How hard is it to become a doctor?

How academically smart are you?

>>17386459
Pretty good, my school grades are solid

Also here's the kicker - I'm 25 years old and I have a degree in philosophy.

There are medical degrees here in the UK for existing graduates, and you DON'T need to come from a stem subject.

Just wondering how hard the process of becoming a doctor is.

>>17386457
>Get into med school
Takes good GPA (3.5 and up), good MCAT scores, LORs, good essay, medical experience, volunteering, and things that make you stand out (hobbies, awards, etc)

Then you need to nail the interview

>med school
4 years of med school. I'd imagine the material is not difficult. You just need to take in a shitload of info and piece it together. Med school isn't cheap either. You'll most likely finish with debt

Then you need to do residency and specialise, which I've heard can be strenuous, and you aren't getting paid top dollar yet

And you're competing with top tier students throughout the entire process. But with hard work, you can do it.

>>17386494
I'm British by the way so GPA isn't relevant to me but I got all As at A level and all A*s and As at GCSE which is the equivalent basically

Do you have any experience of it anon? Do you do a similar field or something?

>>17386499
>do you have any exp

No. I just want to be a Doc too, so I've been doing research. Probably going to shadow soon

Can you shadow a Doc in the UK and ask questions? I'm sure you'll get some insight

>>17386457
>How hard is it to become a doctor?

Piss easy once you're in medical school. C = MD

>How hard is it to BE a doctor?

>>17386504
Yes you can shadow doctors but I've always heard it's VERY competitive to get a place doing that. Other budding med students work in old people's homes, or hospices, or things like that

But I guess I've never actually called up a hospital and asked about it, maybe I should

>>17386507
Okay well then my two questions are:

1) How tough is the process of just getting into med school (having to get experience, etc)?

2) Why do you think being a doctor is hard? Well I mean I'm sure it is but still, any job sucks and at least being a doctor is important, engaging, and carries prestige

>>17386511
Yee, just get in contact with some hospitals and email some docs, preferrably one who is in your desired speciality (if you have one). See what you can do

At the very least, get med exp and just see what the med life is like

pretty ez, you just need a stethoscope

>>17386524
Yeah that probably is the best advice I guess, danke

What specialty have you thought about yourself? I mean for me that would be a very very distant concern, just any sort of doctor who would take me for shadowing would suffice.

>>17386528
Think it might be a bit more than that mate

>>17386520
>1) How tough is the process of just getting into med school (having to get experience, etc)?
Getting the grades, which I'm sure you have otherwise you wouldn't even be thinking about it.
Volunteering = easy, just time consuming
Reseach = easy, just boring and time consuming
Getting good enough entrance exam scores = You either do or you don't. If you don't then I've seen that persistence usually pays off

>2) Why do you think being a doctor is hard? Well I mean I'm sure it is but still, any job sucks and at least being a doctor is important, engaging, and carries prestige
I'm a doctor. Any job is hard, true, I mean that I would probably say that I'd be equally as stressed out working in a regular old office job as I am now. They always say that you really have to enjoy helping people, or you'll just be miserable. So if you're volunteering and love it, then that's a good sign.
The prestige is pretty cool I guess, but it gets old. You really have to be careful about how you conduct yourself in and out of the hospital. Remember that one 4th year Neurology resident that made the news because she got drunk and yelled at an Uber driver on youtube? Well, her career is over. Nobody would've given a shit if she had a less "prestigious" job, even if she was making more money

>>17386540
Mainly Path since I like leaning about disease. Maybe Derm because good pay and lifestyle. Or Orthopaedic if I can handle surgery. Who knows?

I also heard Cardio and Rad are good

>>17386457

Hard.

My wife was a doctor in her home country, and has to retake her exams in the States to practice here.

Becoming a doctor is an exercise in fitting several bookshelves of information into your head, information that is all very similar and easy to confuse for other information, making the task much harder, and you must be able to recall any of this information at a moment's notice.

Grabbing a random book off the table (there is a literal bookshelf *full* of textbooks behind me. She has all the information in them memorized) and turning to a random page:

Gastrointestinal Anatomy. My wife is in the bathroom, but I asked her through the door to name the abdominal aorta and branches, staring with the left inferior phrenic artery and proceeding clockwise. Her response, after maybe 3-4 seconds of pause.

"Left inferior phrenic artery, Left middle suprarenal artery, Left renal artery a.k.a. L1, Left testicular/ovarian artery, Inferior mesentric artery a.k.a. L3, Bifourcation of abdominal aorta..."

And I stopped her, because I could tell she wasn't going to slip up. She wasn't even studying this book. She hasn't touched it for maybe six months. She doesn't have a photopgraphic memory, and she isn't a gastrointestinal specialist, she just knows all this stuff, by heart, because she has to. Because it's all fucking connected, and absurdly complicated, and not knowing something means making mistakes, means people die.

The rate for people who start off toward a career in medicine vs. those who end up in one is 0.01%

>>17386903
came to say something similar to this, becoming a doctor requires a great deal of memorization more than anything else

just be an RN or paramedic or something