What is the Fastest Way To Become A Doctor?
.webp)
Who doesn’t want to save lives? Traditionally, one of the safest, long-term careers in the world comes from studying medicine.
Doctors will always have a place in the world - and they tend to earn some good money while they’re at it.
But the journey to becoming a doctor can be long and arduous - sometimes fraught with detours and pre-med courses. However, this blog will show you the absolute quickest way to become a doctor, from high-school to postgraduate - and we’ll show you how to overcome any hiccups along the way.
Step One: Study the Right Subjects
Prerequisites:
Highly recommended:
- Australia Chemistry, Physics, Biology, English
- UK At least one A-Level in Biology (or Human Biology), Mathematics or Physics
Step Two: Work Experience
This step isn’t required, but can improve your chances at getting into your preferred medical course or school.
All regions:
- Volunteer at the local hospital. Research your preferred hospitals, determine the requirements, choose activities that match your interests, have ‘fallback’ interests, fill out an application and voila! You’re on your way to volunteering at a hospital.
- Alternatively, you can work in a research laboratory or volunteer in other care-related fields, such as aged care.
For more information on high school subject requirements and work experience opportunities, check out our A-Z for Aspiring Doctors eBook!
A-Z FOR ASPIRING DOCTORS
“
The importance of proper preparation ahead of these exams cannot be overstated. MedView offer 1-1 online tutoring with medical students who have excelled in these exams and are dedicated to up-skilling future medical students. Learn more about private tutoring with MedView or sign up to attend one of our courses.
Step Three: Entry Exams
Australia/NZ = GAMSAT or UCAT
GAMSAT
- Tests your social science reasoning (emphasis on literature), scientific reasoning and your essay writing
- Cost: $AU400
- Length: 5.5 hours
- Prep time: 2-3 months
- Help? Take the Australia Council for Educational Research’s (ACER) practice tests. Prepare your essay writing - write 2-5 essays a week and have them reviewed. MedView offers a range of products to help prepare students to sit the GAMSAT.
- Target score: Lowest 54 University of Wollongong, Highest 68 University of Queensland
UCAT
- Tests your logical reasoning, basic mathematics, critical thinking, social skills, and non-verbal reasoning. Often weighted in conjunction with your academic record and interview.
- Cost: $AU298
- Length: 2 hours
- Prep time: 1 month, could potentially cram (not advised)
- Help? Take practice exams and identify key weak areas - contact a private tutor to improve your skills. MedView offer free academic assessments, 1-1 tutoring, and a range of UCAT workshops to suit your needs.
- Target score: Minimum 90th percentile in all subtests
UK = BMAT or UCAT
BMAT
- Tests your problem-solving skills, reasoning and data analysis. Also tests scientific knowledge and writing.
- Cost: £46 (UK citizens)
- Length: 2 hours
- Prep time: 4 weeks
- Help? Download free BMAT test papers and practise under test conditions. Use sample answer sheets to check your work and identify weaknesses
- Target score: 6.0+
Get in touch with MedView to learn more about the best ways to prepare for the entrance exams to improve your chances of admission.
BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
Step Four: Go to Medical School
A medical course takes anywhere from four to six years across the UK and Australia/NZ. This usually consists of part theoretical and part clinical studies.
You will be exposed to the scientific foundations of medicine, laboratory work and clinical practice.
The University of Oxford, for example, has a reputation for making medical students write more essays in a year than other undergraduates do over their entire course.
You will also need to consider specialisation during your clinical and start networking with the right people for a quality residency that aligns with your goals.
Be proactive if you’re struggling and talk to your teacher, tutors and professors about extra help or consideration.
Step Five: Internship/Residency
In Australia, graduates usually start with a 12 month internship which exposes them to a wide range of clinical practices, such as emergency care, general practice, surgery and many others.
After this, you start your residency which can last from one to several years, depending on how you want to specialise.
From here you become a registrar. This typically lasts from two to three years for General Practice and Medical registrars, but vary wildly for surgical and other types of registrars.
You’re basically a doctor when you’re a registrar - just a junior.
In the UK, you take on foundation training which takes two years.
Much like a residency, your time will build on what you learned at school, as well as giving you hands on experience in a range of work environments.
