For anyone who has been/is pre-med: How many years into college did you learn you wanted to go pre-med? What experiences or classes in college made you decide pre-med? How many years (undergrad and med-school) did it end up taking?

hi lauren,

i graduated med school in 1993 and have been a family physician for 20 years.

you really need to have a talk with your college's health professions counselor. you'll need to find out what the pre-medical required courses are. then you can formulate a plan to complete them prior to applying for med school.

it doesn't have to take your entire 4 years of college to complete those courses but it's really good to spread them out. for instance, many of the classes have a lab component which can be just as demanding as the class itself.

personally, i was pre-med from day 1 of college. my major, however, switched from electrical engineering to computer science to business management.

so just about every semester i was taking one or more of the pre-med courses along with the usual mix of courses to complete my degree program. it took me 5 years to finally get my undergraduate degree. but i also decided to take a few of the "recommended" pre-med courses on top of the required ones.

med school is typically 4 years. but there are some exceptions. for instance, some of my classmates were dentists. they only took years 2 through 4 of med school. on the other end of the spectrum, the MD/PhD candidates took several more years, maybe 7 total, prior to embarking on the residency training.

residency can be as short as 1 year for general practitioners to a decade for certain subspecialists. i was 31 years old when i finished training.

as far as what influenced me to become pre-med, basically that would be my mother who worked as a Labor & Delivery nurse for many years.

but i think you want to know more about specific college classes that had an impact. the best class i ever took was from the classics department - medical terminology. they taught you the Latin or Greek root of medical words. that helped me know the medical lingo ahead of my classmates.

i also enjoyed a class called history of science. but it wasn't really specific to medicine.

i strongly encourage you to read some biographies of famous physicians. or books written by doctors about their medical experiences. heck, you might even find interesting some of the internet blogs penned by docs.

as far as experiences, i learned from my health professions counselor about a summer program for pre-meds and applied. those 6 weeks were enlightening. some of the time we spent dissecting a cadaver. the other time we rotated through several specialty services at the hospital. we got to interact with the residents and attendings, be present during rounds, listen in on conversations with patients, etc.

another summer program that i applied to was a preceptorship with my hometown family physician. that was mostly following him while he saw patients in his office. occasionally we went to the hospital or ER.

again, i encourage you to seek our your health professions counselor. they can answer all of your questions about courses, the MCAT, med schools, applications, interviews, etc. they'll set you on the right track.

also, if you haven't already, make friends with other pre-med students.

more personal advice:

the majority of my med school classmates had a parent or other relative in the medical profession. usually several. and usually a physician(s). that means that they pretty much knew what they were getting into and had been planning ahead for years. that means they knew what courses they would need to take, which teachers were best, what school organizations they should join, which MCAT prep courses to take, when to submit applications, how to write application essays, what to say at interviews, which were the best med schools, the best residency programs, and on and on.

if you aren't that fortunate but still are determined to be a physician then it behooves you to learn as much as possible now about the medical path. interview some physicians and other medical professionals. find out their experiences with college and med school, residency, and their particular specialty.

good luck!