High school student wishing to pursue a career in surgery

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Good morning, everyone! I want to apologize in advance for this super long first post I'm making and for any mistakes I make in it. I took a history exam for one of my college classes yesterday and my brain is still a little fried. :D There is a tl;dr at the bottom lol.

I am currently a high school senior; at the beginning of last year, I started having an interest in the medical field. My mother is an emergency nurse and so are my aunts and uncles. I knew from the beginning that I did not want to be a nurse; it is a great career and I respect all nurses, but I know it's just not for me. As the year passed, I began thinking about surgery as an option. I didn't know much about it, but it seemed like a pretty fun and respectable career choice to the high-school-junior version of myself. My parents said I would forget about it in my senior year.

I didn't! I chose to take the Anatomy and Physiology class that the school offered because the Creative Writing class didn't have enough students--and I am SO glad that I did! We couldn't cover everything in depth because there wasn't enough time, but I learned so much in the class and it just made my interest in the medical field grow exponentially. Learning how the human body worked and functioned, what could go wrong with it, and how some of those problems could be fixed... it was amazing. My interest in the surgical field grew; it's really cliche, I know, but the thought that I could fix people's medical problems just intrigued and amazed me.

I was interested in neurosurgery for more than half of my senior year because my father has a TBI from a car accident. My thought process was that I didn't want anyone else to have to go through that. I haven't been able to read a lot about neurosurgery, but one of the things I've run into is that it can be really dangerous for people that get too emotionally attached to the patients or situation. I never thought about it before today, somehow, but I realized that what was originally motivating me to go for neurosurgery could cause more problems emotionally for me in the future. I don't know if that's true, but it's kind of turning me away from neurosurgery.

I just started thinking about pediatrics, but I'm worried about the emotional toll there as well. I don't know how often deaths occur in pediatric surgery, but I know that no matter how rare a death would be, it would take a toll on my mental health. Throughout my life, death hasn't affected me a lot, but I know it will most likely be different in the future.

I've thought about cardio and I've considered it, but I don't know a whole lot about it. I don't have much interest in general surgery, though I will consider it when it gets closer to the time that I pick a specialty (assuming I even succeed in medical school).

I plan on majoring in Biology and minoring in Neuroscience at USC Aiken (I live in SC).

I definitely don't know everything about the different medical fields and specialties, and most certainly not the surgical fields/specialties. If there is anything at all that you guys think would help me out, I would appreciate it so much!

TL;DR: I am a high school senior. I like the medical field, especially the surgical aspect. Neuro was an option but now turning against it due to past experiences with TBIs. Peds is being considered. Cardio is cool too. General is cool too but I'm not as interested in it. Majoring in Biology and minoring in Neuroscience at a local college. I need any advice!

Once again... SO sorry about the huge novel lol.

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Do well in college. Don’t go into medicine with tunnel vision. Surgery is very competitive, and most people change their mind about it. The long time posters on here who do advising say that if you go into medical school, you should be happy to be any kind of doctor. Just take it one step at a time.
 
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Do well in college. Don’t go into medicine with tunnel vision. Surgery is very competitive, and most people change their mind about it. The long time posters on here who do advising say that if you go into medical school, you should be happy to be any kind of doctor. Just take it one step at a time.

Thank you so much for the advice! You're definitely right about the whole being happy about being any sort of doctor bit. I never thought about it that way, which makes me feel a little bad. I'll definitely do some more reading about all of the different types of physicians before I make any sort of decision about it. Once again, thank you so much! :)
 
Ortho summed it up very well, and it’s all about creating your own path as you move forward. I also wanted to say that SDN offers a lot of resources for pre-medical students so I hope you stick around the community as you move on into college!

@noonemournsthewickayla
 
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Ortho summer it up very well, and it’s all about creating your own path as you move forward. I also wanted to say that SDN offers a lot of resources for pre-medical students so I hope you stick around the community as you move on into college!

@noonemournsthewickayla

I definitely will stick around! This community seems to be really amazing and supportive. And thank you for the advice! :)
 
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