How Long Does It Take to Become a Physician?
“Hello my name is Dr. David Cathcart, and I’m from Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, MO. To become a physician it first requires that you graduate from high school, you have to have a high school diploma, and then you have to go to college. Almost all medical programs require that you go to four years of undergraduate, usually with a degree in the sciences, perhaps chemistry or biology, and then four years of medical school. So you’re looking at minimum of eight years after you graduate from high school of schooling before you even get the degree doctor bestowed upon you. But that’s not it, because at that point you still have to do a residency. A residency is where you practice whatever area you’re going to be in under the supervision of people who are skilled in that particular area. So for example, if in my case I was a family practice doctor, you would go into a family practice residency and usually that’s going to be two or three years. Surgeons, certain surgical di
