<p>You should spend some time shadowing physicians so you can see what kind responsibilities and lifestyle a doctor has. It’s expected for med school applicants anyway</p>
<p>IMO, getting into med school requires a lot of perseverance and mental toughness rather than competitiveness. There are tons of hoops to jump thru to get there.</p>
<p>Medicine is a truly long haul. 4 year undergrad, 4 years med school, plus 3 years pediatric residency. (And another 1-3 year of specialty fellowship if you want to further specialize.) If you’re not willing to do that, cross medicine off your list right now. There are other medically related career that take less time.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to balance family with med school and residency since the hours are so long. But people have done so. Some medical schools are more sympathetic to women/family issues than others, but needing to be home with a sick kid/ailing parent will not get you any slack even at the most family-friendly med schools. </p>
<p>The Dean of Students told D1’s entering med school class to make a list of things that are important to them–then eliminate all but 3. (NOTE: under important things, include stuff like regular exercise, friends, family, BF/GF, pets, sleep, hobbies) He told them they <em>might</em> have time for 3 outside activities, but not more, during med school.</p>
<p>Residency requires 80+ hours/wee, including some stretches that are 24 hours long without a break.</p>
<p>Once you’ve completed med school and residency, your hours are bit more under your control, but it’s a rare physician who works less than 50 hours/week. Depending on how big your practice group is you will be ‘on call’ from several times per month to once a month.</p>
<p>Med school is expensive, but your state med school won’t be as expensive as a private or OOS one. There are a few programs that will allow you to work off your federal loans either thru military service (4 years active duty plus 2 years in ready reserve) or thru working in primary care in a medically underserved area (typically poor inner city public clinics or rural public clinic) for 4 or more years. </p>
<p>BTW, medicine as career has very little to do with biology as taught in AP bio. Don’t think of medicine just because you like you HS bio class.</p>
<p>Some other options you might consider: physican assistant; nursing and nurse practioner (NP); occupational therapist, Speech-language therapist; physical therapist; education specialist; developmental psychologist; early childhood intervention specialist; psychiatric or medical social worker.</p>