So, How Long Does it Take to Become a Doctor?In summary, if you want to become a doctor in the US, you must first complete a four-year undergraduate program, then attend medical school for four years. After graduating, you match to a residency via ERAS (in the US) or CaRMS (in Canada), where you spend somewhere between three to seven years as a resident, depending on your specialty. After all this, you need to take a licensing exam for the state or province where you want to practice medicine. Show
That is between 10 and 14 years to become a licensed doctor. Now, let’s see if it’s possible to shorten this timeline. Can You Become a Doctor Before 30?Based on the brief timeline we sketched above, the average time to become a physician is 12 years, assuming that your chosen residency is 4 years. If we assume that the average premed student is around 18 years old when they start their undergrad degree, and assuming a 12-year timeline, they’ll be just 30 when they begin professional, independent practice. This is the average age – but can you actually shorten this timeline and become a doctor BEFORE the age of 30? It’s possible, but extremely challenging. Let’s examine what you can do to become a doctor before the age of 30.
BONUS: Academic background – An additional factor could be your age at the time of starting your undergrad – for example, you could be 16 or 17 in your freshman year of college if you skipped a grade in school (likely to happen amongst the kind of academically proficient students who seek out a medical career), which could enable you to receive your medical license before the age of 30. And obviously, there’s not much room for gap years if you’re aiming to become a doctor before 30. So now you know why it’s not easy becoming a doctor before 30. Next, I’ll explain what steps you need to take for the most direct path to practicing medicine. What is the Fastest Way to Become a Doctor?The path to becoming a doctor includes some key steps that everyone has to complete. To follow the fastest route to becoming a doctor, you need to make some specific choices from an early age. The following table shows the key steps involved in becoming a doctor and what you can do at each stage to speed up the process. While it can be motivating to have a clear goal with specific deadlines, remember that becoming a doctor “quickly” should never be your primary motivation throughout this process. There’s a reason why medical education and training takes so long – it’s to adequately prepare you to practice medicine independently. There’s no point taking on an excessively burdensome accelerated undergrad timeline if you’re going to burn out before you even start med school. Ultimately, when you’re deciding how to choose a medical specialty, you should primarily focus on your areas of interest, skills, and proficiency. The time taken to complete a residency program should be a secondary consideration. The fact is, statistics show that most people are in their mid-30s when they become doctors. Non-traditional medical school applicants such as returning students, students who took a gap year, or those who switched careers in their 20s, take longer to receive their license. Even if you follow the traditional path to medical school, you’ll receive your license to practice medicine at the age of 30 or in your early 30s. Now, let me break down each of the steps to becoming a doctor. Undergraduate Program: Four YearsJust like other professional schools in North America (like Dentistry, Law and Pharmacy), medical schools require applicants to complete an undergraduate degree before applying. Typically, undergrad programs last four years and prospective medical students are already preparing themselves during this time. Although most medical schools don't require applicants to major in science, they do have some prerequisites that include science coursework. The most common medical school prerequisites are:
During your premed years, you should also work on the extracurriculars for medical school, which are the activities and experiences that will help you stand out from the pack and catch the attention of admissions committees when they look at your medical school resume. Your preparation to become a doctor begins way before you obtain a bachelor's degree. Your undergraduate years are important for gaining experience in clinical settings, shadowing a doctor, participating in research groups, and serving your community. These experiences can help you build some of the skills future physicians must have and that must be honed outside the classroom. Before you go to the next step, you must apply for medical school, prepare for interviews, and take tests such as the MCAT and the CASPer. Once accepted, you will enter the next four years of your journey towards becoming a doctor. Check out a quick recap of what courses you need to take to get into medical school: Medical School: Four YearsThe four years you will spend in medical school are divided into phases. The first two years are known as pre-clinical or pre-clerkship and include mostly coursework. During these two years you will develop science and clinical skills in a classroom setting. When you finish your second year of med school, you must take the USMLE Step 1, a one-day examination intended to assess your understanding of the principles and mechanisms related to health, disease, and therapy. The next two years are more hands-on. The clerkship phase of medical school includes clinical rotations for several weeks at a time and learning from doctors in a hospital. Year three is comprised of core rotations at the school, which expose you to different fields of medicine. While you will continue to be exposed to core rotations in your fourth year, you will also be allowed to choose a particular field or specialty for your rotations. By the end of year four you will have to pass USMLE Step 2, which includes both a one-day examination and interaction with patients. In Canada, you must take and pass the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE) Part I. You are eligible to apply for MCCQE Part I up to 15 months prior to your expected date of graduation. Residency: Three to Seven YearsAfter finishing medical school, you must complete a residency program. Your first year will be spent as an intern, with up to six years additionally, depending on the medical specialty you choose. For instance, residencies in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics are three years long. Residencies in Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pathology, and Psychiatry are four years long. Five-year long residencies include those in General Surgery, Otolaryngology, Orthopedic Surgery, and Urology. Plastic Surgery residency is about six years and Neurosurgery is seven years. You must apply for your residency program through ERAS for matching in the US or CaRMS if you are applying in Canada. You will be matched into a residency program using a computer algorithm that considers both your preferences and the preferences of the programs. You should be aware which are the most competitive residencies and be realistic about your chances of getting in when you compile your list of preferences. In the US, you should take the USMLE Step 3 after finishing the first year of residency. This licensing exam