Is becoming a Pediatrician challenging?

<p>I'm currently a Junior in high school and a career as a Pediatrician interests me. How tough is it to become one? What do most of them major in as undergraduates?</p>

<p>The road to medicine is a long and challenging one with a many hoops to jump thru.</p>

<p>You can major in any field you’d like to in college so long as you complete med school admission requirements–</p>

<p>2 semesters biology w/ labs
2 semesters gen chemistry w/labs
2 semesters organic chem w/labs
2 semesters general physics w/labs
2 semesters “college level” math–one of which which should be statistics
2 semesters of writing or writing intensive courses
1 semester biochem
1 semester intro psychology
1 semester intro sociology</p>

<p>Some medical schools may have additional requirements for things like anatomy & physiology, genetics, English or upper level humanities.</p>

<p>During college you need to get involved in ECs, including all of these-- community service, clinical volunteering , clinical or lab research, physician shadowing, leadership activities. In addition, some schools value teaching or TAing experience.</p>

<p>You need to keep high grades in both your science and non science classes (3.65 is the national average GPA for accepted med students). You will take the MCAT after you’ve finished your pre-reqs and need s strong score on it. </p>

<p>60-75% of all freshmen pre-meds end up never applying to med school.</p>

<p>Every year 60% of students who apply to med school get rejected at every school they apply to. </p>

<p>Med school lasts 4 years and pediatrics requires another 3 years of residency (specialized medical training) after med school.</p>

<p>I’m actually a board certified pediatrician.</p>

<p>The route to becoming a pediatrician is the same challenge as it is for any pre-medical student, as WOWMom has pointed out. If you make it through those challenges, pediatrics is generally considered an “easier” field to enter than many others. That said, competition to enter the “top” pediatrics residency programs is every bit as competitive as fields like ENT/HN Surgery, Neurosurgery or Dermatology. And this past year, in the residency match program, Pediatrics had 99.4% of all available residency spots filled - higher than any other specialty in the Match. </p>

<p>Being a pediatric resident is by no means easy. You spend 3 years learning how to take care of kids of all ages, from the extremely premature infants born at the edge of physiologic viability all the way to age 21 (and sometimes even older!). You’ll average 70+ hours a week and have many months where you only get 4 days off work the entire month. There are lots of times spent overnight at the hospital, missing out on what your friends and family are participating in. While you get to see lots of healthy children as they come in for regular checkups, you’ll also have to see and care for lots of very sick children as well, including some who will die on your watch. You’ll develop close relationships with families that amaze you with how much they love their kiddos, and also see children who have been injured or harmed at the hands of the people who are supposed to love them the most. </p>

<p>Becoming a pediatrician is certainly a rewarding path, and most surveys of physician happiness find that pediatricians are among the happiest doctors around. People go into pediatrics because they love helping kids and there are plenty of ways to do that from the general pediatrician in the community to the ICU pediatrician (like myself). </p>

<p>If you’d like a great example of what being a pediatric resident is like, google “Heroes of Children’s Hospital” and click on the link to Dateline NBC which followed several residents at Arkansas Children’s Hospital around for nearly a year. It’s several years old, but still quite accurate. I’d post the link but I think that violates the TOS of the forum.</p>

<p>Thank you for the response.</p>

<p>Is it possible to do a DO route to become Pediatrician, instead of MD?</p>

<p>Yes it certainly is. There are a handful of DO specific pediatrics residencies, but the overwhelming majority of MD peds programs are welcoming to DO candidates. </p>

<p>Pediatric fellowships are also very welcoming of DO candidates. One caveat to that though…while I have many friends who I’ve trained along side with during residency and fellowship that were DO’s, I’m not sure if I know any fellows who did a DO specific residency. In other words, the DO’s I know who have gone on to subspecialize, I think all of them did MD residencies. I’m not saying it’s impossible, only that I’m unsure if any came through the DO-specific residency route.</p>