The healthcare and medicine industry is a strong pillar of society. You probably dreamed of becoming a doctor at some point during your childhood. Because of the innumerable rewards of healthcare and medicine, many people strive to be a part of it. While it can be easy to dream and inspire yourself, actually becoming a medical professional isn’t a piece of cake.

Why Study Medicine?

Medicine is a branch of science involving health and healing, supervised by doctors, nurses, and various specialists. Medicine encompasses various aspects of health, primarily prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases, general and supportive medical care, and medical research.

Despite the complexity of studying medicine, its wonders outweigh the difficulties. If you’re a student taking medicine soon, or planning to shift your career path, look forward to these reasons why medicine is worth following:

• A respected and highly acknowledged field
• Always on demand
• Day-to-day work varies significantly
• Broad-spectrum of career specializations
• Outstanding salary
• Plenty of intellectual and practical challenges

Before narrowing down your destination in the medical industry, it’s imperative to learn about your medical path first. 

Path Towards The Medical Industry

Doctors, nurses, and surgeons, while having different roles in the industry, have one thing in common: taking a pre-med course before their field specialization. People often mistake a pre-med course as a major, but it’s only an indication that you’re studying in a medical school to become a medical professional.

Having too much on your plate is overwhelming. To help you decide better for your future, here are top nine pre-med courses that you should consider taking in med school:

1. Biomedical Engineering

Starting off with a unique focus, biomedical engineering (BME) is an underrated yet rewarding field to explore. Biomedical engineering combines the best of both worlds: medicine and engineering.

Biomedical engineering not only prepares students for medical school but the engineering landscape which is essential for working with biomedical equipment in the future. Some of your classes will focus on biology, while some concentrate on engineering, and plenty will be a mixture of both.

A bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD program in BME take four to five, one to two, and four to five years to complete, respectively. You can potentially save more time through enrolling in the same university.

2. Biology

The superstar of life sciences, biology is an interesting field that never fails to amuse students. This field deals entirely from the smallest, unseen microorganisms to life in the macroscopic scale, which basically covers every life.

An excellent advantage of taking up biology is that your classes in med school mimic the specialties of medicine—human biology, microbiology, genetics, neuroscience, ecology, among others.

If you’d like the general approach to medicine, biology is the right pre-med course for you. It will prepare your study habits, memory skills, and consistency right before entering the medical industry.

3. Physical Sciences

While medicine specializes on the blanket of life, it doesn’t mean physical sciences wouldn’t be an integral part of your medical journey. Training in physical sciences involving physics and chemistry is valuable and applicable to your admission in med school and in practice.

Moreover, accomplishing physical science coursework helps in completing your major and pre-med requirements immediately, saving time from taking these classes separately.

4. Social Sciences

At first glance, most students think that social sciences are off-putting and would be the last on their list. However, you might be surprised to know that 10% of med school applicants came from the social sciences field.

Physicians don’t revolve around medical knowledge, as they also require a great understanding of how social and behavioral factors impact human health and disease, and the social sciences encompass studies of society and human behavior. In this field, you can also explore how personal experiences affect physician-patient relationships, which is an essential aspect of your code of ethics.

5. Humanities

Diverting your path from the medical scope, considering a humanities course for med school can be your hidden card. Humanities focus on philosophy, literature, and modern or classical languages, that at first, may not complement well with the medical landscape.

Nevertheless, being a non-science student from a bunch of science majors allows you to stand out. Along with its advantage, you’ll have to take an extra mile in planning your coursework strategically to prevent wasting time from lacking major and pre-med requirements.

6. Medical Technology

Healthcare and medicine today significantly involve the use and development of technology. With the help of technological tools and procedures, physicians can accurately diagnose and treat patients, and the list goes on. Indeed, medical technology is revolutionizing healthcare.

Medical technology will definitely get your hands dirty, but in a good way, because you’ll be playing with medicine, chemistry, and technology.

7. Pharmacy

A strategic approach to entering med school and industry seamlessly is to take up the twin sister of medicine, which is pharmacy. This branch is more chemistry-oriented as it encompasses medicine and drug formulations. If you plan to go information-heavy on your pre-med, pharmacy is the perfect course that will prepare students for pharmaceutical biochemistry and related classes.

In case you have a change of heart later, you can achieve the title of a registered pharmacist while choosing between pursuing medicine or focusing on pharmacy.

8. Physical Therapy

Taking a physical therapy major alone is eligible for a career as a physical therapist, but you can also take this course as a precursor to your medical studies. Physical therapy engages students to be more hands-on when examining and treating conditions brought by aging, sickness, and disabilities.

On another end, PT usually involves many anatomy and physiology classes which are more on a macroscopic scale, and less on medical concepts in the microscopic level. Thus, it’s up to you in modifying your coursework and selecting classes that will cover up for your shortcomings.

9. Math and Statistics

Like humanities courses, you’ll more likely ignore a math and statistics course, a non-science course, over a course closer to medicine. However, you should never underestimate math and statistics as they’re one of the most difficult subjects in general.

While math and statistics may not resemble the typical med school subjects, they’ll focus on sharpening your analytical and skeptical skills needed to become a medical professional, plus it will make you a unique candidate.

The Verdict

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach in walking down the medical industry lane. Therefore, knowing your options before stepping into med school and setting your career goals is important to save money, time, and effort. With these pre-med courses discussed, weigh out your personal target and living conditions to choose which course will fit you best.