How to Become a Pediatrician

You love kids. It occurs to you that you would like to spend your life helping to make their life better. Many options exist to make this desire a reality. You could go into teaching, social work, or a number of other service related fields that offer the ability to work with children. However, if your academics are high enough and your drive is strong enough, becoming a pediatrician will not only assure you of a life spent improving the lives of children, but you may even get rich in the process.

Becoming a pediatrician requires that a number of events line up in your life. The first one is a matter of genetics. You must have enough brain power to master the course work required to become a medical doctor. To accomplish this, you cannot wait until you are twenty something and wake up one day and decide to head off to medical school. Well, that is not exactly true. If your mental abilities are high and your study skills have netted you a high grade point average, you could make it to medical school on a whim.

Most medical schools require a high academic standing, a diverse learning base, heavy science and math skills, and sufficient community involvement to net great letters of recommendation from influential people. If some of them have MD behind their name, it is even better.

For most people, they must come out of high school with great credentials and study skills or college will sink their ship for acceptance into medical school. Once in college, it is important that you have looked ahead at the medical schools that you intend to apply to for admission. Your college course selections need to be targeted to meet the admissions requirements for these schools.

To maximize your success for admission, you will need to declare a pre-medicine major from the first day of college. Some hign achieving high school students can get pre-approved admission to medical school before starting their undergraduate studies. This is far better than waiting until your junior year of college and starting the labor of applying to the institutions.

Work closely with your academic adviser to make sure that you are ready for the MCAT (Medical college admissions test). If you blow this test, it might be all over for becoming and MD. After you have made it through your undergraduate program and gained acceptance into a medical program, you have to continue to work to maintain your grades. Better students get better residencies. To become a pediatrician, you will need to be able to attact the attention of the boards that admit graduate doctors into their residency programs.

Your residency is where you specialize into pediatrics. By the time you finish the 2 to 4 yours at this level, you will have logged up to 12 years of education after high school. Some fast track high school graduates can reach this level in about 8 or 9 years. Either way, it is a long haul to reach your goal. Only a small fraction of those who begin this trip will complete it.

After completing your residency, you can hang a shingle that says you are a pediatric doctor. However, before you can see your first patient in your own practice, you will need to secure office space, additional equipment, staff, and malpractice insurance.