Is Your Child Interested in Pursuing Medicine? Set Up an Appointment with Your Family Doctor
Your family doctor is someone on whom your whole family relies for medical treatment and advice, but if your child is thinking about pursuing medicine in college, the doctor can also be a valuable resource. While having your child ask the physician a few questions about this career path during a routine checkup can be OK, you should also see about contacting the doctor to see if he or she has time to talk more in depth with your child. In many cases, the family physician will be able to offer the following to your teen.
Extensive Q&A
There's no better resource to hear about a career in medicine, especially if your child intends to pursue family medicine, than your family doctor. If the doctor is open to it, he or she can meet with your child for an extensive session of questions and answers. The teen likely has all sorts of questions about not only medical school, but also what working as a doctor is like, and getting a chance to ask these questions of the physician can be highly illuminating.
Day in the Life
In some cases, your teen may be able to spend much of a day with the physician to get a feeling for what a typical workday is like. Of course, there are privacy concerns with medical care, so your child won't necessarily be able to sit in during appointments with patients — although the doctor may have close relationships with some patients who may be OK with your child's presence during appointments that aren't of a sensitive nature. Otherwise, your child may get a chance to follow the doctor around in the clinic and just get a feel for the fast-paced lifestyle and the types of duties that the physician performs. Seeing things unfold in this manner can be valuable for helping your child to decide whether a medical career is the right one for him or her.
Meeting with Other Staff
Not every young person who begins to study medicine will end up being a doctor. Invariably, some will change their course of study. When your child meets with the family doctor about his or her future, there may also be an opportunity to talk to other staff at the clinic. For example, the child may think that he or she wants to be a doctor, but upon talking to the X-ray technician, this career may alternatively seem appealing. A medical clinic has such a wide range of careers that your child will get valuable exposure to several of them.
To learn more, contact services such as Kinston Medical Specialists PA.
