So, You're Thinking About Medicine? A Guide For Middle and High School Students

I feel like many students say they want to go into medicine because of the pay. That’s definitely one of the top reasons, if not the only reason, which is understandable. Medicine, and really any medical job, does pay well. However, I think medicine should be viewed differently. You shouldn’t see it only as a source of income, because medicine isn’t about money. It’s about helping people, and it’s about whether you’re ready to wake up before the sun comes up to study, whether you’re ready to lose sleep to study, whether you’re ready to cram for exams, whether you’re ready to see things that most people would find uncomfortable or gross, and whether you’re ready to sacrifice a lot to go into this field.

Medicine is a factual science. It isn’t like English or philosophy, where one question can have many different interpretations or answers, and where you can receive partial credit. Medicine is often yes or no. Medicine is hard. It does have countless possibilities, that’s true, but the foundation is still factual.For example, arteries carry blood away from the heart, and that’s the only way it will ever be. Arteries are always going to carry blood, oxygen, and other nutrients. The point still stands: medicine is factual, just like math. If 2 + 2 equals 4, that’s the only answer. Yes, it can be written as 3 + 1 or 5 − 1, but the result is still 4. Two plus two is only four unless you add something else into it.

I feel like the type of thinking medicine requires is very open-minded, but it also requires a big and understanding heart, and a lot of patience. You will come across concepts you’ve never heard of before, and you will feel helpless. You’ll try to learn the same topic for hours. You’ll ask your teacher or professor for help. They’ll explain it to you in a way you might understand, or you might not. You could watch twenty YouTube videos. You could stay up all night trying to understand one concept, and it still won’t click. That doesn’t mean you should be discouraged, because you can always try again. I feel like everything in life is teachable, whether you teach yourself or someone teaches you. If you put in enough patience, time, and effort, anything is achievable.

I personally realized that biology wasn’t just textbook content when I started understanding that the things we read about are literally real. I am biology. My dog is biology. My parents are biology. The leaves outside are biology. Everything in textbooks is real life. I remember in my AP Biology class, when we were learning about photosynthesis and chloroplasts and different pigments, especially chlorophyll. My teacher had a lot of plants in her room, and I kept zoning out and looking at them. I realized that what we were learning about was right in front of us. It wasn’t just printed on a page. Sometimes it hits you that biology actually exists. I know that might sound weird, but you’re looking at it all the time, and you’re living it all the time. Biology is everywhere around you.

I think the part people don’t talk about enough is the hardships. Nobody really wants to talk about them because people who promote medicine want others to go into it, and to do that, they usually show the good sides and not the hard ones. But you need to love the hard parts to truly love something. One of those hardships is studying. There is an insane amount of studying and memorization. If you think you can’t remember it, you should think again, because it is possible. It might be easier for some people, but it is genuinely possible.

Another major hardship is the amount of time it takes. That’s what turns most people away. The years add up: the patience, the concepts, the exams. You graduate high school, go to college, take exam after exam, take the MCAT, apply to medical school, go through residency depending on what path you choose. Whether you become a doctor, engineer, or scientist, it takes many years, unlike other fields where education ends sooner.

For you as the reader, I want you to ask yourself whether you’re okay with not having immediate answers. Medicine is a long process. I would hope that you’d rather open a textbook, ask a teacher, or even do a safe experiment at home instead of immediately Googling or using ChatGPT. When you have that level of curiosity and patience, that’s how you start to know it might be your thing.

I made this website to help students like you. I hope it helps you find your passion or even your future profession, even though I’m still figuring mine out myself. Regardless of your age, you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. What if being interested in medicine just means being curious right now? You don’t have to commit to anything yet. And with that, I hope you’re able to explore medicine and maybe one day find yourself working in a medical field.