How many years to become a doctor? Longest?

[loren646]

2 questions:

1.) 11 years to become an anesthesiologist? 2 years premed. 1 year wait (8months - yea?) 4 years medical, 4 years residency? Start at 26 - full fledged anesthesiologist at 37?

2.) What doctor takes the longest in terms of years (including residency, internship, etc)?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[249560]

well i know its pretty long if you wanna do plastics(not sure if its the longest though). well if your starting from scratch you have to do 4 years pre-med, 4 yrs med school, then anywhere from 5- 9 yrs of residency(depending on if its an intergrated or independent program). so thats anywhere from a total of 13- 17 yrs. but the average usually is about 13- 15 yrs.

 

[Inspire Aspire]

You may need to clarify what you are looking for to get a more precise answer, because there are many paths to becoming a doctor, and many different paths to take in terms of speciality and subspeciality afterwards.

In general, to become a doctor one needs to complete an undergraduate degree and the necessary medical school pre-requistes and then complete the required 4-year medical school curriculm. Upon completion of medical school, the person will in effect be a doctor. However, the ability to practice certain specialities and get licensed will not have been acheived yet. Which is where residency comes into play. Residency is anywhere from 3-7 years with the surgical specialities taking 5 or more years ( I believe Neurosurgery and Plastics take the longest at 6-7 years) While many doctors will begin some form of practice after completion of their residency, others decide to do a fellowship in order to sub-specialize. Fellowships usually are 1-2 years in length.

So you see how long it takes really depends on what type of medicine an individual wishes to study/practice.

In general if you were to follow a standard path, with no devitations or early completions, and did the longest residency and fellowships, the length of time would be about 17 years give or take. (4 years UG + 4 years Med school + 7 years residency +2 year fellowship)

 

[Law2Doc]

...
In general if you were to follow a standard path, with no devitations or early completions, and did the longest residency and fellowships, the length of time would be about 17 years give or take. (4 years UG + 4 years Med school + 7 years residency +2 year fellowship)

First, the OP is asking about doing a 2 year postbac (s/he's not at the UG starting point). Second, after undergrad, it's actually even 2 years longer than you describe because most of the longer, more subspecialized surgical residencies "expect" you to take a year or two off during residency to do research along the way. So it's a very long road. Which is why you need to be really really really sure this is what you want to do. Because you are going to invest a good chunk of your life to the path.