Curricula and Learning Links - Career Exploration
Medical Field
Preparing for Medical School
Here is a letter from a homeschooling mom who is also a Medical Doctor (M.D.) She is responding to another mother who asked what her thirteen year old daughter should be doing to prepare for a medical career.
I see your first post as actually containing two questions: (1) How do you encourage her interest in this area? and (2) How to you prepare her to be a doctor?
I would like to address the second one first (even though you might not be asking this question!) IMHO, the best way to prepare to be a doctor is to get into medical school. One of the ways to maximize one's chances of getting into medical school is to attend a college that has a good track record for getting its pre-meds into medical school. Therefore, high school preparation would generally include strategies to maximize the student's chances of getting into the university that gets its pre-meds into medical school. (This is kind of a depressing way to think about high school, but. . . .)
Generally speaking, this does include taking, in high school, many of the classes that other responses to your post have mentioned. As an aside, however, I should state that I did *not* take any anatomy or physiology until medical school: Although it might have helped with the courses once I was in medical school, it was of no benefit in actually getting me into medical school. Also, I never took Latin until I used Latin Road to English Grammar in hs'ing my own children. If a student is smart enough to get into medical school, s/he is usually smart enough to infer the meanings of the Latin words without taking a formal Latin course. (This does NOT mean that I think taking Latin is a bad idea - far from it. It does mean, however, that I do not believe that one should take Latin only because of the putative benefit in later learning medical terms.)
High school should also include, if possible, some preparation for academic success in college: Medical schools look at many entrance criteria, but foremost among them are academics: the university GPA and the MCAT scores.
Continuing the subject of academic success: Students should consider if they have the wherewithal not only to get into medical school, but to survive medical school. When I've talked to university students who are thinking about applying to medical school, one thing I ask them is: How difficult was it to get that 3.5-to-4.0 college GPA? If you were able to do so fairly easily, and had extra time and energy to pursue extra-curricular activities, then you have a higher likelihood of doing well in medical school. On the other hand, if getting that A average in college took everything you have, you might want to think of some other career besides medicine, because medical school is a lot harder than college. It's not that the material is necessarily more conceptually difficult than college; it's more that the sheer volume of material that has to be learned is absolutely unbelievable. Therefore, if a student is struggling to master high school level subjects (let alone college), medical school might not be the best goal for him/her. (Still, God can do wonders!)
Now, back to your first question: How do you encourage her interest in this area? Actually, I'll tie my response to this question to the question you asked in your second post: How can your dd could be exposed to the field? When I was college-age (a l - o - n - g time ago), the usual way was to volunteer in a hospital. This would give a little taste of what hospital-based (although not outpatient-based) practice is like. It would also give her an idea if she likes being around people who are sick. Other responses to your inquiry have mentioned exposure to the sciences, which also is a good idea. However, the practice of medicine - that is, patient care-based medicine, as opposed to a pure lab research career - involves not only the sciences, but working with sick and suffering people. A lot of would-be doctors forget that.
As you stated in your post, your dd could change her mind about a potential career multiple times between now and the end of high school, let alone between now and the end of college. I didn't decide to apply to medical school until midway through my junior year in college - which is pretty late.
Frankly I am enjoying hs'ing a ton more than being a doctor - not that being a doctor was bad; I did enjoy it (most of the time). However, as a homeschooling mom, I get to spend a lot of time with the people I love the most and for whom God will hold me, to some degree, most accountable. In hs'ing, I love teaching and learning about broader fields than my own medical specialty or even medicine in general. [Also, as a full-time homeschooling parent, I don't have to deal with managed care or with malpractice! Yaayyy!]
God bless,
a real Dr. (homeschooling) Mom
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