How was your road on becoming a doctor?

I think it is wonderful that you know that you would enjoy pediatrics.

While waiting for medical school, you can learn a lot of clinical skills in pediatric care as a nurse, physician assistant, dentist physiotherapist, dietician and I am sure that there is much more. There is also a budding group in complementary medicine working as naturopaths with groups such as children but you have to be tough to take on criticism as the science behind it is limited.

Premed science programs are useful if you wish to become a clinical biochemist, microbiologist, immunologist, neuroscientist , physiologist, or to enter pharmacy.

Honestly having gone through medical school, there are many people who had very unrelated degrees in areas such as music, engineering, etc and got into medical school. Good mcat prep programs such as Kaplan can help with weak areas.

I suggest having a back up career plan as you are right that more and more mature students in their thirties and forties are switching careers into medicine later because it is tough to get in to med school for many.

If you can, do some career shadowing with a pediatrician or a Family doctor who sees many children in clinic. In addition, volunteer work with children in places such as clinics and hospitals would be helpful as well.

As for the years of work, it varies for different people. 4 years for an undergrad degree is a minimum plus 4 years for med school and 5 years for pediatric residency is 13 years. Many people shorten this time by doing a 2-3 year residency in family or emergency medicine where you can still work a lot with children and invest about 10 years into education.

As a side note,I would not suggest going to Europe or Caribbean or another foreign medical school to cut wait time for med school entry. More and more Foreign international medical graduates are having a very hard time coming back to US and canada and getting into residency programs such as pediatrics and other countries favor their own country residents to fill positions for doctors.

At the end of the day, I would not choose a degree purely on how it would prepare you for medical school. Choose courses that you enjoy, and can see yourself utilizing in a rewarding career working with children who have medical issues.

The most important thing you can do in high school is to learn to study. The courses you take are less important. If you do go to medical school you will have to take a number of required courses in college. It probably is a good idea to take some science in high school to make sure this is something you like. Then you need to find a good college. Certainly a small liberal arts school is wonderful but may be too expensive so a state school may be a better choice. You will need to take certain science courses in college but you do not need to have a premed major.

Over the course of high school and college you will have time to decide if medicine is really what you want. I grew up wanting to be a doctor but decided I did not want to take premed classes in college and went to law school instead. After practicing law for 8 years I went back to medical school. I had to take a lot of courses before I could apply. I am a practicing pediatrician and I love it.
Medicine is a very demanding occupation. It requires a lot of time and involvement. You might also consider being a nurse practitioner or a physicians assistant - both of which require much less schooling and training.
To be a doctor you have to go to medical school after 4 years of college. This is a four year program. You then apply for residency and if you want pediatrics, it is a three year program before you can get a job (although you get paid as a resident).
You have many years to explore and decide what you really want to do.
At this point I would take a wide assortment of classes and do the best you can so that you can get into a good college or university. During your four years at college you will be able to make better decisions about what you want to do.

You need to select a college with a strong pre-med program. They will help you to select undergrad degrees to prepare you for the MCAT. At NC State (my school), pre-med included Biochemistry and Microbiology (my degrees). However, there are other degrees that are considered pre-med -biological science, biomedical engineering, ect. Getting into a pre-med program consists of fulfilling the normal requirements for attending the college of your choice. Getting into med school requires satisfying the medical school's requirements, which usually include a passing score on the MCAT. It takes ~4 years to get your undergrad degree(s) and another 4-5 years to earn your medical degree. All forms of higher education are difficult and stressful - you cannot eliminate a type of degree based upon this aspect. There are plenty of career paths you can take once you earn your bachelors degrees, if you decide to not pursue pre-med afterwards - this was my path. Do a search on linkedin of those with pre-med degrees (e.g., search for those with a B.S. in biological sciences) to see the wide range of career options.

If you look at any college with a medical school, you will find requirements for two semesters of biology, microbiology, two semesters of physics, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, organic chemistry I, organic chemistry II, and so on. You can have any major as long as these classes are fulfilled. A good grade on the MCAT is absolutely necessary along with doing some volunteer hours and showing genuine interest in the medical field by shadowing a physician or a nurse at a hospital or both, etc. The other posts were informative as well, i hope this helps