To all doctors/medical school students, what should I be doing to prepare?

I am currently a Junior in High School and I want to go into medicine. I want to know all that I should expect and things that would be helpful to do to set me a step ahead. I know this is early to be concerned about this, but I would like to be informed of what I should be doing to prepare. It will give me a better perspective into the field that I would like to go into, as well.



What the above poster wrote will be true at many points in your medical career. But you will get the occasional grateful patient; you will get some time to sleep; some people manage both family and work (it's hard but do-able, especially with an involved spouse). You're still in high school so focus on doing well in your classes and getting into a good college. But you can volunteer at the hospital - work in different wards, work in an urban environment and also in the small town office of a family practitioner; try to get a varied view of the profession. Besides that, there's not much you can do to prepare as a high school student. Once you get into college, you can up the volunteering (not only in a hospital but you can work in a free clinic for the poor or homeless). You can shadow doctors. You can work as an EMT (not required; this is a big time commitment and people are divided on whether this is actually helpful in understanding the profession). The best thing I ever did was volunteer in one hospital (lots of different wards) for about 6 yrs (two years in high school, all 4 years of college). I got to know the doctors and nurses really well, so they kept me more involved in patient care. Yes, medicine is a tough profession. It isn't for the faint-hearted. It isn't for the delicate. You will see people at their worst and most vulnerable. You have to be able to handle that. Do a lot of introspection and if you still find (in college) that you can handle all the studying and the lifestyle and you can't imagine yourself in any other career, pursue medicine. Harsh but it's the truth.




You should be prepared to...





-deal with complaining patients 24/7


-work 16 hour shifts


-sleep at school


-study 8 hours a day


-never see your family


-be constantly strung out