What are the Requirements to Become a Pediatrician?
If you want to become a pediatrician, you do have a lot of work and study to complete. Such studies should begin, if possible, during your high school years. Taking advanced math and science courses, especially advanced placement courses that offer college credit, can eliminate some requirements when you head to college. Like most doctors, you will take a bachelor’s degree, usually in premed, before heading off to medical school. This can vary slightly if you are studying outside of the US, and some programs combine a bachelor’s degree with med school.
Medical school takes approximately three years to complete and upon completion you need to take and pass required certifying tests. You’ll then need to complete additional training of up to four years to become a pediatrician. Most programs have residency and internship requirement that total three years and you are paid a small amount for participating in them. They can be competitive, and you’ll need to seek advice at your medical school on when to start applying for advanced internship.
Some people who would like to become a pediatrician want to specialize in a certain aspect of medicine. For instance, there are pediatric cardiologists, oncologists and neurologists. Requirements may differ for each specialty.
A pediatric cardiologist first receives board certification as pediatrician. He or she will then spend up to three more additional years to be certified as a pediatric cardiologist. Total years studied for a pediatrician who decides to specialize can easily be up to 13 or 14 years. People who simply want to become a pediatrician without further specialization may spend 10-11 years in school prior to becoming certified as doctors for children.
Given the extensive time requirements to become a pediatrician, it can help to evaluate why you want this profession and what other skills you can bring to it. Pediatrics has some unique issues that make it unlike caring for adults in general practice. Instead of working with one patient at a time, you’ll be working with patients and parents, which can add significant dimensions to the care you must provide. Good rapport with children isn’t the only thing you need because you’ll spend a lot of time directing adults (parents) on how to care for children.
Though much of your work will involve seeing kids for common illnesses, you will probably work with seriously ill children. This can be hard for some people to take, and it ought to be weighed. Any doctor has a hard time losing a patient, but doctors who lose patients that are children may find this particularly challenging. Those who want to become a pediatrician because they love kids may have exceptional trouble when they care for dying children or children who have been seriously abused.
Some people find the work of becoming a pediatrician too hard and prefer to work in general practice. General practitioners and osteopaths can and do treat lots of kids, but also work with adults. They may prefer the variation in their practice and the ability to treat whole families. Being a pediatrician means your practice will usually be exclusive to children. For many dedicated pediatricians, this is a benefit of the extra training required.
Written by Tricia Ellis-Christensen