After this, you take your Core Medical Training or Acute Care Common Stem which adds a further two years to your training. At this stage, you choose your speciality - whether primary care as a GP or secondary care in a hospital.
After those four years, you head into specialty training, which can last from four to six years or three years if you want to become a GP.
In the US, residency can last from three to seven years and most residents complete their programs in hospitals - think of the TV show Scrubs.
During this program, you will be exposed to speciality areas and a wide range of clinical practices.
Eventually - after an endless slog - you can sit the US Medical Licensing Examination which allows you to practice medicine on your own. You will also need to renew this license periodically to continue practising, which means another 50 hours of continuing education.
Step Six: Work as a Doctor
You’re a doctor. It took you the better part of a decade, but you’re a full-blown doctor saving lives now.
Congratulations!
So, how long does it take?
- Australia Min. 7 years Max. 11 years
- UK Min. 10 years Max. 15 years
- You are literally looking at a full decade of study and practice to become an independent, fully-fledged doctor.
BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Study Medicine
If you’re only it in for the money, you might want to consider another profession. Life as a doctor can suck: it’s very time consuming, you shoulder incredible responsibility and, as such, your personal life can suffer.
You really need to want to do medicine. Trust me, if it’s money you want, there are way better and easier ways to earn it. Like marketing, or human resources, or public sector work. But if you’re really keen, here are five questions to ask yourself before you proceed:
1. Are you smart enough?
Medical school is demanding. You will need to understand all of the body’s functions, organs, bones, muscles and how all those things interact on a biochemical level. And that's basically just the introduction.
This stuff is no joke. Prepare for long nights studying.
2. Are you prepared for the time it takes?
You will be giving a decade of your life to learn how to become a doctor. You aren’t concerned you will get cold feet half way through? Or decide it isn’t for you once you finish school?
3. Are you prepared to be stuck?
Once you specialise, it’s extremely difficult to re-specialise. You’re likely to be stuck a dermatologist, or in paediatrics, once you decide to take that path.
It’s not impossible to become something else, or transition from specialist to general practice, but medicine expects you to know what you want from the get-go.
4. Can you constantly work?
Those nightmare stories from hospitals about doctors working 24 hours straight in three eight-hour shifts? They’re true.
You will pretty much never sleep again while you’re a resident. And even if you decide to have a family, your patients will still need you. Being a doctor isn’t very good for work-life balance.
5. Are you okay with failure?
At some point, as a doctor, you will make the wrong call. That call might cost someone their life. It’s not negligence, that’s just the way it goes. You need to be okay with that responsibility.
BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
Similar articels
.webp)
The UCAT
The UCAT, or the University Clinical Aptitude Test is the medical school admission test required for many universities in Australia and New Zealand. The UCAT is designed to assess applicants for the aptitude, attitudes and beliefs required of a doctor. In order to defeat the UCAT - we should understand what it is. First off, it’s a two hour computer based exam. There are 5 separately timed subtests - Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and Situational Judgement. In this blog we break down each of the sections and offer guidance on how to prepare for this important exam.
Verbal Reasoning
Verbal Reasoning is meant to assess your ability to read something and draw appropriate conclusions. You can see why this would be important to a doctor - you’re part of a multidisciplinary team and will have to communicate effectively. In addition, doctors have to keep current with new research and draw reasonable conclusions from published findings. Decision making involves 11 text excerpts with 4 questions each, meaning this section has 44 questions in 21 minutes - that means an average of 29 seconds per question. That doesn’t even take reading the stem into account!
Decision Making
Decision Making is essentially data interpretation from graphs, tables, text and charts. You don’t need to have background knowledge on any subject, because part of what they’re testing is your ability to understand new information. Can you think of a time a doctor might have to do the same? This section has 29 questions in 31 minutes - an average of 64 seconds per question. Compare the timing of section to verbal reasoning, it’s more than double. Consider the length of time per question as an indication of how much the test writers want you to analyse.
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning is a straightforward mathematics section - there are nine scenarios each with four questions. You’ll have access to an on screen calculator - which is functional but pretty clunky! You’ll have to strike a balance between using mental maths to be quick, and keeping your wits about you, and staying accurate. This section has 36 questions in 24 minutes - an average of 40 seconds per question. It’s not a lot of time to question your maths abilities!
