Hey guys,
I just graduated high school this year and I am attending college next year. I've always wanted to become a doctor and this year I've been pretty sure that I want to become a trauma surgeon. I plan on going to med school with my costs possibly being paid by the Army or Navy After med school, if I join the service, I would have to work about 5 years in the military. Leaving me at 25 finishing med school, 29 finishing my residency and fellow ship, and finally at 34 working as a civilian. Having a family that I can take care of and spend time with is very important to me. I know to become a trauma surgeon, a 5 year general surgeon residency is required as well as a 1 year critical care fellowship. I am just wondering what anyone thinks about this and how it may work out. I know the hours are long and it is hard work. Is it possible to have a good life with a family?
From a 4th year medical student on an HPSP Navy scholarship.
You're a high schooler, you're about to start college, and all of your questions are about how you handle residency, fellowship, and military medicine. My advice would be to focus on the 25 meter target: getting through college and getting into medical school. My advice for that:
1) You are about to start your first semester of college. I strongly recommend you look at adapting to college as a 5 credit class, and to take that class seriously. Rush (and maybe pledge), try out various clubs and activities (keeping only a few), meet a lot of people, date a few of them, and go out very often. On the academic side of the house for this one semester take no more than 12 credits and make at least 8 of them the easiest liberal arts classes you can find. I promise that by Spring semster you'll have a better idea of your adult identity, your social life will be less of a time suck, and you will be a much better position to take more/harder classes suck as your premedical coursework. Meanwhile the interests that you develop will make you a better candidate for medical school and a better leader in the military.
2) Use this time before college to start thinking about next summer. Consider internships, Co-Ops, and study abroad oppotunities that will actually look good on your resume. If you're not 100% sure that you want medicine yet (and at 18, you shouldn't be) consider setting up an Internship in a career that you think would be a good alternative to see how that compares to medicine. Spring is often too late to start applying for the best summer jobs/research/study abroad programs, so get your stuff together now and start sending out resumes in the fall.
3) Be aware of what it takes to get into medical school. The average GPA to get in these days is a 3.6. Initially your goal is just to avoid stupid mistakes that will make this harder than it needs to be. Don't put yourself in a position where you will probably end up trashing your GPA, like by starting college with 18 credits of hard science classes. Also you are going to need to shadow some physicians, not just for your application but also to figure out if you would actually enjoy this as a career. Shadowing a Surgeon (most Trauma bays will probably take you), an ER doc, and someone in primary care is a good combo. Again, though, hold off until after your first semester. If you REALLY want to get ahead of the game you can even use this summer before college starts to pick up some kind of basic medical license like CNA or EMT-B so that you can actually work a little in medicine rather than just volunteering.
4) If you are interested in military medicine, do NOT take an ROTC scholarship, OCS contract, reserves contract, or whatever else your recruiter says is a good idea. You will probably end up doing something that isn't medicine if you accept one of those. If you want medicine, don't have anything to do with the military until you have a medical school acceptance in hand.
As for your plan, it sounds fine (many have done it before) and there are definitely some surgeons that manage a family life just as there are some who end up with personal problems. However I wouldn't select your specialty until after you've rotated through everything in medical school. In general college is where you pick your career: Engineering vs. Law vs. Medicinee vs. Education vs. Business vs. whatever. Then in medical school you pick you specialty: GenSurg vs. Ortho vs. Psych vs. Peds vs. whatever. Then in your residency you finally pick your subspecialty Trauma vs. Transplant vs. PedsSurg, vs. whatever. Right now I would focus on just picking the career.
