Becoming A Doctor

The Exhausting Pre-Med Path And Beyond

Becoming a doctor is very rewarding once you make it to residency and beyond. But before reaching residency, a brutal pre-med path and medical school curriculum must be tackled and persevered. Not everyone makes it. In fact, many drop out at the level of organic chemistry, the so called “weed out class” in college.

It’s not required to pick a pre-med path during college, but you do have to take prerequisites to be accepted into medical school. These include general biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry and physics. On top of that, you have to complete the courses required by your major.

Juggling 4-5 courses in a semester can be very difficult, especially when you are dealing with the sciences! To not only successfully pass these courses, but to excel and receive a B+ or A requires many hours of daily studying; to the point where it just becomes your life.

On top of that, you must also get involved with research, volunteer work, 10-20 hours of shadowing a physician, obtaining letters of recommendation and doing well on the MCAT. You pretty much have to dedicate your college life to excelling in academics in order to make it into medical school.

In the latter half of your senior year of college, you will have a good feeling as to whether you will make it into medical school. Your MCAT scores are the most important factor! You may have everything else on your resume, but if your MCAT scores are low, the brutal truth is that you will most likely not get accepted into an allopathic medical school.

Getting accepted into allopathic medical schools, the traditional schools in the U.S. which give you an MD title after graduation, is becoming more competitive every year. The MCAT basically makes you or breaks you. Unfortunately, the system has to rely on this standardized test because the competition is simply too fierce.

For those having difficulty getting accepted into an allopathic medical school, there is always the option of osteopathic medical schools or Caribbean medical schools. The best Caribbean medical school is St. Georges University School of Medicine. This school delivers an excellent medical education, helps you build stamina and discipline and challenges you to push yourself to the next level!

For everyone out there who is currently on the pre-med path or considering it, just remember one important point: do not get discouraged if you find yourself slipping in the process. This road is full of potholes and moments of misery. There will be times when you will literally hate your life and just want to give up.

Don’t ever give up. The more often you get yourself back up from the rubble, the more you will persevere and inch closer to the finish line!

You can do it if you put your mind, heart and soul into it!

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)