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What the requirements for a medicine course?
I feel my calling is in medicine, surgeon to be specific but I actually don,t do well at school. I'm wondering which subjects i should concentrate on to get to medical school after highschool?
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Rita’s Answer
I agree with the above. If you are not doing well in school, it will be very difficult to get into medical school. Even in medical school, the amount of studying is unbelievable. I thought of quitting because it was so much. Even to be a surgeon, you also need to do well in medical school. Perhaps your options are to take as many classes outside of school. Every summer, I would take classes on chemistry, organic chemistry, etc at a community college. You will also need to apply everywhere in medical school and probably go to a place that is less popular. I always recommend every person interested in medical school to work as a scribe. They pay you and you interact with doctors. Perhaps after going through this, you may realize you don't want to be a doctor.
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Scott’s Answer
Hi Anthony! Working in the medical field is a wonderful goal. After high school, there is no specific subject you have to study but there are certain math and science courses you need to take in order to be accepted to medical school. You mentioned you are "not doing well in school" and if that remains the same in college, it will be difficult to get into a medical school. I don't know what not doing well means, A's, B's, C's but just so you know you do not need to be a straight A student to get into medical school though it certainly does help. If academically, medical school is not in your future, there are many other rewarding fields in medicine you can explore which are not as academically rigorous. Good luck.
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Oishi’s Answer
Hi Anthony! If your dream is to become a surgeon, I highly suggest you develop study skills right now that you can carry forward with you in college and beyond. You will have to study immensely in college and medical school and even life long to keep up to date. See what mentoring and tutoring services are available to you to see if you can find the root cause of why you don't do well in school. There's no specific subject that you need to concentrate on in order to be a surgeon but most people choose a science related subject such as biology, chemistry, or human physiology. You can also study public health, biomedical sciences, or psychology. There's numerous other career options that fall under these subjects besides becoming a surgeon so I recommend you look into other options available to you as well.
Best of luck!
Best of luck!
Updated
Hwal’s Answer
Anthony,
If you meant that you don't get good grades when you said you don't do well at school, this could potentially, although not definitely, be a challenge. Let me share my perspective as a PA, though. I'm from Australia where the only way to learn and practice medicine is to graduate from a medical school and the PA profession as we know it doesn't yet exist. So, when I moved to the US I learned about PAs and, the robust medial training in PA school and the fact that I could start practicing sooner ultimately made me decide to become a PA and I'm content with the education and training I got because it prepared me well for practice. Becoming a PA is no easy task though, and I ultimately completed me than 100 credit hours of coursework over seven consecutive semesters. I would encourage you to consider becoming a PA, since PAs practice in every medical specialty and in every clinical setting, including surgery.
Here's steps to become a PA, posted on the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) website:
https://www.aapa.org/news-central/2018/08/6-steps-become-pa/
And here's a great website on everything PA, including pre-PA and PA student:
https://doseofpa.blogspot.com/?m=1
To address your concern/question, it would be possible to gain acceptance to PA schools without a perfect GPA and you can pass coursework and successfully complete training in PA school without maintaining perfect grades. But not unlike for medical school admission, getting accepted to PA school is very competitive. For the program that I attended, for example, the acceptance rate was less than 3% for my class. I would encourage you to think carefully about what career options you feel most strongly about. Let me know if you have any specific questions I can help with.
Hwal
If you meant that you don't get good grades when you said you don't do well at school, this could potentially, although not definitely, be a challenge. Let me share my perspective as a PA, though. I'm from Australia where the only way to learn and practice medicine is to graduate from a medical school and the PA profession as we know it doesn't yet exist. So, when I moved to the US I learned about PAs and, the robust medial training in PA school and the fact that I could start practicing sooner ultimately made me decide to become a PA and I'm content with the education and training I got because it prepared me well for practice. Becoming a PA is no easy task though, and I ultimately completed me than 100 credit hours of coursework over seven consecutive semesters. I would encourage you to consider becoming a PA, since PAs practice in every medical specialty and in every clinical setting, including surgery.
Here's steps to become a PA, posted on the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) website:
https://www.aapa.org/news-central/2018/08/6-steps-become-pa/
And here's a great website on everything PA, including pre-PA and PA student:
https://doseofpa.blogspot.com/?m=1
To address your concern/question, it would be possible to gain acceptance to PA schools without a perfect GPA and you can pass coursework and successfully complete training in PA school without maintaining perfect grades. But not unlike for medical school admission, getting accepted to PA school is very competitive. For the program that I attended, for example, the acceptance rate was less than 3% for my class. I would encourage you to think carefully about what career options you feel most strongly about. Let me know if you have any specific questions I can help with.
Hwal