Some Advice from the Professional

Have you ever wondered about if a certain career path is the right one for you? Or have you ever questioned yourself why you chose a certain career path? From what I hear from my friends and classmates, they choose to have certain career paths because of the salary and who will offer them a job first. Personally for me, it will effectively drive people to go into certain career paths for the wrong reasons. My personal reasons for going into the medical fields help motivate me into becoming a doctor. Now, many of you reading this may think “Wow, that is going to a long road ahead to finishing school”. Yes, I would agree, but if you think about it realistically, will this path ultimately make me happy in the end? My answer is yes. Just like everyone who is struggling to finish school, I, too, want to get out of school as soon as I can, but there is nothing I can do about getting my classes. It is technically out of my control whether or not I am able to get the classes I need. Otherwise, I would be on track to graduating next semester.

If I am truly passionate about my career choice of becoming a doctor, specifically a naturopathic doctor, then I have to be able to set certain checkpoints in order to be successful. With this kind of economy we live in today, everyone in the real world say people that are in school right now are lucky to be there. I would concur with that statement, but in a sense, those people are right in some ways. If we want to have a job that we will be satisfied with in the long run, it is better to continue our education rather than rushing out of school with a typical office job sitting in a cubicle eight hours a day. My advice for people who are serious about pursuing their career in the medical field, I would hope you are doing this for the right reasons besides money.

Unfortunately, I wish I was graduating on time, but I just have to take it as is and just go day by day. For those who are thinking about being a doctor or nurse, I would definitely say DO NOT DECLARE YOUR MAJOR AS A NURSING if you are attending a state school. Intially, the career path I wanted to pursue was becoming a nurse. Nursing programs are heavily impacted and very high demanding, so I would suggest taking an alternative route by choosing a different major. Realistically, there is not only one-way to get to something in life. There are many alternatives. For me, I have decided to declare my major in Biology with a concentration of Physiology.  I figured that if I wanted to be a nurse, I was not going to wait 5 years to apply for the program when I can be doing something more productive, such as volunteering at the hospital or applying for internships.  As in my previous post, I talk about becoming a doctor, which what I truly wanted to be. There are millions of people who want to be nurses, but how many people want to become doctors? Do people want to take that extra step to get to that next level in the medical field?

I know for most people, people do not want to become doctors because it is a very stressful job. I do agree it is stressful, but like I said earlier, if that is the career you want to pursue, go for it! If you decided to declare your major in physiology, I would definitely make sure that the science classes you have to take for your major are also in the same category as your general education requirements. This is a good way to kill two birds with one stone! A lot of classes you will have to take are mostly biology and chemistry courses. Some classes include introduction to biology 1&2, general chemistry 1&2, organic chemistry 1&2, anatomy classes, etc. If you would like to check out more courses for my school, you can check out the  SFSU bulletin (road map). For every year, the bulletin changes, so this link is to the bulletin of 2012-2013.

When you are ready to apply for medical school, it definitely depends on what doctor you want to specialize in. Unfortunately, naturopathic medicine is not as popular right now, and the only way if I would want to practice naturopathic medicine is if I get my license out of state. What I did to find this out was to search and call a local naturopathic clinic and find out some information about what is required for schooling. Since I live in the East Bay, a place I called was Tara Natural Medicine clinic located in Lafayette and Oakland. The people who work in the clinic were very nice and informative about naturopathic medicine career paths. I talked to a woman named Gabriella, and she suggested some schools that I am able to get my license in order to practice this type of medicine here in California. A couple of states she mentioned were Washington and Oregon. I am surprised those are the only two places to get your license, but I will do more research on that in the near future.

For those who are reading this and are in another state or country, I would also suggest by signing up some of the pre-med programs and meetings they have at your school. I get emails telling me about certain representatives from different schools that will be going to my campus, and this is a great way to start thinking about what medical school to go to. Last week, I got an email that a representative from University of South Florida was going to be on campus, and I was glad I went because it opened my mind about medical schools that I can possibly go to on the East Coast. I know everyone have different approaches to doing research on schools, but I hope this helps people who are stuck to what steps to take next going into the medical field.