Medical Career Path

Growing up, my family never had very much money. My mother always had to work and was never able to take many days off. I have never had a problem with hard work; it keeps me from getting bored, but I never want money worries to be the highlight of my every day. For that reason, I chose to attend college so that I could get a good job. My family has also had a lot of health issues among the eight of us; this also helped me to decide what career path I wanted to follow. I want to make an above average income of $60,000 per year or more. I also wanted to be sure that I could have vacation time and I liked the idea of potentially working nights. I decided to pursue a medical path, more specifically a Family or General Physician. I chose this …show more content…
A student who wants to become a doctor must obtain a bachelor’s degree and have studied biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and English. A student must have a high enough GPA to get into medical school, as well as complete the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), and submit letters of recommendation to get into medical school. Depending on what a student is studying, medical school will last several years. A specialization in Family/General Physician would take me four years in medical school, followed by three years of residency training (United States). I was aware of how much schooling it would take, but I had not realized just how competitive it was to get into medical school. This would also mean that I would have to spend years studying before I could actually start working and making money. I do not like the idea of spending more time and money in school, but eventually I would be able work and make the money …show more content…
Physicians are required to have good public speaking abilities, be able to communicate well with people to establish a good doctor-patient relationship, and have advanced writing abilities. Writing is very important, especially the ability to take notes about a patient so that doctors can figure out what a patient needs, and so that other physicians can also understand the notes. Doctors must also be able to write consent forms for their patients so that the patient is aware of what a physician is prescribing and to prove that the patient agrees to what the physician is doing. Verbal communication skills are important so that the physician can talk to patients and hospital staff to make sure patients receive the best care possible (American Academy of Orthopedic