Abstract Reasoning
Abstract Reasoning is used to evaluate your ability to locate patterns and understand logic, separate from your language abilities. If you’ve seen the guides online with pictures asking you to find a pattern - that’s abstract reasoning. This section is sometimes hard for students to grasp, because it’s such a different set of skills. It’s also probably the biggest struggle with time management. This section has 55 questions in 13 minutes - that’s only 14 seconds per question. Don’t even think about going into this section unprepared!
Situational Judgement
Situational Judgement assesses your judgement and character in different situations - the situations are usually clinical or education based. Either situations you’ve likely been in, or a situation you could be involved in future. Then you’ll have to evaluate the appropriateness, importance or consequences of the situation. It’s one way for universities to evaluate the characteristics that are important for future doctors! Situational Judgement has 69 questions in 26 minutes - an average of 25 seconds per question.
With so much to do - how can I set myself up for success?
Prepare
This sounds like a no brainer, but preparation is the most important thing you can do if you want to succeed on the UCAT. Going over questions is one thing but the most effective thing you can do is to practice under exam conditions. That means doing computer based exams - so when you get to test day, you know what to expect. Luckily MedView has a bank of questions.
Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Time is a precious resource when you’re preparing for medical school admissions - you have to continue doing well in your studies, prepare yourself for an interview, and master a new exam. There’s not infinite time - so you have to learn how to study smarter, not just harder. So many students waste their time by continuing to drill skills that they’ve already mastered. It’s important to identify the weak points that need more TLC.
Learn Skills
Each type of question requires a specific psychometric approach to understand and answer so quickly. Skills and strategies to identify the problem and solve the challenging question are essential for success. MedView has a range of 1:1 tutoring, group workshops, practice exams and questions alongside our spiral learning curriculum to help students develop the skills necessary to succeed in time conditions. Our UCAT students are 5x more likely to receive an interview offer.
Sitting full-length practice exams under simulated conditions is the most effective preparation for developing UCAT skills. As this will familiarise yourself with the extreme time pressures, as well as allowing you to practise concentrating on psychometric skills for two hours. It is also important to practice using the computer-based platform that will be used when you sit UCAT as well.
Seek Help
Find friends that have taken the test before and ask for their experience. Better yet, schedule a free Academic Assessment with MedView today! When you start your journey as a MedView student, you are allocated an Education Coordinator who has experience helping hundreds of students get into med school. They’ll help you stay on track with your goals, offer you support, and help you succeed on your path to medical school.
Next Steps
The UCAT is an important exam that is key to medical school admission for undergraduates. We recommend starting your UCAT preparation early and integrating it into your study load to give yourself the best opportunity to succeed. If you’d like to learn more about the UCAT or how to get into Medical School, check out our free eBooks and blogs!
- What is the UCAT?
- How Universities use your UCAT Results
- A Quick Guide to Australia Medicine eBook
- A Quick Guide to New Zealand Medicine eBook
- How to Prepare for the UCAT
- What UCAT scores will get me into med?
MedView offers a range of UCAT preparation courses as well as personalised 1:1 tutoring with our expert team. If you would like to know more about the UCAT and how MedView can help, get in touch today.
.webp)
What can you do before the year starts?
Before the year starts, it is vital that you understand that the journey to becoming a doctor is a long and arduous process. Medicine is a life-long commitment whose pathway extends beyond the 6 years of study. It includes a progression from a house officer to a registrar, and application onto training schemes if you opt for the surgical pathway.
The vast majority of people who apply for medicine, do not have a clear picture of what they want to do in the future. This uncertainty is not something to worry about now – you have plenty of time to figure out exactly what you want to do. There is something in medicine for everyone. If you are still uncertain about the medical pathway beyond the 6 years of study, I would recommend doing further research.
Another thing you can do over the summer break is to identify your motivation to become a doctor. If it’s for the money, you may not be in the correct profession - it will be at least 10-12 years until you start earning the big bucks that all doctors are known for! If you have an inherent nature to help people and seek to make our society healthier, then you are on the right track.
