How Long Is Medical School and What Is it Like?

Medical school professors and administrators say aspiring doctors should come to terms with the amount of studying and training required to become a licensed physician before they make the decision on whether medicine is right for them. Pursuing a medical degree is a serious commitment that should not be taken lightly, experts say, and it should mark the beginning of a lifelong commitment to fighting disease and promoting wellness.

Medical school typically lasts four years, but once someone receives either an M.D. or a D.O. degree, they generally go onto the next phase of their medical training, typically a residency in their desired specialty, such as surgery or radiology. Aspiring sub-specialists who want to focus on a particular niche of a medical specialty, such as someone who wants to develop expertise in treating a specific type of cancer as opposed to becoming a generalist oncologist who treats multiple kinds of cancer, will ordinarily complete a fellowship in addition to a residency program.

For a medical student who subsequently completes a residency and fellowship, it may add up to a combined decade or longer of training to become a physician.

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"Whether someone can make that long-term commitment is really a personal decision," Dr. David Rose, associate dean for student affairs and admissions at the Howard University College of Medicine in the District of Columbia, wrote in an email. "From an advising standpoint, we remind students that despite the long training, physicians will be in practice for a longer time than they have been in training, so students who have the ability to work towards the so-called light at the end of the tunnel to reach their goals will do well."

Dr. Inna Husain, an assistant professor in the department of otolaryngology at Rush University Medical College in Chicago, also cautions students to be aware that the time demands are equivalent to working a full-time job. "Medical school isn't something where you can have a different job or career with it," she says. "You really need to focus on medical school."

Husain, who also serves as the institution's assistant residency program director for simulation education, says med students in clinical rotations often have unpredictable and irregular schedules, so flexibility and adaptability is paramount for these students. "That's where you need to be prepared for not having weekends off, not being able to plan ahead," she says. "You can't really book anything more than a month or two in advance, because you might have to work on that Saturday."

Husain adds that medical school courses tend to be exceedingly rigorous, so premed students who did not perform well in college science classes should think twice about whether they are ready for the academic challenge. "If you're struggling in their undergrad science classes, it's going to be very hard to get through at least the basic requirements for science in medical school," she says.

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Dr. Janelle Luk -- the medical director of Generation Next Fertility, a fertility clinic in New York City, who earned her medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine -- says most med students are in their 20s and 30s, which is a momentous stage of their personal lives. It can be difficult for these students to see their same-aged peers settling down and starting families while they are still students, she suggests, warning that medical students often have anxieties about falling behind on their relationship and family goals.

Husain advises medical school hopefuls not to be deterred from their career goals simply because they intend to pursue serious romantic relationships or because they want to start a family. "I don't think that should scare people away who are interested in this," she says.

She adds it is common for medical students to start families during their residency and fellowship training programs, and she says these programs strive to achieve work-life balance among trainees.

Luk says one thing medical school hopefuls should consider is whether they have enough interest in medicine and compassion for sick patients that they can sustain strong motivation throughout their multiyear medical training. "At the end, it's the passion," she says. "It's the compassion that you have in your heart. If you have it, no matter how long that road is, if this is a calling, if this is what you want to do in life, then it will trump everything. It trumps long years. It trumps loans. It trumps other parts of life."

Dr. McGreggor Crowley, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and an admissions counselor with the IvyWise admissions consulting firm, says medical school requires a high degree of both emotional resilience and academic aptitude, so any prospective medical student should honestly assess whether he or she has those two qualities.

"A student might gauge whether they are prepared for the rigors of medical school through self-reflection," Crowley wrote in an email. "When their biology lab experiment exploded, or when they received a C on a paper they worked incredibly hard on, were they distressed and did they fall apart? Or did they learn from the experience, revise their experimental method, and edit their essay with their professor's feedback?"

"Having resilience and being able to identify strategies that build resilience are two of the most important qualities an applicant can have to weather the rigors of medical school," Crowley says. "Additionally, reflecting on their academic transcript is also important. If the applicant looks back and sees a preponderance of B's, even in straightforward in-her-major classes, this would be for me a warning sign that the applicant may need additional fortification to prepare for the rigors of med school."

Luk says med school courses build upon the foundation of knowledge that students established as premeds in difficult college courses. She says that, because med students tend to be studious and ambitious, classes tend to move at a fast pace.

The hardest transition in medical school is also the most important moment, Luk says: when students progress from classroom learning to clinical rotations, where they learn how to diagnose and cure diseases in real-life patients.

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Luk analogizes this decisive period to the moment when a person who is learning how to drive advances from reading a driving manual to actual hands-on driving. She says the clinical rotations portion of a medical school curriculum is when students are challenged to apply their knowledge, test their mettle and prove their competence. She says clinical rotations are the time in medical school where students assume a large amount of responsibility, which is both exciting and terrifying simultaneously. "You really have the power over a person's life," Luk says.

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