You should know exactly why you want to be a doctor. You have to like and want to help people. Don't become a doctor for any of this reasons; because it's prestigious; because you expect to make money; because you were good in science; because it's expected of you. These additional reasons are only ok if they are in addition to your desire to help people but they are not sufficient on their own. You should have a very strong work/study ethic. There is an enormous amount of information for you to learn and very little time to learn it in, especially in the first two years. Making sure you build a strong basic science foundation is essential for ensuring that you will do well in your clinical years. But med school is not like a traditional undergraduate program. It is unlikely that you will have regular, predictable class schedules. There is also probably going to be a quite a bit of self study. And the pace of the courses is relentless. If you don't have strong, consistent, study habits, you will be in trouble. In my opinion, you should start building you "master study plan" for Step 1 from the moment you start school so can build up your study material as you go and plan for periodic reviews to ensure maximum retention. More than anything, you have to learn how to learn. Because you will be doing it for the rest of your life. You have to be professional. This means that you attend all required sessions, labs, exercises, simulations, trainings and that you complete all required assignments, service hours or any other mandated tasks in a timely manner. There is nothing that bothers faculty more than students that feel inconvenienced by anything that is required of them beyond passing the exams. I can tell you that if you have a low threshold for inconvenience, medicine is not the career for you. Make sure you pay special attention to building your clinical skills, both the medical examination and the communication skills. Don't brush off seemingly unimportant topics like cultural competence and medical literacy. Getting all the answers right on the knowledge tests won't make you a good doctor unless you learn to communicate well with people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds and levels of education. You should be able to adjust to their level of understanding and not expect it to be the other way around. Communication also extends to proper documentation. Make sure you work on your examination and observation skills and then make sure your writing style is clear and precise. Source
