<p>Hi, I have a question about becoming a doctor, and I was hoping that someone may be able to help me. My question is basically simple: can an "average" student become a successful doctor, or must the student be in advanced placement classes and get straight A's (I'm talking about in high school)? I'm concerned because I've been out of school from an injury since 9th grade (I'm a junior now). I was double-promoted from 7th to 9th grade, but over that summer, I got a severe injury from a roller coaster that left me with nerve damage in my upper body. Thus, I've been out of school due to pain and a lack of sensation/radiating pain in my arms. That transition was difficult, especially since the school was less than willing to provide me with tutoring. For the past 2 years (now working on my third), I have entirely taught myself -- no help from anyone. The teachers merely pass the work down to me, and I'm left to my own devices as to how I will manage to complete it. The fact that I'm also still taking the main-stream tests (despite the fact that they are largely based on class discussion, and I'm not in the class, so I have no way of knowing the answer), has lowered my grades dramatically. I've still managed to obtain a B+ to A average in all Honor Level classes (however, AP are offered). I was told that I could not take AP classes because I didn't meet the prerequisites from 8th grade (which I skipped). That made a chain reaction -- no prerequisites from 8th means that I had to take only Honor level 9th grade classes, which means that I only have the prerequisites for Honor classes in 10th grade, and so on. Lastly, I often have a problem with my "tutor." I tell her that a question that I got wrong was actually correct (I've even had an engineer from NASA that I know figure out some of my math problems), and she gets all irritated and won't change my grade. I'm hoping that things will be different this year, as I just had a meeting with all of the big-wigs in the town, but I didn't dare complain about the tutor because she's the ONLY ONE in the town, and if she's giving me my grades for the next 2 years, I certainly don't want to upset her. She's extremely unprofessional, defensive, and uneducated, and she constantly talks about her personal life. In fact, she tried telling me that I needed to drop down to level 3 or 4 classes (the lowest that the school offers!), and then finally admitted that it was because she could no longer keep up with the work I was doing... Yeah, like she was really helping my anyway. <em>rolls eyes</em> Her latest thing is that she goes around telling everyone that I'm struggling in my classes! First of all, even if I was struggling, that'd be reasonable considering I've taught myself for so long. Secondly, I'M NOT STRUGGLING, so stop lying! (Sorry for the little vent there...)</p>
<p>It's always been my dream to become a doctor, but I'm just afraid that I'll A) never get into a college (let alone medical school!), and B) the colleges won't believe my story -- I mean who would really believe that someone taught themselves for all 4 years of high school, and accept that as an excuse for their "bad" grades??? Even I wouldn't, and it happened to me! Not to mention, it seems very unreasonable that a high school wouldn't provide accommodations for a student in my predicament, but they truly haven't! Yet, in the same aspect, just looking at my transcript, for my instructors' names, it'll say "tutor-home instruction" -- yet I have received NO HOME INSTRUCTION! Please, please, please -- I'm completely stressing over this. Can you offer any insight? Thank you!</p>