How to Become a Pediatrician: All You Need to Know
Providing medical care for children and teenagers requires a special kind of physician. It is not enough merely to evaluate, diagnose, and treat health issues; pediatricians must be able to pick up on unusual trends in the child's physical development. Pediatricians typically serve patients under 21 years of age and are often vital to identifying and diagnosing early signs of health issues.
7 Steps to becoming pediatricians
At present, we know that to become a pediatrician requires knowledge and skills, but how to acquire these abilities and improve their comprehensive quality to achieve the goal of becoming an excellent pediatrician. Next, we will tell you through detailed steps.
Step 1: understand pediatrician description and responsibilities
Pediatricians are doctors who specialize in caring for young people, from infants to young adults. General pediatrics encompasses the care, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of medical conditions and issues that are generally specific to this younger population. A general pediatrician will treat minor injuries, common illnesses, and some infectious diseases that may affect young people.
Pediatrician job duties include taking patients' medical histories, examining patients, ordering any necessary medical tests, and creating a plan of treatment for the patient. They must be able to communicate this plan and any medical options to the parents of the patient and answer any questions that they may have concerning the course of action. Pediatrician responsibilities may also include administering vaccinations, providing preventative health-care, and teaching patients and their parents about proper health-care, like hygiene and nutrition. Pediatricians generally work in physicians' offices and usually work in full-time positions. The job often requires doctors to be on call and work irregular hours as needed.
Step 2: Think before you do: whether is it worth to be a pediatrician
The influence of every profession is double-sided. As a pediatrician, it may bring you some achievements and advantages, but it also has some professional disadvantages. So before we make sure that we want to be a pediatrician, we think you should have a detailed understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of pediatricians.
Pros of becoming a pediatrician:
1. You can make great money and have flexible hours.
Pediatricians make an anywhere from $100,000 to well over $200,000 a year, depending on your geographic location, the kind of facility you work in (office vs hospital), and the kind of work you do. The more specialized your degree, the more money you can make. Additionally, depending on the setting you work in, you may be able to set your own hours. Some pediatricians even work part time. But that isn't to say the hours don't get long.
2. You're able to help children get healthy and stay healthy.
Being a pediatrician can be incredibly rewarding. Many of your patients will come to you as infants and stay with you until they're adults themselves. You're almost solely in charge of helping them learn how to live healthy lifestyles.
Cons of becoming a pediatrician:
It can be an extremely stressful career in several different ways.
There is a downside to having such an important job, too. Having so much responsibility placed on you as a child's doctor can be a heavy burden. Families can be obnoxious, especially parents who are certain they know more about medicine than you do (although it's important to remember they know more about their children).You should expect to sign your life away to medical school.
To be a pediatrician, you can expect to be in school for a long, long time. After finishing your undergraduate and any master's degrees you may want, medical school takes four years of study, plus a three-year residency. Any specialties or subspecialties you might be interested in are likely to take another three years. In addition, most pediatricians are paying for medical school student loans for years—expect at least $150,000.
Step 3: Research Best colleges and universities for pediatrician
1. Harvard University
2. University of Pennsylvania
3. University of Cincinnati
4. Johns Hopkins University
5. Baylor College of Medicine
6. Stanford University
7. University of California, San Francisco
8. University of Washington
9. Duke University
10. University of Colorado at Denver
Step 4: Go through College
Systematic learning in university is the basis of becoming a qualified senior pediatrician. Most pediatricians complete a minimum of seven years' training at the university level. Before applying to medical school, all doctors must complete a bachelor's degree in a related field. Most often, aspiring pediatricians and doctors complete a premedical degree as an undergraduate. Other acceptable undergraduate degrees for pediatricians include most science degrees or a child psychology degree. Medical school typically takes an additional four years after completing an undergraduate degree. At the same time, with the help of teachers, you can constantly improve your comprehensive ability and make yourself more suitable for the future pediatricians. Overall studying at university is very critical to become a professional pediatrician. You can learn all kinds of related knowledge systematically at college and lay a solid foundation for your future career.
