Is It Easier To Become A Medical Doctor If You're The Child Of A Medical Doctor? If So, Why?

This question was originally posted on Quora.com and answered by Paul Bolin, M.D. (physician)

As a medical doctor whose parents are not even college graduates, much less medical doctors, I will provide my opinion.



The biggest hurdle in becoming a physician is getting into medical school. Only about 20% of people who apply to medical school will be accepted. Although medical school is challenging, of those who are accepted into medical school, some 99% will go on to graduate. So, it can be justified by these statistics that getting into medical school is the most logistically challenging part of becoming a doctor.

Having parents who are medical doctors will not necessarily help with obtaining the prerequisite high GPA needed to get into medical school. Typically, a student will need to have a GPA of 3.5 or higher. However, medical doctor parents may help in the provision of advice for studying for the MCAT. Also, medical doctors invariably have good study skills, and that kind of guidance can also be helpful. What I think is most helpful, however, is having the opportunity to shadow physicians in order to obtain a letter of recommendation. Letters of recommendation from physicians are looked upon very favorably by admissions committees. Consequently, shadowing a physician is one of the harder things to arrange, as doctors are inundated with pre-meds who want to follow and many simply don’t have the patience to oblige. I was fortunate enough to have a cousin-in-law who was a doctor that I could shadow. But having a parent who is a doctor provides a treasure trove of contacts, many of whom would be more than willing to help out a friend’s kid. (Heck, if your mom is a doctor and she retained her maiden name, she could even write the letter — but this is probably not very ethical for applying to med school so don’t quote me.) You can see, though, how helpful this could be.

So, short answer, yes. At the very least, I don’t see how it could possibly hurt to have someone close in your life who has trod the path you are about to go down.

Hope that helps answer your question.

Dr. Paul


And it was also answered by Neha Pathak, Learning medicine and life daily.

Answering from an Indian doctor’s point of view.

There are various levels to this question.

Does ‘become’ here refer to get inspired?

Well yes and no. A big motivation for a lot of kids is being like their parents. Alternatively, the same kids may see the hours their mom or dad work and decide against medicine. Both happen fairly frequently.

There is also the push from parents in either direction. Some have a good setup and would prefer their kids to be doctors, others still have unfulfilled aspirations from their own childhood which were unconventional and thus, may understand the child's need to do his own thing.

On the other hand, to have a doctor in the family is a main reason for non medical parents to motivate their offspring to go for medical school.

Become as in enter medical school?

No.

The exams are same for everyone and a lot of information is easily available nowadays.

Financially, assuming that a doctors family falls in the middle class bracket most of the time, they and any other middle class family should be able to afford the extra classes or material as needed.

Of course, then there are those marvellous stories of brilliant and driven children making it in against all odds even without the most meagre of financial backing.

Become as in get through medical school and residency more easily than others?

Well, yes, to an extent.

Any trial or tribulation in life is easier with foreknowledge.

That is the exact advantage a medico from a medical background would have, in addition to guidance for the right tools (aka the right books) to use to conquer these courses.

The toil and the midnight oil, however, will be the same as other batchmates.

But with the advent of social media and cheap internet, to the mind that wants to know,nothing is out of reach. So explore!

Become as is finally settle down in practice?

Let's face it, here having a doc parent can help. References, the right guidance, colleagues who would help out a friend's kid, or even an already established clinic or hospital that the parent owns or works in; all these are good advantages to have.

But, in that fashion we all benefit from the foundation that our parents provide, be that emotional or economical.

And not everyone takes their parents assistance. This is especially true for govt jobs or jobs in different cities or markedly different field than that of the parent.

So in conclusion, it depends on number of variables.

In the end, those who find it easy to become a doctor are those who are courageously persistent in their efforts to do so, regardless of lineage.

Source

 

Yes, this helps in some cases, not in all. Some family understands the medical student's life, some not. For the medical study, you need full attention and time. A doctor's family understand this easily.