said, your undergrad institution MAY play a role in admissions but it's more how you performed as a student that will make or break your application. An F at Harvard is just as bad as an F from clown college.