*Getting Started*

[KnockOut]

*Ok everybody... I'm a 19 year old musician from New York, who's ready to find a career for myself. (Aside from music.) I'm NEARLY positive that I want to find a medical career for myself, and I know that I have the ambition/intelligence to succeed in the industry; my questions are:

1. Can somebody tell me the requirements to enter a med-school? (Consider this thread a "Becoming a Doctor for Dummies" lol, because I honestly am not sure what moves to make first. You DO need 4 years of normal college coarses before you can attend a med-school, right?

2. I'm not completely sure what field I want to go into, can anyone give me some suggestions? I know that I want to study/research medicine, as opposed to cutting open patients and getting down and dirty. Maybe a pharmecutical field? I don't know, I'm basically asking for a little list with some detailed descriptions of some good fields. (I like the 'behind-the-scenes' type work, like examining cells under microscopes, etc. Lab work, researching...)

3. My highschool years were ruined due to myself being diagnosed with Cancer my freshmen year. (My tutors stopped coming... and it resulted in me failing 4 coarses.) Rather than repeating my senior year, I dropped out and worked to SAVE for med-school/college. Sounds rediculous, but I'm actually achieving my goal of saving my tuition. My question is, can a GED do the trick? I honestly DID get excellent grades in Highschool without even really trying... my father is an english teacher who works overseas translating/educating. Academics run in my family, you could say... but like I said: if I have a GED and I'm killing tests/getting good grades, I don't think it would stop me. Do you?

Thanks for reading this, and please let me know whatever you think. I plan on having a career in medicine, and being a certified producer by the age of 30. (I already sell music like crazy, so I'm not even going to waste my time going to school for production. My music's where it needs to be,) but career-wise, I'd like to have one.

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[icebrat001]

*Ok everybody... I'm a 19 year old musician from New York, who's ready to find a career for myself. (Aside from music.) I'm NEARLY positive that I want to find a medical career for myself, and I know that I have the ambition/intelligence to succeed in the industry; my questions are:

1. Can somebody tell me the requirements to enter a med-school? (Consider this thread a "Becoming a Doctor for Dummies" lol, because I honestly am not sure what moves to make first. You DO need 4 years of normal college coarses before you can attend a med-school, right?

2. I'm not completely sure what field I want to go into, can anyone give me some suggestions? I know that I want to study/research medicine, as opposed to cutting open patients and getting down and dirty. Maybe a pharmecutical field? I don't know, I'm basically asking for a little list with some detailed descriptions of some good fields. (I like the 'behind-the-scenes' type work, like examining cells under microscopes, etc. Lab work, researching...)

3. My highschool years were ruined due to myself being diagnosed with Cancer my freshmen year. (My tutors stopped coming... and it resulted in me failing 4 coarses.) Rather than repeating my senior year, I dropped out and worked to SAVE for med-school/college. Sounds rediculous, but I'm actually achieving my goal of saving my tuition. My question is, can a GED do the trick? I honestly DID get excellent grades in Highschool without even really trying... my father is an english teacher who works overseas translating/educating. Academics run in my family, you could say... but like I said: if I have a GED and I'm killing tests/getting good grades, I don't think it would stop me. Do you?

Thanks for reading this, and please let me know whatever you think. I plan on having a career in medicine, and being a certified producer by the age of 30. (I already sell music like crazy, so I'm not even going to waste my time going to school for production. My music's where it needs to be,) but career-wise, I'd like to have one.

Go ahead get your GED its the equivalent of a High school Diploma. After you do this enroll in a community college take the required general ed classes along with 1 year of biology, physics, chemistry, organic chemisty and calculus and transfer to a 4 year university, take your MCAT do well in your classes, get to know your professors and do a lot of volunteering, and in 4-5 years you can hopefully start med school.

Good luck!

You can suceed at what you put your mind too!

 

[2112_rush]

Requirements:

The minimum is a 4-year college degree with a satisfactory GPA and MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test) score. Beyond that, things get a little more complicated. It's good to have clinical experience from either volunteer or paid positions.

There are some fields of medicine that are more behind the scenes: radiology and pathology come to mind. There are some MDs that do exclusively research but the research into the science behind medicine is done mostly by ph. d.'s. That might be something you might want to look into if you don't want to get down and dirty with patients.

And a GED is fine. If you do well in college and on the MCAT nobody will even care whether you have a regular diploma or a GED.

Good luck.

 

[liverotcod]

I know that I want to study/research medicine, as opposed to cutting open patients and getting down and dirty.

Sounds from this that you might prefer graduate school in a research science to medical school. Almost (although not all) doctors are clinicians and while they may not be cutting patients open, they do get down and dirty in one way or another.

To succeed as a research scientist, you will want to major in the area your interested in: biology, biochem, etc. You will need to complete a four year degree with a GPA of 3.0 or above, and take the GRE.

I should think a GED wouldn't be a problem; so long as you can find an undergraduate school, no one will care about your high school later on.

 

[Brain]

Check out the thread at the very top of the page called "Applying to medical school".

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=168194

This should answer a lot of your questions about the application process.

 

[BeatArmy]

Go to college. Take courses that interest you. Get involved in activities such as research and volunteering that interest you. Find out what you like. If you are still interested in medicine after a couple years and some exposure, then worry about it.

 

[LVDoc]

Definitely get your G.E.D. It will not stop you at all; it will only give you more opportunities.

 

[fateema368]

Sounds from this that you might prefer graduate school in a research science to medical school. Almost (although not all) doctors are clinicians and while they may not be cutting patients open, they do get down and dirty in one way or another.

To succeed as a research scientist, you will want to major in the area your interested in: biology, biochem, etc. You will need to complete a four year degree with a GPA of 3.0 or above, and take the GRE.

I should think a GED wouldn't be a problem; so long as you can find an undergraduate school, no one will care about your high school later on.

I second that, but you have an advantage since your only sightly older than the average high school student and you haven't finished high school. If you can find a public high school that will take you-and has post-secondary enrolment option programs with local private or state universities you can finish up your high school requirements while taking college courses at the post secondary institution of your choice for free. I would check to see if your eligable, but honestly you want to be a physician but don't like dealing with cuting people open-or that sort of thing?--Be thinking that through.

 

[liverotcod]

A little off topic, but...

Occasionally I dream that I missed some requirement in high school and have to go back now, at age 36, to complete it. Weird dream.