evaluates if you can practice medicine without supervision. When you pass this test, you can obtain a medical license in your state. In Canada, you must pass the MCCQE Part II and have successfully completed (or be close to completing) 12 months of postgraduate clinical medical training (residency) to become a Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC). After you finish your residency, you can apply for a job as a doctor or you can go into a fellowship. Fellowship: One or Two YearsFellowships are optional (by this stage you've become a doctor already!). But if you decide to get more training on a subspecialty area of clinical practice, education, or research, you might consider a medical fellowship. To apply to a fellowship of your choosing, you must have completed a residency in the specialty you want to focus on and demonstrate significant clinical skills and experience in that area. Check out how long it takes to become a doctor in the US and Canada: Non-Traditional Paths to Becoming a DoctorThe steps outlined above assume that you go straight from high school to college to medical school to residency and into your job as a physician or medical scientist. But that is not always the case. There are many non traditional medical school applicants who take a different pathway to becoming doctors. If you would like to hear about our students' experiences getting into medical school as non-traditional applicants, check out our blog. So, let’s explore some of those ways. Gap Year Before Medical SchoolPremed students tend to apply to medical school in the summer before their senior year of undergraduate studies and upon completion of their bachelor’s degree. However, many students decide to take a break of one or more years before applying for med school. And although there are many reasons to do this, the best approach is to use the gap year to improve your application. For instance, you could use that year to work on your extracurriculars, such as volunteering at a hospital or participating in a research group, or to take some prerequisite courses you may be lacking. Or you may choose to get a premed gap year job to bolster your application. Another option is to use that time to save money and pay off your debts. That way you will be in better financial shape to pay for medical school. As long as you use this time productively and dedicate it towards improving your chances of getting into med school, a gap year should not hurt your chances of acceptance. Post-Baccalaureate Premedical ProgramsAlso known as “Postbacs”, these programs are becoming very popular in the US. If you had a low science GPA or were not enrolled in a pre-med program in college, you can improve your science GPA and take the courses required for medical school admission in one to two years. Some of these programs are offered by undergraduate institutions, and others are offered by medical schools themselves. There are many differences between each program, so be sure to do your due diligence and research these programs before enrolling in a Postbac. Special Master’s ProgramsSpecial master’s programs (SMPs) are the graduate category of postbac programs. They are a great way to improve your chances of getting admitted to med schools, exposing you to many of the required experiences. How long do these programs take? One to two years. If you take a thesis master’s degree, you’ll spend one year doing coursework and another year doing research and writing your thesis. If you only take a coursework program, you’ll complete it in a year. Other research-inclined students can even go for a PhD in a scientific discipline before applying to medical school, adding up to 5 years to their journey to becoming a medical doctor. For medical students who do not match to a residency program, there are options to pursue in the year when they reapply to ERAS or CaRMS. Perhaps they can increase their chances of getting a residency the following year by working in a clinical setting (even if they are not allowed to care for patients) and taking the USMLE Step 3 in the meantime. Watch a video recap: Career ChangeNot everyone discovers their ambition to become a doctor in high school. Many people pursue an education in another field, and work in that field for years, before changing career tracks to becoming a doctor. While people can and do successfully switch over from all kinds of careers, the most common changes occur from other professions within the medical field such as nursing or paramedics. Another popular career change is switching from a Physician Assistant, or PA to an MD. Such people already hold an undergrad degree along with the required higher education qualifications pertaining to their initial career. Their previous educational experience can vary depending on the career. For example, PAs complete a 4-year undergrad degree followed by an additional master’s program of 2 to 3 years, before they are allowed to take their licensing exam and begin working as a PA. On the other hand, paramedics typically have a much shorter educational timeline; they can receive their certification in 6 months to 4 years, depending on the degree. Additionally, before applying to med school, those who are switching careers may have to take up a post-bac program to complete pending med school coursework requirements and/or may need to take a gap year to complete their medical school application and its components. Many people choose to complete these steps alongside their work experience for financial reasons and also to gain more experience that could help them in medical school. Whatever the initial career and academic background, it’s practically a given that if you’re changing careers to become a doctor, you’ll be older than your average 22-year-old classmate in your first year of medical school. Depending on the amount of work experience you have, you could be anywhere between 25 and 40 (in fact, it’s not unheard of for people to switch careers at 50+). And you’re facing another 7 to 10 years of training before you’ll be officially licensed to practice medicine. That doesn’t make you any less likely to find success. In fact, those who take this unconventional path bring their life skills and experiences from their previous career to their medical school training, which can prove to be a huge asset. Moreover, the typical motivation for a career switch is pure passion and an undeniable inner calling towards becoming a doctor, which means late-stage career changers are likely to be highly intrinsically motivated, dedicated, and determined, thus setting them up for success. How Long Does it Take to Become a Doctor in Other Countries?Becoming a doctor in other countries takes about the same time as in the US. In Canada, future physicians also need an undergraduate degree (3 to 4 years) before attending medical school (4 years), plus they tend to do 2 to 5 years of residency. So in total, it takes between 10 and 13 years to become a doctor in Canada.Here's what it takes to become a doctor in other English-speaking countries: FAQsTo your success, Your friends at BeMoBeMo Academic ConsultingWant more free tips? Subscribe to our channels for more free and useful content!TikTok YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Gettr |
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