I'm planning on getting an engineering degree and then going into the medical field to become a doctor. Is biomedical engineering the best course of action for me, or is there another engineering field that would both interest and be beneficial for me?

1. biomedical engineer,

best not to spend 4 years for a BS, 2 years for a MS then 6-8 years medical...get into the workforce

Hello Anna,
Within the medical field there are lots of engineering paths you might choose. I know some folks at Dell (my company) who work in that space. It would help if you could clarify what you mean by engineering (e.g. medical devices vs. pharma vs genomics).

I also have contacts within the Personalized Medicine foundation to which I could introduce you. There is a Personalized Medicine conference starting November 15th in Boston at the Harvard Medical school which would be a great opportunity to talk to people about your career. It's the most credentialed gathering of which I am aware (but they let me attend anyway ;-). I believe there are scholarships for students. Let me know if you are interested and I can help you get connected with those folks.

Best,

Hagen

Chemical engineering is worth pursuing as well. Many schools offer a biomedical concentration in it so that is worth checking out as well. As the above comments mentioned, it depends a bit on which type of specialization you wish to pursue in med school as well as the program path offered at your school. Personally, I feel biomedical engineering fences you in a bit too much. I know many of my peers in chemical engineering who went on to do pursue med school. They all did the biomedical concentration which had them focus more on biological topics, additional organic chem courses, and a pharmaceutical plant senior design project. This would provide a great fundamental background for entering medical school and would allow for the fundamentals for any of the paths. If you have the option of taking electives, you could take mechanical engineering electives which would augment your credentials for creating mechanical devices used in medicine.

Additionally, I've been told the rigor of engineering prepares you best for med school regardless of which discipline you choose. So know no matter what you cannot go wrong (unless you go I.E.-that's just my personal bias though).

Definitely take up Hagan on his offer of networking as that is going to be critical.