Want to be a doctor- what qualifications-A levels do i need and what type of doctor should i be

Question

I want to be a doctor in internal medicine, however i do not fully know what you need to do to become one- or what you have to do while being one. im 17 and would like a PHD in it. im good at most subjects and am very good at latin, maths, physics and chemistry

Answer 1

I can't say about requirements to enter medicine in the US because I'm doing the career in Mexico which doesn't require such exuberant grades or voluntary activites to enter.

Chances are by the time you do rotations in the career, you'll ditch Internal Medicine for a completely different field. Happens to everyone.

Internal Medics are MD's with a residency in Internal Medicine not PHD's. You can still pursue a different speciality in research that grants you a PHD level degree if you don't mind earning less money while you focus your time on studying more.

Hrmm.. Latin. I guess it might be a bit useful to learn a few medical terms in anatomy because human anatomy in english uses a lot of latin, but the lenguage won't be useful in the career as such. I've heard spanish is a very useful language if you wish to practise in the US. Taking the subject early in the career when there is less real-life work might be better than stalling when you're a registered MD and loaded with work.

Physics is a subject I believe to be taken in med schools in the US (I never took any of that here). Knowing a bit of physics can be useful for understanding the mechanism of how venus valves work and Newton's laws of energy. The subjects that you seem to be good at that will be useful are math (unfortunately I'm not that good at it), and chemistry (at least in US schools, chemistry isn't heavily taught in mexican med schools),

As for personality qualities for internal medicine; they say jokingly you need a minimal IQ for it. Good memory to store and correlate information of hundreds of diseases that can give similar symptoms and how to diagnose them. In the first two years in the career I always had a question mark on how in the h**l do you go from zero to really knowing how to do this, but in your clinical years they teach you how to spot the more common diseases and you add the really rare stuff by seeing real patients with "x" weird disease when you see a similar case in the future. Memorizing books like crazy just doesn't work in this sense. Dr. Housian medicine isn't exactly the closest to reality, but a good bright mind doesn't hurt.

Being able to be nice to people even when you're dead tired is another plus.

Answer 2

Well you need (supposedly) ABB minimum, but really, it's got to be AAB at least. With at least an A in chemistry, and a grade in another science (maths counts as a science).

I would personally take chemistry, and then the best science you have, and then the next best grade to reach AAB.

I can't tell you what you should specialize in, but in your rotations, something will leap out at you, either in surgery or internal medicine.

Anyway, good luck.

Answer 3

See a pre med counselor in college

Get mostly A's and maybe a B or two in Bio, Chem, and Physics which are ALL required to prepare for the MCAT.

You can major in whateer you want. Some school even like mixing in English, Poly Sci, or Spanish majors.

Also, good grades and smarts are a dime a dozen.

You MUST have some volunteer and research experience to be competitive.

Good Luck