What is a good way to gain medcal experience if I want to be a surgeon

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What is a good way to earn some money and get experience if I want to eventually be surgeon. Emt? Medical assistant? Can someone please provide some input? I was looking at surgical tech. What about shadowing . How would I got about that? I work at home depot but im gonna start courses at a community colledge and do pre med and eventually transfer but ive been looking at different thing on the internet but I need real advice. I heard ge tting an emt-b licence would be great experience but what about medical assisting or becoming a certified surgical tech. Im looking down the road in a few years to be able to make some money to pay the bills while doing my studying and gaining some experience
 
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EMT. Shadowing.
You're in High School, don't worry. Start worrying about this stuff in college. Shadowing is good for high schoolers though.
 
Don't be a surgical tech unless you need the money...just do the normal things to get into a good medical school. Then crush your boards, grades, LORs, etc... If you have a surgeon family friend who's cool, maybe see if hell let you in the or for a day...

Just food for thought: there's no real way to have even a slight idea about surgery til rotations. So just keep an open mind as you develop career preferences.
 
sonofva said:
Don't be a surgical tech unless you need the money...just do the normal things to get into a good medical school. Then crush your boards, grades, LORs, etc... If you have a surgeon family friend who's cool, maybe see if hell let you in the or for a day...

Just food for thought: there's no real way to have even a slight idea about surgery til rotations. So just keep an open mind as you develop career preferences.
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👍

P.S. My user-title was "Don't tread on me" just yesterday.
 
nysegop said:
EMT. Shadowing.
You're in High School, don't worry. Start worrying about this stuff in college. Shadowing is good for high schoolers though.
Click to expand...

No I juss posted this here because I could find a way to post this in the pre-med forums. Im 19 work at home depot have my hs diploma and im going to start courses at the community colledge and transfer in a few years. I heard of shadowing but do not now where to begin. My friend is gonna start taking emt-b and I was wondering what I should do. I thought mabey medical asstisting would be a great way to get patient experience. But for surgery I was thinking surgical tech would look good on the resume. I been researching on the internet but idk what I should do
 
If you want to be a surgical tech, it will be very helpful after you get into medical school and during residency. Don't think that it will help much getting into medical school.

I was a surgical tech for 4 years before medical school. It really helps during your surgical rotations and residency, since you have seen the surgeries, know the instruments, and are comfortable in the OR.

Good luck.
 
It is really important that you DO NOT take any premed requirement or science classes at a community college. Take electives if you have to go to a community college. Work as a part-time EMT or surgical tech.
 
I heard its hard to get surgical tech jobs because they all want at least 1 year experience. And im juss need to take classes to transfer out. Do the universities count community colledge for gpa. What matters for med school. Is there something similar to surgical tech?
 
celling said:
If you want to be a surgical tech, it will be very helpful after you get into medical school and during residency. Don't think that it will help much getting into medical school.

I was a surgical tech for 4 years before medical school. It really helps during your surgical rotations and residency, since you have seen the surgeries, know the instruments, and are comfortable in the OR.

Good luck.
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ive decided to be a surgical tech. did you get your bachalers while working as a surgical tech? If so how difficult was it? what work did you do as a medical student? My community college doesnt offer st school and im trying to find schools close to me. Did you juss go straight to tech school. Did you need colledge credits? Any advice is appreciated. Also gow difficult was it finding a job
 
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Hillo said:
*Yikes* I personally don't agree.
It's not really important.
These things are like saying 12-credit semesters look bad....
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Ive heard different things about courses at a cc. I am juss starting this prosses and am trying to get imformed as I can be. But as of right now cc is my only option
 
nysegop said:
Many medical schools simply won't accept community college science/core credits.

This is a good article:
http://www.usnews.com/education/blo...edical-schools-view-community-college-credits
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nysegop said:
It is really important that you DO NOT take any premed requirement or science classes at a community college. Take electives if you have to go to a community college. Work as a part-time EMT or surgical tech.
Click to expand...


Not necessarily true. I dont think CC classes will hurt your chances. While Med schools aren't the biggest fans of them, I haven't heard of a Med School that doesn't accept them. The universal recommendation is not to take all of your Prerequisites there.

If I were to go, I'd ask about being a guest student at a local University and take some classes there. They will usually let you do that. And it makes you look competitive.

And like always, keep your GPA high and do good on the MCAT, and you'll be A-OK.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
 
GPA matters, regardless of school, so does the MCAT (unless you are in a guaranteed acceptance program).

Consider this situation:

Applicant A -
School: Rigorous Nationally Recognized State School
GPA: 3.65
MCAT: 35
Extracurriculars/Experience Score (Out of 10): 7

Applicant B -
School: Small, not-well-known community college
GPA: 3.65
MCAT: 35
Extracurriculars/Experience Score (Out of 10): 7

Applicant A would certainly be given preference over applicant B.


I'm not saying people shouldn't take ANY classes at community colleges, it just shouldn't be science, technology, engineering, math, english, or any other "core" class. They should be electives or other classes that you might consider taking over the summer (languages, for instance...unless you are a language major). I'd say community college classes should be less than 10% of your total number of credits. Graduating from a community college would be the worst thing.
 
I would, personally, be extremely careful about CC classes while in undergrad. I know someone who was set to have a minor in chemistry, and when he went to have the department chair sign off for graduation at the beginning of senior year, the chair found out he had taken both orgo's at a community college. He wouldn't sign off and forced him to retake orgo 2 at the state school.
 
HSUReddie said:
I would, personally, be extremely careful about CC classes while in undergrad. I know someone who was set to have a minor in chemistry, and when he went to have the department chair sign off for graduation at the beginning of senior year, the chair found out he had taken both orgo's at a community college. He wouldn't sign off and forced him to retake orgo 2 at the state school.
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👍
 
If you have the option to take core classes/prerequisites at a University, then of course that's what you should do.

But some people's only option is CC. Im not aware of the OP's situation but it wont kill off his chances if he were to take classes at CC. ESPECIALLY if its his only option. Of course there are always extreme cases of CC horror stories. But thats just what they are: extreme cases. if you're transferring from a CC by your Junior Year, you're not going to have time to complete all your prereqs by then. Sophomore year would be a feat itself, which could become an uphill battle.

Im not saying go "Community College Crazy" and take every one of your core classes at a CC, but taking a few Core classes isnt the end all.
 
OP I think the best advice you've gotten on this thread is to keep an open mind. Medical school is littered with students who were once "future surgeons". As a surgical resident I will certainly encourage you to pursue it but will add that you should also explore other areas of medicine as well. There is a mind boggling variety of things you can do as a doc. Deciding to become a surgeon should be a process of elimination where you simply can't see yourself doing anything else.

Survivor DO
 
Thank you for the imformitive replies. Right now do to my finacial situation it is cc for me. But I will keep an open mind. And do everything I can to reach my goals. I need to stay as imformed as I can. Right now im having trouble finding surgical tech programs in my area.
 
Also make sure to explain that you took some of your classes at CC for financial reasons.
 
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