How to prepare for a medical career in high school?

[cranialcombustion]

Aside from taking AP courses, studying well, and keeping up GPA, what are things I can do to increase my chances of succeeding in medical school and beyond? E.g. MCAT/SAT/ACT preparation, suturing/CPR skills, anatomy studies, etc. I am a freshman, but eager to prepare. Thank you!

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Mad Jack]

Enjoy your life and be a damn teenager, now is not the time to be getting all excited about being a doctor. Get into the best school you can, pick a major you like, date somebody cute, learn to be an interesting and dynamic person.

 

[FlameBroiledDoc]

You need to talk to career counselors and practicing doctors and find out if it's a career that appeals to you.

 

[deleted480308]

Just get good grades and don't get arrested. Enjoy being a kid for now

 

[AttemptingScholar]

Your priorities:

1. Keep you nose clean. The pre-med forum is currently taken over by a guy who let a friend cheat off him and is surprised by how much this will hurt him. Nothing illegal, no academic dishonesty.
2. Take time-consuming classes. You want to learn how to manage time and study in high school
3. Explore different interests (for me it was debate and politics). People who only do premed stuff are usually boring and people don't enjoy hanging out with them (and that can include your med school interviewer!)

By the end of your third year of college, you should have a good GPA, a good SAT/ACT score (don't waste time with the MCAT right now, you'll forget it all when it's time to take it!), a longterm (2+ years) commitment to several extracurriculars, some leadership positions (probably third year), volunteering. If you want to get started in premed stuff, fantastic. Find a hospital/clinic that will let you and do your volunteering there.

You have the rest of your life to be a doctor. In high school, just don't do so bad you absolutely sink yourself. That's all you really need.

 

[Frychicken]

Definitely start practicing your suturing skills right now.

 

[Gilakend]

Get into a college where you can do well.

 

[cranialcombustion]

Definitely start practicing your suturing skills right now.

Haha I don't know if this was a sarcastic response but I have actually learned a few suturing techniques and surgical knots. So far I have learned the basics of simple interrupted, deep dermal, simple running, vertical mattress, all variations of horizontal mattress (including figure-8 and half-buried), and I'm just starting subcuticular. The image attached was taken a few days after I started learning so don't judge too harshly

This was all just for fun so I really don't mind if it "won't help me at all for med school," just something I did during the summer when I was bored.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! 🙂

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[aformerstudent]

You have to get INTO med school first before you can succeed. Get the numbers you need. That should be your primary focus. All that other stuff happens with time. Numbers need to happen right now.

 

[Medic741]

Have fun & become an interesting person

 

[astrostellar]

Learn how to be *consistently* successful academically.

If you go into college not really knowing how you, personally, are successful in school (ie, what it takes to force yourself to do homework, or what study methods work well for you for tests, or what kind of strengths and weaknesses you have in learning styles), you'll just flounder (like me!). It took me a long time to figure out that I can't do homework in certain places (on the couch), that I can't study in front of the TV because I can't split my attention between the show dialogue and retaining what I'm reading, that I'm a visual learner and 100% not auditory, and the methods of studying that work for me (flash cards no, quizzes yes.) After that, you only need to worry about whether you have the self-discipline to follow through with this kinda stuff.

 

[redence]

I'm a senior in high school, I guess the best way to prepare would be to take some AP classes related to science courses (AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Physics, maybe even AP Psychology...etc)