A career in medicine is what everyone always dreams of when growing up. Being able to introduce yourself as “Doctor” is a dream come true to so many people. At some point as a child, you told your elementary school teacher that you wanted to be a doctor.
However, medicine is not cut out for just anyone. You won’t survive just because you’ve ‘always wanted to be a doctor.’ You might get to medical school, but that doesn’t mean you’ll survive it or end up becoming a good doctor.
Here is a list to help you gauge whether you’re ready:
1. You’re a people person
As a medical student, you will interact with people every moment. It’s like working in customer service. When a patient comes to a doctor, they want to meet someone loving.
Someone who shows that they want to know how you’re doing.
Being this person makes it easy for patients to open up about what is going on in their lives, so you can make a better diagnosis.
Say someone has an STD and they’ve come for a check-up. Finding a cranky, unfriendly doctor makes it hard for them to tell you the truth. If you’re this type of person, then don’t apply for medical school.
2. You’re made out of steel
If you’re the type of person who is quickly put down, then medical school is not for you. Do you easily succumb to stress? Don’t go to med school. Do you have a history of giving up when you sense difficulty?
Medical school is not the place for you. In medical school, there’ll always be something to stress you out. Standardized exams are still around the corner. Consultants always want you to know everything. You haven’t started your MCAT prep process. Scores are discouraging. It’s a never-ending list.
Being able to put your feelings and stress aside to do what is expected of you is required. You’ll never have the time to wallow in self-pity.
3. You like taking care of people
The medical field is all about caring for people. Putting other people’s needs before yours.
As a medical student, you have to show empathy and kindness to patients at all times. This will go a long way in ensuring quicker recovery compared to if you’re rude and indifferent to patient needs.
As a medical student, you will encounter people from all walks of life. Different tribes, races, ethnicities, different beliefs, attitudes, and values. You must be able to demonstrate patience and kindness no matter the patient. Lots of doctors have ended up losing their jobs or being sued just because they didn’t show care.
4. You love to learn
Medicine is a wide course. You’ll have textbooks that are over a thousand pages long and guess what? You have to go through every page. Without the passion for learning new things, you won’t be able to even get past half the book.
Don’t forget that that’s only one of the books. For every year you’ll probably have around five units, so that’s five textbooks.
The medical field is always changing every day and you must change with it. This means that you’ll never stop learning new things even after medical school. You’ll have to read on new treatment regimes, surgery techniques, and clinical trials all the time. It’s the only way to remain current.
5. You’re hardworking
No one will ever chase you around the medical school to make sure you’re reading. Professors won’t check to see if you’re in the class all the time. Everything in medical school is done out of initiative and personal motivation.
Mediocre performance in medical school is presently not enough. You need to have good grades in most tests.
You’ll always need to put everything aside: friends, family, parties, sex and even love. You can’t just start your GRE prep two weeks before the exam. It takes time. If you’re not naturally hardworking, you’ll continuously put aside your reading for unimportant things.
In no time, you’ll have fallen behind in your studying, and it’ll be hard to catch up. If you’re gonged into medical school, be fully prepared to give it you’re all.
6. Time doesn’t matter to you
There is no denying that medical school will take up most of your time. Some days you’ll be in school for close to 18 hours, and you’ll be in school most of your life.
Before you’re rewarded a medical license, you must go through a four-year undergraduate course.
Then you must complete 3 to 7 years as a resident. You’ll get to call yourself a doctor after about 12 years. Even with that, learning is a lifelong process in medical school.
As a doctor, your time will be spent continuously in the hospital attending to patients and doing research.
If you don’t mind dedicating all your life to medicine, then you are ready for medical school.
7. You’re not that into money
If you have plans of being rich by 25 and owning seven Jeeps and a house with a twelve car garage, forget it. In medical school, you’re not going to be able to achieve all that at such a young age. Pursuing a medical career means that you’ll have to delay your dreams of living lavishly by about ten years.
This is because you’ll probably be in school for about 15 years before you start earning a substantial amount of money to make you productive.
Also, thousands of medical professionals can’t achieve such dreams because they’re still trying to pay off their student loans. If you’re not ready for all this, then medical school is not the place for you.
8. Nothing grosses you out
Are you the type of person who always helps a nose bleeding friend? Then med school might be the place for you. A lot of things in medicine may be disgusting to the ordinary human being.
Being able to stand the sight of blood, vomit, dead bodies and body fluids will save you a lot of stress. If you’re the type of person who walks away at the site of such things, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to learn anything.
9. You always aim high
Medical students are not mediocre performers. They always want to be the best at everything. Medicine is a very competitive field. Everyone is trying to prove that they’re still the genius of the class just like they were during their pre-med years.
Being able to get constant A’s in most of your subjects is paramount if you want to qualify for your dream specialty. If a medical student gets anything short of an A, they always deprive themselves of fun and leisure until they get back on top.
As a doctor, you will also be competing with other professionals for awards. Everyone in medicine is trying to find a cure for cancer and HIV. Clinical trials are being conducted every day and everyone wants to be the first one to discover something.
Being second means, you’re a failure, and no one acknowledges that you even tried. Do you lack this kind of ambition? Then don’t go to medical school.