Step 5: Internship Opportunity
Pediatricians typically need a bachelor's degree, a degree from a medical school, which takes 4 years to complete, and, 3 to 7 years in internship and residency programs. The university can not only provide you with the opportunity to study the theoretical knowledge systematically, but also make use of your spare time to find part-time jobs during the university period, so as to obtain real work experience while studying, which is very valuable for you, and it will definitely be helpful for your real career in the future. You can search for relevant part-time pediatrician interns through some special part-time websites, send your resume to companies that need part-time students, and you can also learn about relevant part-time information through the employment service center of the school.
Step 6: Prepare relevant skills for pediatrician
1. Working with Children and Teens: Children and teens often have stronger anxieties about seemingly routine procedures. Additionally, you must be able to discern unusual activity in the child's body or in their behavior that might indicate abnormal development.
2. Problem Solving: Every patient is different. Whether seeking a complicated diagnosis of the child's symptoms or convincing a child to do something that they do not want to do, you will need to be a calm problem-solver. At times, you may even have to deal with problematic parents.
3. Service Orientation: A good pediatrician has empathy for how their patient is feeling and for what they need. In some circumstances, you will temporarily have to surrender meeting your own needs in order to serve your patients.
4. Monitoring: Caring for the medical needs of children requires careful monitoring through their developmental years. You will need to know your patient well enough to notice anything unusual (in addition to watching your patient's body respond to treatment).
Step 7: find relevant pediatrician jobs, and apply it
When you finish your studies, it's your goal to find a suitable job, so where can you find relevant jobs? Now we provide you with a website where you can research for the job you want, you can click on it: https://jobs.salary.com/.
Important Tools for a pediatrician
Sufficient knowledge and ability are the keys to becoming a pediatrician. They can help you develop various career paths and obtain a high salary.
Develop your career path
There are a number of environments that a pediatrician may work within. Pediatricians work in hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. Most either open their own private practice offices or become partners with other doctors. Pediatricians work long hours and are always on their feet. Most pediatricians hours average between 9 and 12 hours a day, or 45 to 60 hours per week. They have very irregular schedules and work on weekends and whenever is necessary. With the irregular work schedules, it is difficult to balance a career as a pediatrician and personal time.
What does a Pediatrician do?
On a daily basis, Pediatricians examine patients or order, perform, and interpret diagnostic tests to obtain information on medical condition and determine diagnosis.
As a pediatrician, you would be responsible both for observing and treating growing children, as well as advising their parents and guardians on a course of action.
Pediatricians, unlike regular doctors, need to have a series of interpersonal skills and great intuition in order to be able to handle children and cater to their needs.
Depending on the specifics of each case, pediatricians may need to draw blood, perform regular check-ups and evaluate the efficiency of the treatment they recommend.
Other names for this job might include Adolescent Medicine Specialist, Baby Doctor, Chief, General Pediatric Clinic, Doctor, General Pediatrician, Group Practice Pediatrician, Medical Doctor (MD), Paediatrician, Pediatrician, Pediatrician, Active Practice.
What skills do you need to be a Pediatrician?
A pediatrician must be patient and caring and able to foster long term trust relationships with the children and their parents.
To remain board-certified, pediatricians must continue their education through classes and workshops, demonstrate quality patient care and maintain a valid medical license to demonstrate they are up-to-date on the most current medical practices, knowledge and skills for health care for children of all ages.
Communication skills are very important in a pediatrician's repertoire, as these doctors must adjust to parents, medical professionals, children of all ages and people who may have no medical knowledge or limited English skills.
Pediatricians combine science, technology, compassion, and people skills in a unique profession tasked with providing medical care for infants, children, and young adults.
Working as a pediatrician can be a very rewarding career, but also requires a great deal of training, education, and both physical and emotional stamina.