What should I do?

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
1

I am a Junior in High school at the moment. I would like to pursue an MD/PH.D. or DO/PH.D. I planning to compete a Bachelors before this.
I’d appreciate any advice on what path I should take to get where I want. I would like to go into psychiatric or neurological research. Neuropsychology seems AWESOME to me.
What colleges are best? Is there any way to skip the residency? What are my chances? Any advice?

THANKS SO MUCH!
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME :slight_smile:

2
  1. Unless you want to be involved with hands-on clinical patient treatment, you don't need a MD or DO. A PhD will suffice for most research-based careers.
  2. If you want to do clinical or transitional research, you don't need a PhD. Just a MD and a faculty position at an academic hospital.
  3. There is no way to skip residency if you want to be licensed as a physician. Residency is a requirement for medical licensing in every state. A neurology residency lasts 4 years; a psychiatry residency lasts 3. There are combined 6 year neuro-psych residency programs where you get certified in both fields.
  4. There is no one "best' college. You need to find a college that offers you the best combination of fit, opportunities and cost. This combination will different for every individual. You may want to post your stats, home state and financial need in both the Financial Aid & Scholarship and the Pre-Med Topics forums to get school suggestions.

If you are sure you want a research career ( and I warn you a research career isn’t for everyone. It takes a special type of personality to be successful at it), you will want to find colleges that offer you excellent opportunities to do research as an undergrad. Most large state flagships will do that, as will any R1 universities in the top 200. Research at SLACs can be hit and miss, though there is an advantage at those in that you are not competing with grad students and post-doc for research experience.

3

That’s good since it’s not really an optional thing.

4

@WayOutWestMom I could be completely wrong but isn’t there a way to skip residency if you do it brought the military somehow? I remember hearing something like that but I could be way wrong.

5

Way wrong.

Either you’re thinking of the fact that the military often pays for medical school if you serve as a military doctor, or that people who go to medical school and the military can skip several ranks in the military and go straight to being an officer.

6

As IWBB says–you’re dead wrong.

Even if you do go the military medicine route after med school, you still have to complete a minimum of 1 year of internship before becoming a general medical officer. A GMO is not a specialist but a low level general practitioner. GMOs typically do eventually complete a residency either during their military service or immediately after they get out since general practitioners are essentially unemployable outside of military service.