I’m from Chile and I can’t understand when people here talk about PreMed, M1, M2, R1, and stuff like that. Since leaving Highschool what are the steps you have to take to become a doctor in USA? And how long is that?
In: Biology
Be pre-med in university and get your 4yr bachelor degree. Take the MCAT test and hope you score well. Apply to different med schools. Get accepted and attend med school (M1 means medical student 1st year). Pass the first parts of the USMLE tests. After that you go to a hospital and become a resident and do your rounds shadowing specialists (R1 means resident 1st year). Pass the remainder of the USMLE test. Become a board certified & licensed doctor, work in a hospital, continue taking tests every few years to keep your license.
There are other tests as well that I left out.
To become a doctor, you first get a bachelors degree at a college/university. There is no official “pre-med” major, but instead one typically chooses a medical related major like biology and also takes the other required courses for med school application. When a senior in college, one would take the MCAT standardized testing and apply to medical school. That’s then a 4 year program (I guess M1, M2 designate how far along?). Following medical school, there is a residency that’s 3-5 years depending on specialty where one works as a doctor-in-training (again, I guess R1, R2 would be years into residency program?).
Graduate from high school. Go to college and get a Bachelor’s degree. While you’re there, take the [pre-requisite coursework](www.reddit.com/r/premed/wiki/index) required by many medical schools. It doesn’t matter what your undergrad degree is in as long as you take the pre-requisite coursework at some point; however, many people major in a science because that helps prepare them better for the MCAT. At some point before you apply, build a nice resume that contains clinical experience, physician shadowing, non-clinical volunteering, research, hobbies, etc. Then take the MCAT and apply to medical school.
Medical school is four years long. The first two years are pre-clinical which means you are studying and taking exams. The second two years are clinical which means you’re in hospitals and clinics taking care of patients. At some point in medical school, you need to take two boards exams: USMLE Step 1 and Step 2. The traditional way to do this is to take Step 1 after your pre-clinical years and Step 2 after your third-year. During fourth year, you apply to residency in the specialty you want to go into. You have to go to residency if you want to practice medicine in the US. The shortest residencies are 3 years long (Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, many Emergency Medicine programs), and the longest is 7 years (neurosurgery). After residency, you can either get a job as a practicing physician or you can do a fellowship (usually 1-2 more years) in order to further sub-specialize. For example, if you want to be a cardiologist, you have to do a three-year-long internal medicine residency and then do a cardiology fellowship after that.
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