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When should I get an internship at a hospital to become a pediatrician later in the future?

I want to help children around the world who can't afford care.
Hi my name is Anthony, I am a 13 year old boy in seventh grade. My dream is to attend Stanford University and become a pediatrician to help all the children in the world who cannot afford a doctor because their parents can barely make a living. #medicine #healthcare #pediatrician #hospital-and-health-care #science #healthcare

Thank you comment icon To become a pediatrician, you need to get your undergraduate degree in some type of science or health care (biology, chemistry, physics, nursing, pharmacist, etc). Then you apply for medical school and go through 4 years of this. Then you apply for residency and ask how long will it take to become a pediatrician. From what I read it can take at least 7 years of residency specializing in pediatrics. This would be 4 years undergraduate, 4 years medical school and 7 years residency which totals up to 15 years of schooling. Good luck, wishing you the best. Study hard and well...it's very competitive. Angela Redito Ichinose

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P’s Answer

Hello Anthony!! What a wonderful life goal!!

The way it works is, you would go to college after high school and take all the pre-medical classes. (You will have time to take other classes though.) You pick a major and get a bachelors degree. It doesn’t have to be in science, though. For example, my dear friend is a family medicine doctor and she was a history and Spanish major!

Anyway, once you’re in college, towards the end, you’ll start looking at medical schools. You don’t have to go to an expensive private school. I went to my state medical school and learned just as much as people who went to private ones. But I also left with almost no student loan debt which was nice. During college you’ll be in the pre-med track, so you’ll have advisors helping you through all the steps.

While in medical school, you’ll do rotations (2-6 week courses) where you’ll actually see patients with various types of doctors (surgeons, ICU doctors, obstetrics, dermatology etc). During this time you finalize what you want to do. Sometimes you fall in love with something you never even considered before.

Once you’ve finalized that, in your fourth year of medical school, you apply for what’s called a residency. Your medical school will be helping you the whole way. You won’t have to navigate this alone. You’ll even go on interviews to various programs you’ve applied to, and then you make a list of what programs you’re most excited about. The schools you’ve interviewed at are doing the same. There is a process called the match that will then assign you to a particular program to do your residency. The first year of residency is called internship. For pediatrics, it’s a 3 year residency.

This seems like a super long path, but don’t be intimidated! Make sure you focus on getting good grades for now. Your grades and test scores will determine college options!

Stanford is an admirable goal! But I also want to again mention that you can go to a less expensive school or a school that gives you a better financial aid package and you’ll still do wonderfully well and be a doctor! I don’t mean to discourage you at all from Stanford. Just to say that you can go to less expensive schools and still be an amazing and wonderful doctor!

Good luck to you and if you have any questions about what I’ve written, please feel free to reply and I’ll get back to you!
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张’s Answer

Hello, you need to work hard to learn all kinds of knowledge, have a sincere love, the future will be able to realize the desire to help those who need it! Come on.
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