What subjects should I take in college if I wish to pursue cardiology in the future?

Question

I'm about to start my final year in secondary school this September, and the prospect of college has come up. I want to become a cardiologist in the future, but I have no idea about what subjects I need to take in college. Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

I'm assuming you live in the U.S. and will want to become a doctor in the U.S. otherwise please disregard my post since it may not apply.

If you want to become a physician, you need to get a bachelors degree from a 4 year university first. During your undergraduate education, you will need to complete courses that are required to apply to medical school.  Beyond those courses, your major doesn't matter.

For most medical schools, you will need at least one year of each of the following courses:

General Biology

General Chemistry with Laboratory

Physics

Organic Chemistry with Laboratory

English

Calculus

Then you will have to take a standardized exam called the MCAT, which will test your knowledge of the the above courses.

In order to be considered a competitive candidate for medical school, you will need to have a GPA of at least 3.5 and an MCAT score of at least 30, but the higher the better since there are no guarantees in getting into medical school.

During medical school, you will take courses in the core curriculum with numerous exams during the 1st two years covering different areas of basic science, pharmacology, physiology, and anatomy. You will also have to take two more big standardized exams during medical school. Then during your last year in medical school you will apply for residency training in internal medicine since you want to eventually become a cardiologist, which is an additional 3 years of training.  

During your internal medicine training, you will also need to apply for cardiology fellowship, which is probably the most competitive fellowship in internal medicine and will require at least 3 more years of training.

As you can see, becoming a doctor is difficult, long, and huge committment. You will be ~32 years old when you finish your education and training to become a cardiologist (if you go straight to college after high school, then to medical school, and then residency + fellowship without any breaks in between) with about ~$100,000-200,000 debt in student loans.  

Hope this helps.  Good luck.