What bachelor degree do you need to become a general physician?
March 28, 2010 by
Filed under online bachelor degree
I want to become a general physician but I do not know what bachelor degree I need. I need to know so I take the right AP classes. Thanks
Well you can’t be a physician of any kind with only a bachelor’s degree. The bachelors basically just prepares you for medical school after graduation from a 4-year college/university with your B.S. (bachelor of science). So really you can take any major you want, but if you want to be adequately prepared for med school you want to choose something like biology, chemistry, life science, or something like that. Some colleges offer a pre-med program, but that isn’t always a “major” so you might still need to choose one of the ones I mentioned above. Biology is a very common major for people preparing to go to med school where there isn’t a “pre med” major offered.
MB, BCh, BAO ——-Bachelor in Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics.
Oy! Be careful whose propaganda you pay attention to.
Here’s the quick-and-dirty on how to prepare for med school… it’s easier to understand than one might think, and there’s no point in complicating it. Here it is..
Med school will foist upon you so much science and math that you’ll want to open a vein. If you haven’t prepared for that by taking all the math and science you can handle at the college undergrad (bachelors degree) level (and, probably, if you haven’t prepared for THAT by doing the same at the high school level), then you’ll not only probably not make it through med school, but you probably won’t even be accepted. (Whew! There’s a lot of “probablies” in there… but you get my point.)
Plus, you have to get pretty much straight A’s… I kid you not. Straight. A’s.
And, finally, you need to kick-butt on the MCAT… and I mean send that score through the freakin’ roof!
Honestly, there’s nothing to know beyond that. I’m not kidding. Your undergrad (bachelors) could be in “underwater basketweaving” for all most med schools actually, truth-be-told, care. They just want to see tons and tons of math and science, straight A’s throughout (or as close thereto as humanly possible), and glowing MCAT scores.
Do that, and you’ll get into med school… at least somewhere. It’s so competitive that you may or may not get into the med school of your choice, but with tons of math/science, killer grades, and a killer MCAT score you’ll get in somewhere.
That’s it. Don’t make it a bigger and more complicated deal than it has to be.
Now, all that said, here’s the additional advice I give to people: Who knows if you’ll make it to med school. Who knows if you’ll be able to stay if you do. If not, then you’ll need a bachelors that will be able to help you get some other kind of work… either that, or a which will help you get a masters that will help you get some kind of work.
So, do this: First get a bachelors in whatever will help you the most if you end-up not getting into (or, if you get into, not end-up staying in) med school. Don’t even THINK about med school as you’re selecting this bachelors.
Choose a bachelors degree, but then, before you actually begin it, go find a so-called “pre-med” bachelors degree on the web site of some big fancy university somewhere, and write down all the math and science courses it contains.
Then, when you’re pursuing your bachelors degree in whatever, use-up every possible general elective taking all those pre-med math and science courses. If you run out of general electives, then take EXTRA courses (making your normally 120-hour bachelors degree a 129-hour bachelors, if you have to). Just make sure you get all the math and science that a med school expects to see.
And get straight A’s (no C’s, or even B’s, if you can help it… and DEFINTELY no D’s or F’s) throughout.
Then, of course, prepare well for the MCAT. Spend some money on not one, but two or even three DIFFERENT kinds of MCAT prep courses. Don’t stop going to them and taking the practice exams until you so kick the MCAT practice exams’ butts that the instructor says something to you like, “Wow, I’ve never SEEN anyone score so high on an MCAT practice exam!” Then, and only then, you’re ready to take the MCAT.
Doing all that, in exactly that way, is the best approach to med school. It’s practical and realistic, and it leaves you a place to go — an undergrad degree tha’s actually useful to you — if you either can’t get accepted to med school, or you wash out once you’re there.
Hope that helps!
NOTE TO QUESTIONERS: Always, at some point, please select a best answer. The answerers, of course, shouldn’t be doing this just for points; but it’s still nice to earn them when it’s appropriate. So please don’t just leave it hanging, with no points awarded. At some point, when you think you’ve gotten all the answers you’re going to get, please pick the best one and award points. Thanks!
The most useful Bachelor’s degree for entry into the study medicine should have requirements of a major area in Biology with some courses in: Introduction to Biology, Cellullar and Molecular Biology, Principles of Genetics, Laboratory in Elementary Genetics, and Introduction to Microbiology. If there are advanced placement courses in those subject specialties, that would be an ideal program for pre-med.
Gregg is absolutely right. And, after med school comes the hard part!! You need an internship/residency of at least four years. You get paid [modestly] for that, but you’ll work 80 hours a week with on-call duty of 24-36 hours every 3rd or 4th night. That means you stay in the hospital and perhaps even get to sleep [if you're lucky] and maybe even have time to eat something!!
Any Bachelor’s degree will make you eligible for Medical School so long as you have completed the pre-medicine requisite courses along the way.
A more useful way to plan your strategy is to know that most students do not make it to medical school, and that the chosen Major should offer a good career if Medical School does not happen. Engineering is good preparation for the rigors of Medical School and offers a good fallback career. Two Engineering fields — Bioprocess Engineering and Chemical Engineering — allow easy slotting-in of pre-medicine courses.
Incidentally, only one year of internship after Medical School is required for Medical Licensure.