Been reading around the forums...have a few questions about becoming an Orthopedic Surgeon

[YLM722]

I'm in my first year of college and I'm thinking of going to medical school to become an Orthopedic surgeon. I have seen videos of surgeries and read a little bit about orthopedics. From what I've read on the forums, the most successful students are those who build relationships with already practicing surgeons, do lots of research, and have amazing grades throughout medical school. Based on this analysis I have some questions.

As an aspiring Orthopedic Surgeon, I understand I'll have to do a lot of research. Does this research have to come from experience? Can I read extensively on Orthopedic Surgery topics and procedures and write papers based on my reading? Or do I have to actually have experience in the OR to write about?

Secondly, I think it would greatly benefit me to have a few acquaintances or mentors that are currently practicing surgeons. How would I go about meeting these potential mentors? Should I find an orthopedic seminar of some sort and get my name out?

Before and while I am in medical school, what would be some good literature to read and study?

I apologize if I ask any ignorant questions I don't know much about how this works.

Thanks

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[0919mmk]

I'm in my first year of college and I'm thinking of going to medical school to become an Orthopedic surgeon. I have seen videos of surgeries and read a little bit about orthopedics. From what I've read on the forums, the most successful students are those who build relationships with already practicing surgeons, do lots of research, and have amazing grades throughout medical school. Based on this analysis I have some questions.

As an aspiring Orthopedic Surgeon, I understand I'll have to do a lot of research. Does this research have to come from experience? Can I read extensively on Orthopedic Surgery topics and procedures and write papers based on my reading? Or do I have to actually have experience in the OR to write about?

Secondly, I think it would greatly benefit me to have a few acquaintances or mentors that are currently practicing surgeons. How would I go about meeting these potential mentors? Should I find an orthopedic seminar of some sort and get my name out?

Before and while I am in medical school, what would be some good literature to read and study?

I apologize if I ask any ignorant questions I don't know much about how this works.

Thanks

I admire your... I guess "forward thinking attitude". You have a really long road ahead of you, so I would say the following:

- it's probably too early to worry about ortho. Focus on college, get good grades, and do well on the MCAT in 3-4 years.
- no, you can't just do ortho research just by reading. if you are really interested, the place to start is with your school's premed advisor. They will have contacts available for you to get plugged in with hospitals. Then from there, once you get the feel for how the hospital works with some volunteering etc, you can look into your local ortho dept about shadowing.

Good luck, work hard.

 

[yankeebeckham]

It's awesome that you have long term goals. I, like you, went into college with the attitude of, "I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon," and I just applied for residency in orthopedics. It's never too early to start developing your long-term dreams.

That being said, achieving your long-term goals is really a process of breaking it down into attaining a series of short-term goals. You can't be a surgeon before you're in medical school, and you can't be in medical school until you take the MCAT, and you can't do well in the MCAT until you excel on your science courses, etc. So while it's good to start formulating what you want to do in the long run and it's certainly important to understand what it entails to know if it's something you really want to work towards, it's probably too early to really start worrying about things like research and studying ortho. Those are things you worry about in medical school. I would hate to see you do poorly in your organic chemistry class because you're learning about Salter-Harris classification, for example.

As a first year college student, your concerns should be towards your classwork and doing some shadowing. If you find an orthopedist to shadow, you may be able to find a mentor there. I found mentorship through my shadowing experience and his guidance was invaluable. That's where I learned I was sure what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. But also try to keep an open mind and take advantage of college and take classes in all different departments. You may find you might love something more than medicine or orthopedics and that's okay. If you find that medicine is for you, taking a wide variety of coursework will make you more well rounded and a better physician, a better applicant, and will challenge you to be a better person.

 

[YLM722]

It's awesome that you have long term goals. I, like you, went into college with the attitude of, "I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon," and I just applied for residency in orthopedics. It's never too early to start developing your long-term dreams.

That being said, achieving your long-term goals is really a process of breaking it down into attaining a series of short-term goals. You can't be a surgeon before you're in medical school, and you can't be in medical school until you take the MCAT, and you can't do well in the MCAT until you excel on your science courses, etc. So while it's good to start formulating what you want to do in the long run and it's certainly important to understand what it entails to know if it's something you really want to work towards, it's probably too early to really start worrying about things like research and studying ortho. Those are things you worry about in medical school. I would hate to see you do poorly in your organic chemistry class because you're learning about Salter-Harris classification, for example.

As a first year college student, your concerns should be towards your classwork and doing some shadowing. If you find an orthopedist to shadow, you may be able to find a mentor there. I found mentorship through my shadowing experience and his guidance was invaluable. That's where I learned I was sure what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. But also try to keep an open mind and take advantage of college and take classes in all different departments. You may find you might love something more than medicine or orthopedics and that's okay. If you find that medicine is for you, taking a wide variety of coursework will make you more well rounded and a better physician, a better applicant, and will challenge you to be a better person.

So it would be smart to study science courses on say Kahn Academy just to make sure I know my stuff before I take the actual courses?

And how did you meet an orthopedic surgeon to shadow your first year of college?

 

[rodmichael82]

So it would be smart to study science courses on say Kahn Academy just to make sure I know my stuff before I take the actual courses?

And how did you meet an orthopedic surgeon to shadow your first year of college?

Listen man as the previous posters mentioned your sole purpose at this point should be to get A's in all your classes, do well on the MCAT. Thinking about Ortho as a premed in my opinion is completely pointless for the following reasons:-

1. There's just too many bumps on the road to becoming an Orthopedic surgeon. None of them can be dealt with until you actually get into medical school (preferably a MD school which will give you the highest chance of matching into Orthopedic surgery). Your main focus should be at getting into medical school especially since a lot of premeds don't even get in.

2. You might be completely obsessed with Ortho right now and then get into your 3rd year of medical school just to realize you actually hate surgery. That's happened to at least 3-4 of my close friends. While it's great to have a positive view and be optimistic you also have to slow your horses a little.

3. Some will say that you have to be the cream of the crop in medical school to get into Orthopedic surgery and others will beg to differ. Regardless getting into Orthopedic surgery requires that you do somewhat well in medical school which includes USMLE Step 1, Clincial (3rd year) grades, research, extracurricular activities. All of that stuff just takes time and it's way too early to be thinking about any of this.

Long story short you're a college kid. Work hard, get good grades in college and enjoy your college life. Once you start medical school sure you'll have some free time but nowhere close to the amount you did in college. Responsibly enjoy your life to the fullest before getting into medical school. I only say responsibly because the last thing you want is to have low premed grades (you won't even get into medical school! Let alone Orthopedic surgery lol).

Thinking about Orthopedic surgery in premed years is just going to add a ridiculous amount of stress to your life and will contribute very very little if anything at all to you actually becoming an Orthopedic surgeon.

Best of luck!

 

[massmocha]

Completely agree with the above. Your role is to crush all your pre-med requirements and develop a strong med school applications (get involved in some research, volunteerism, leadership). If your school is affiliated with a medical school, you may be able to get in touch with an ortho research coordinator to see if there is research you can help out with.

Ultimate goal for the next 4 years is 4.0 GPA and high MCAT (not sure what the new scale for MCAT is... 600?) to get into med school.