The entry requirements for different career fields and college degrees may vary by time and region and the material in this article may not be correct or may no longer be correct at a future date
Normally to attend college to get a doctoral degree to become a medical doctor or physical therapist or pharmacist one can get a Bachelors degree in anything as long as someone completes a minimum number of courses and gets a high enough grade point average.
This however may not be best practice because there are certain hands on skills related to medicine someone can practice before completing their bachelors degree which may make them better equipped than other people who make it into the same medical school without learning these skills first.
It is very common for people to major in biology or chemistry to try to become a medical doctor but I would suggest they could consider earning a bachelors degree where they actually learn how to practice medical skills first and use that with some biology and chemistry electives to get into medical school instead. One could also get associate degrees or certificates that teach skills related to practicing medicine at a technical college and transfer those credits towards a bachelors degree to get in upon completing a Bachelors degree.
Human dissection maybe traumatic for some individuals but maybe required as part of the coursework for Physical Therapy School or Medical School, more over someone who can not deal with human dissection of a dead individual might have even more difficulties as a surgeon in terms of either dexterity or psychologically handling gore and or fear of blood and germs involved with human dissection. Some people physically or psychologically respond with pain upon seeing other people injured and this may also be a barrier to completing human dissection or doing surgery. There is a high correlation between a career in surgery and the type of psychopathy or sociopathy defined as not experiencing pain upon witnessing other people experience pain, this type of psychopathy or sociopathy is not necessarily bad unless someone also enjoys other people being harmed or wants to harm other people.
Butcher - Better prepares someone for surgery and medical school human dissection labs. Not all butchers kill animals some butchers simply dissect animals other people have killed, other butchers kill animals. I am not endorsing killing animals by posting this. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist or Medical Doctor
Taxidermist - Better prepares someone for surgery and medical school human dissection labs. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist or Medical Doctor
Mortician - Better prepares someone for surgery and medical school human dissection labs. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist or Medical Doctor
Sewing - Practicing this skill as a hobby or career will make you better equipped to do surgery, not all medical students have the property dexterity to stitch patients and practicing sewing may help. Good preparation for becoming a Medical Doctor
Nursing - You can get a nursing degree before going to medical school or there are some types of nursing that do not require a degree. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist, Pharmacist or Medical Doctor
Dietitian - A dietitian bachelors degree can meet the requirements to go to medical school if the right courses are taken. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist, Pharmacist or Medical Doctor
Athletic training submajor for a Kinesiology Bachelors degree - Some schools offer multiple Kinesiology Bachelor degree sub majors. Although any major can get you in with the correct courses not all sub majors provide hands on skills. Students who choose the correct sub major which may specifically be athletic training in the case of some Universities may be taught how to assess patients for certain injuries as a hands on skill where as if they choose the wrong submjaor for that specific university no hands on skills will be taught and they will simply only learn academic course material related to exercise. Some of these skills would be the same skills in some cases as some of the same hands on assessment skills taught to complete a physical therapy doctoral degree in graduate school except that someone with this sub major can learn some of these skills ahead of time without completing a Bachelors degree first. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist or Medical Doctor
Anatomy - Anatomy classes often have been required to attend physical therapy graduate school but not medical school to become a medical doctor. If I had to guess most physical therapists know skeletal muscle anatomy better than general practitioner medical doctors, but medical doctor specialists usually know anatomy in their specialty area better than physical therapists. Even though Anatomy classes might not be required to enter medical school, taking anatomy in advance might make you better prepared. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist or Medical Doctor
Map Reading - Practicing using maps as a skill may help you learn anatomy easier.
