Road to Medical Degree

YGrad THE ROAD TO BECOMING A DOCTOR Pre-med 4 Four years at a college or university to earn a BS or BA degree, usually with a strong emphasis on basic years sciences. • A Bachelor's degree is required to enter medical school. A degree in a science background, like Biology or something related, is recommended to be competitive and better prepared for medical school. Working or volunteering in a healthcare setting is advised. You need a strong GPA to be competitive. What's considered 'competitive' will vary by school. Your grades in the core science classes are the most important in your medical school app. Once you have completed the required classes, you will take the MCAT, the entrance exam for med school. Since you need your MCAT results to apply to med school, it's a good idea to take them your junior year. Medical school 4 Four years of education at one of the U.S. medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. years • Each semester is packed with roughly 24 credits of upper-division science courses including labs (no more generals or intro type of courses as an undergrad). • The first 2 years of med school are classroom based to study the "Basic Sciences". The last 2 years are typically hospital, clinical, and office-based rotations devoted to Clinical Medicine. Rotations cover all major specialty areas for a short period of time. • During med school you will be expected to decide what areas of medicine you are interested in. • In your last year of med school, you will participate in the residency "match". You will interview with different residency programs that you are interested in, in one or more specialties. Residency program 3..9 Through a national matching program, newly graduated MDs enter into a residency program that is three to seven years or more of professional training under the supervision of senior physician educators. years • Residency is very intense, and usually the final step in the training process of becoming a physician (unless you decide to pursue Fellowship training). Your first year of residency is called the intern year. It can be a difficult transition from medical student to sleepless doctor in training. Typically, an additional 2 to 4 years (minimum) of training follows the intern year. • Residency training is specialty specific. This means that you will be getting specific training in one area of medicine to become an expert in that particular specialty. There are tests taken during residency to monitor your progress. • Residency is paid, so it is more like a job, but it is done under varying degrees of supervision. It is the training that readies capable physicians to practice medicine on their own, unsupervised. • After the completion of residency, a physician is considered fully trained in their specialty. To be board certified in a specialty, a final test is taken to determine eligibility for certification. • Residents routinely work upto 80 hours a week. Residents usually take call every fourth night or so, and can be in the hospital for up to 36 hours at a time, as part of their 80-hour week. Certain states and hospitals have restrictions on how many hours per week and how many hours in a row you can work during your residency. 2.3 Fellowships One to three years of additional training in a subspecialty is an option for some doctors who want to become highly specialized in a particular field. years • Fellowship training is like another small residency after residency. They are very common and available for both medical and surgical specialties. • Doctors may choose to pursue a fellowship to become extra specialized, or subspecialized, in an area. For example, an orthopedic surgeon may elect to do a fellowship in hand surgery. This additional, specific training makes them "hand experts" within orthopedic surgery. 12-18 TOTAL 12 Years Minimum of Post-secondary Education. iGrad