How do you know?

[Paulkid]

Hello there,

I'm on my questioning phase of my career decision.

I once wanted to get into medicine when I was young, became more like a dream. These past days i've been focusing on psychology since I got lazy in my highschool to take chemistry and physics. I decided its now or never to follow my child dream of becoming a doctor.

 

I know if I really want this, I can achieve it. The only thing that can stop you from accomplishing something is yourself right?

 

So how did you know you were right for medicine? what ares some essential questions you should ask yourself? What motivated you to get into medicine?

etc...

 

I'm still 18 and I could backtrack myself 1 year to get prerequisites to change my program in college from social science to health science, but I'm asking so many questions only to get myself so little answers. What should I know? What keeps you motivated this whole way?

I know if I go now, theres no coming back, so help guys!

[failingtothrive]

Hello there,

I'm on my questioning phase of my career decision.

I once wanted to get into medicine when I was young, became more like a dream. These past days i've been focusing on psychology since I got lazy in my highschool to take chemistry and physics. I decided its now or never to follow my child dream of becoming a doctor.

 

I know if I really want this, I can achieve it. The only thing that can stop you from accomplishing something is yourself right?

 

So how did you know you were right for medicine? what ares some essential questions you should ask yourself? What motivated you to get into medicine?

etc...

 

I'm still 18 and I could backtrack myself 1 year to get prerequisites to change my program in college from social science to health science, but I'm asking so many questions only to get myself so little answers. What should I know? What keeps you motivated this whole way?

I know if I go now, theres no coming back, so help guys!

 

 

 

Well firstly, you could still apply to med school with a social science background. Secondly, I don't think that medicine was the one thing that was "right" for me. I'm sure I could have been a teacher, an engineer, or a nurse, and been just as happy. But I applied to med school and got in so here we are.

 

Medicine is great because you'll always be able to get a job (unlike psych maybe). People do medicine for a variety of different reasons, but these days you have to be a good communicator to get in. Although it's cheesy and a total cliche, it's totally true - you have to want to help people if you want to be a doctor. Why else would we do it?

[scrub]

I haven't been accepted anywhere yet but basically I tried a bunch of stuff, followed up on the stuff I really enjoyed, and ended up at medicine.

 

I think thats sort of the way you'd find yourself in any career. Just pursue the experiences you feel purpose in, the sort of things that keep you motivated through adversity and inspire you to improve. If you find yourself drifting towards one profession or another - explore that too. Instead of always looking at the end point (the career) look at what sort of journey to that point is most appealing... then try it. IMO that's really the only way you can know.

[moo]

I wanted to be a professor of math for the longest time. I did my undergrad in math. Then somewhere along the way, I decided to be a doctor as getting a PhD in math and then becoming a prof was too competitive. Plus the research side of math was way too difficult for me. I crammed all my prereqs in during third year (took 7 courses a semester, the biosciences were the easy courses ironically, while the physics and math courses were notoriously difficult), took the MCAT, and got into med school and here I am, a family doctor and still training to be a physician-epidemiologist.

[Paulkid]

I wanted to be a professor of math for the longest time. I did my undergrad in math. Then somewhere along the way, I decided to be a doctor as getting a PhD in math and then becoming a prof was too competitive. Plus the research side of math was way too difficult for me. I crammed all my prereqs in during third year (took 7 courses a semester, the biosciences were the easy courses ironically, while the physics and math courses were notoriously difficult), took the MCAT, and got into med school and here I am, a family doctor and still training to be a physician-epidemiologist.

 

Heh, thats a long way to come out to med school.

Sometimes it makes me wonder how some people never get tierd of school.

 

Well I kinda made my decision, changing my courses in cegep to get into health science, already looking up places I could start volounteering and making my scheduel in a way that I could make my studys as full time.

 

Tips of advice anybody on what to do to increese my chances of getting into med directly from cegep?

[thebouque]

Heh, thats a long way to come out to med school.

Sometimes it makes me wonder how some people never get tierd of school.

 

Well I kinda made my decision, changing my courses in cegep to get into health science, already looking up places I could start volounteering and making my scheduel in a way that I could make my studys as full time.

 

Tips of advice anybody on what to do to increese my chances of getting into med directly from cegep?

 

it's not such a long way... he only did a UG... cegeps are only in quebec AND you still have to do 1 yr of UG (called premed) if you get straight from cegep unless you get into sherbrooke..

[A-Stark]

I wanted to be a professor of math for the longest time. I did my undergrad in math. Then somewhere along the way, I decided to be a doctor as getting a PhD in math and then becoming a prof was too competitive. Plus the research side of math was way too difficult for me. I crammed all my prereqs in during third year (took 7 courses a semester, the biosciences were the easy courses ironically, while the physics and math courses were notoriously difficult), took the MCAT, and got into med school and here I am, a family doctor and still training to be a physician-epidemiologist.

 

I didn't really know what I wanted to do during undergrad, though I thought about the academic/prof route a fair bit. Ended up doing two masters (applied math and biostats) over three years before med school, and I was even accepted to a PhD program in stats, but... well, I decided I didn't really like it, or at least not that much to chug away at the really difficult stuff (i.e. math research!). At a certain point it becomes so abstract and irrelevant to other people that I had a hard time seeing the point. So here I am - and loving it - especially the whole "interacting with people" aspect.