Memory - There are memory championships and many world memory Champions wrote books on how to improve your memory but I recommend understanding the methods in the book "Use your perfect memory" by Tony Buzan. Developing a good memory is good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist, Pharmacist or Medical Doctor
Pharmacist Technician - You can get a pharmacist technician career or take pharmacy technician coursework without having to complete a bachelors degree first, to help you understand the pharmacological aspects of medicine before going to graduate school to become a medical doctor, physical therapist or pharmacist. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist, Pharmacist or Medical Doctor
Dental Hygenist - You can get a undergraduate degree and career as a dental hygenist before going to grafuate school to become a dentist
Physical Therapy/Therapist Assistant - You can sometimes take classes to become a physical therapist assistant at a technical college and transfer credits towards an associate degree rowards the bachelors degree required to go into medical school or Physical Therapy School. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist
Personal Trainer - This career can help you gain experience working with exercise hands on before enrolling in Physical Therapy school. Do not call yourself a PT on your Physical Therapist college admission application but use the full term personal trainer if you are a personal trainer but not a physical therapist. Some Physical Therapists get extremely offended by personal trainers calling themselves PT. I have heard some people claim Physical Therapists have sued Personal Trainers for using the initials PT which Physical Therapists use claiming the initials PT are trademarked. Personal Training is not a college degree but a career. Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist
Massage Therapist / Massage Therapy School - Good preparation for becoming a Physical Therapist or Medical Doctor
Fire Fighter - Fire fighters often learn certain hands on medical skills
Emergency Medical Technician
Paramedic
Bio-engineer Bachelors - You can use a bio engineering degree to transfer to medical school if you take any extra courses in Biochemistry or biology that maybe required to enter the school. This maybe difficult however as engineering degrees usually do not have enough elective courses left over to meet course requirements for anything else in addition to the minimum degree requirements without attending college longer than it would take to complete an engineering degree alone.
Reading books ahead of time - There is nothing to stop you from reading textbooks like "Harrison's principles of internal medicine" before you ever attend medical school or even if you never attend medical school
Practicing math and or statistics ahead of time - You can get math and or statistics textbooks with practice problems and do those problems before taking any math courses at college that will later be required to get into other courses required to attend a medical school or required in and of them self to attend a medical school or that are required for a Bachelors degree major you are planning on working on to get into medical school. Testing out of some math courses may save you a lot of time and money not taking as many classes at college. And when you can not test out of a class but must take it the class will be much easier if you practiced the math ahead of time. Unfortunately a large proportion of medical research is done with an emphasis on statistics which is not predictable but "random" instead of math such as Algebra and Calculus without statistics that is better suited to real science which is testable, observable and predictable. So someone in any medical field should be familiar with statistics enough in order to use valid reasoning and the correct choice of premises to show the flaws in any statistical study.
Advanced Placement courses and other means of testing out of college classes without taking them - This will give you more time to take elective college classes that teach hands on skills instead or to simply save time and money skipping classes covering material you already learned.
Actually learn concepts do not just memorize answers to complete tests - There was a Physics professor who was very angry that students wanting to become medical doctors who viewed a physics requirement as a barrier to admission into medical school would try to memorize test answers. I am not talking about students who try to find out what problems were on a test ahead of time so they can know how to solve them, but actually memorizing a number with some units that was an answer to a past test question in a previous semester. One of the teaching assistants might have tried to emphasize the level of stupidity involved by saying that they were not memorizing problems which would have been bad enough but instead memorizing answers to problems which was worse. Some people could actually know how to solve a problem but cheat by trying to find out what the problems are going to be on the test before they are supposed to know and solve the specific problems on the test in advance and still put down work for solving the problem while doing the test pretending as if they never saw it before and were solving it live but these students just tried to memorize the answers whether it was as an attempt to cheat or it was where they genuinely thought it was not cheating and they simply thought the problem would occur again and the way to study was to memorize what the answer was to that problem and put it down again I do not know. Someone can memorize problems they had done in the past without cheating in some circumstances such as memorizing the numbers for a practice problem assigned by the professor before the test and memorizing the steps to solve that practice problem and memorizing the solutions to that problem and understanding how the solution would change if the numbers change. It might have been ok under certain circumstances of the non cheating variety if they knew how to answer the question if it was the same problem but with different numbers but if one number in the initial problem was changed the entire answer would be changed and they would not know how to get it by a methodology of problem solving, they would simply put down the number they memorized from what the correct answer was in a previous semester. This might not be an exact description of the situation the Professor was experiencing with these students but it is a close enough description to convey the point I am trying to express. Do not be like those bad students learn the methodology for how to get a proper answer instead of just memorizing answers. Memorizing is important if used correctly but should not be misused that way.
Copyright Carl Janssen 2022
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