Once your head is in the right place, enjoy your summer! The year will belong, and you will have to make social sacrifices to make your studies a priority. Make the most of the time you have by seeing friends and family, as you will inevitably see less of them throughout the year. You are likely to experience burnout sometime during the year, so optimising your rest now is important.
The single most effective way to distance yourself from your competitors is to start early and hard. After you have rested throughout December and into the new year, it is time to get started and get ahead. The Flying Start Course offered by MedView was my ticket to success. It is a highly intensive programme starting in late January that covers the first 6 weeks of content for the three core papers in the first semester. The advantages of this course are numerous:
- The most valuable aspect of Flying Start is the content covered. As the first semester contains 3 out of the 4 core papers, it is so important to get a good start. An early lapse within the first few weeks can completely derail your entire year. Being exposed to similar content ahead of time builds your confidence and gives you the opportunity to begin learning before others.
- There is a radically different teaching style from high school to university. Flying Start emulates the style you are accustomed to, while simultaneously teaching university material. This eases your transition and places students into a more comfortable and familiar environment.
- You can meet other motivated people. You may have heard the horror stories of people sabotaging each other, taking their notes and hiding their bags. While these are mostly exaggerated, there will still be those who resort to other measures to gain an advantage. The people doing Flying Start will be motivated just like you, and eager to get ahead. Working together and building these strong relationships before the year starts means that you have a better support group in place. I have met several bright individuals who were passionate and together, we were able to navigate the difficult year and succeed as a group!
MedView believes in a holistic approach to medical school admissions, meaning we surround the student with a team of experts to help develop their candidacy and skills in all three major pillars in their journey to medical school, and now it’s even more accessible with the MedView Hub App!
Over the last decade there’s been a mass adoption of smartphones and a shift in the way people behave online and communicate. Australians are spending more time online, often using multiple screens, and consuming vast amounts of content each day. And it’s only going up!
Recent figures show that almost eight out of ten Australians use social media, and 87% of them use their mobile phones to access it. Fifty-nine percent of Australians access social media everyday or most days, and over a third of people check social media more than five times per day.
We often go online to chat with friends and family, share photos, or be entertained by cat videos. But the very same platforms we use to socialise can also be used to gather knowledge that we can apply in our offline lives. One of the areas where users can reap the benefits is online communities. MedView prides themselves on finding the best tutor, strategist or consultant for each student whether they be in Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom and having an online community platform allows even more core benefits for our students in a shorter amount of time. Now students can access over 320 tutors, strategists and consultants and get answers to their Synapse questions, interact in exclusive workshops, and most importantly make friends. The meaningful relationships with other members of the community increases knowledge and collective wisdom.
The MedView Hub App is our own online community platform for students, parents, tutors, and alumni to create a network of opportunities to participate in smart, focused conversation on specific medical school admissions topics (unlike the Instagram and Facebook chatter).
Over the last decade there’s been a mass adoption of smartphones and a shift in the way people behave online and communicate. Australians are spending more time online, often using multiple screens, and consuming vast amounts of content each day. And it’s only going up!
Recent figures show that almost eight out of ten Australians use social media, and 87% of them use their mobile phones to access it. Fifty-nine percent of Australians access social media everyday or most days, and over a third of people check social media more than five times per day.
We often go online to chat with friends and family, share photos, or be entertained by cat videos. But the very same platforms we use to socialise can also be used to gather knowledge that we can apply in our offline lives. One of the areas where users can reap the benefits is online communities. MedView prides themselves on finding the best tutor, strategist or consultant for each student whether they be in Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom and having an online community platform allows even more core benefits for our students in a shorter amount of time. Now students can access over 320 tutors, strategists and consultants and get answers to their Synapse questions, interact in exclusive workshops, and most importantly make friends. The meaningful relationships with other members of the community increases knowledge and collective wisdom.
The MedView Hub App is our own online community platform for students, parents, tutors, and alumni to create a network of opportunities to participate in smart, focused conversation on specific medical school admissions topics (unlike the Instagram and Facebook chatter).
Find out more and begin your journey to medical school by speaking with a MedView Academic Advisor for free today!
Join the MedView student success family
