Karako

I am a high school student and I wanted to become a medical doctor. How do I prepare for pre-med school? Reading books? Do extra science and math?

Jpatel2014

Are you a senior, if not the only way you can "really" prepare for pre-med would be by taking AP classes, maintaining a high gpa, reading a lot, and keeping your passion for science alive! hth

doonerak

First, learn to write. One does not "planning of" anything. Write like that on your medical school application and they will toss it immediately. I know this is just CC, but it doesn't take much more effort to write well.

There is no "pre-med" school. To get into medical school you must do three things:

1) EXCEL in the required pre-medical classes in college. These include a year of college biology, 2 years of chemistry (through organic), a year of physics, a semester or two of english and (sometimes) a year of calculus. New requirements will probably be added in the next year or so for a semester of psychology and of sociology or some type of combined experience in those two classes. Your major usually does not matter, although I personally would not pick hotel management or fashion merchandising.

2) take the MCATs (like SAT IIs for medical school) and do well.

3) Have a good interview. If you do those two things, you can usually get some interviews. In the interviews, schools have a variety of things they are looking for like personality issues (extreme arrogance, shyness), general ability to communicate, a sense of what your career interests are (some schools like Duke pride themselves on training researchers, others seek to graduate physicians interested in primary care, etc). Read the schools background information like crazy.

Its a long road (4 years college, 4 years med school, 3-8 years of residency) but a great career if you have the stamina!

doonerak

My post sounds harsh when I reread it- sorry not my intention. If you are pretty smart and work hard, getting into medical school is very manageable. The main thing is to be sure thats what you really want to do. I suggest volunteering in a free clinic if you can. Most hospitals are pretty strict about what they let volunteers do- you might just end up helping patients validate their parking passes. If you can find a free clinic they have a real need for help and the doctors and nurses who are working there are usually the kind of people that are willing to take an interest in someone like you.

Another idea is to ask your family doctor if you could spend an afternoon or two shadowing patients with them. MDs are a bit less inclined to do this nowadays because of all the federal privacy laws but its a good way to see what medicine is really all about.

Karako

Thank you Jpatel2014 and Doonerak. Doonerak, I don't think it was harsh at all. It actually helped me realize that I need to work on my writing skills.

i_wanna_be_Brown

in high school, the only thing you can do is get into college. Focus on that, nothing else you do right now will make it onto your application for med school anyway.