The Top 5 Important Things to Know Before Choosing to Study Medical Courses

The insane numbers who apply for medical courses in Nigeria each year can only mean one thing – Every student want to become a health professional. However, these crucial things to know before choosing to study medical courses are being ignored.

It is alarming, to say the least. If you ask these students why they want to study medicine, nursing, or any other medical courses, to your greatest shock, many of them know next to nothing about these medical courses.

And the ones that go to the university because they consider all the other nonmedical courses as low paying or degrading. For example, some of them even question how lucrative is medical laboratory science?.

Students are not the only ones guilty of this ignorant act, and their parents even go as far as they can, even when it involves paying enormous sums for their children or wards to be admitted to study these courses.

Little wonder why most of these students who are ignorant of some of the important things to know before choosing to study medical courses flunk their tests and examinations or if they manage to scale through, can’t even apply themselves practically to the demands of these medical courses. 

We could go on and on about how rigorous medical courses are; nonetheless, when one doesn’t know some things before choosing to study medical courses, there can be only one end, which is a failure. Failure is one experience no one gladly chooses; however, if you don’t do the needful, it would only be a natural consequence.

So, in this article, we will consider some of the crucial things to know before choosing to study medical courses that so many students and parents alike have to ignore.

Five Important Things to Know Before Choosing to Study Medical Courses

Are there only five things to know before choosing to study medical courses? Far from it, however, some factors are more important than others. In the subsequent paragraphs, we will try to unravel about five of the important things to know before choosing to study medical courses.

There is nobody that is 100% guaranteed to succeed

If there is anything so common is a general perception that only the brightest minds are meant to study medical courses. While there is some measure of truth in that statement, it isn’t cut and dried. It is those who are considered the brainy ones that fail out. 

Best believe these super-intelligent ones are prone to laxity and laziness, which medical courses don’t condone. This isn’t to say that those who are very intelligent don’t have an edge already, but if they fail to add to their brilliance, hard work, and consistency, they will end up surprising themselves.

One important to know before choosing to study medical courses has to be the fact that results don’t just fall on your lap regardless of your academic achievements in the past. You can’t afford to rest on your laurels while choosing to study medical courses.

Be ready to strike while the hot 

Studying medical courses is signing up to read lots of books from the get-go. There seems to be no time when the coursework reduces in volume, and guess what? You won’t get an extended time because you have many pages of books to read through.

The implication of this is one of the important things to know before choosing to study medical courses at the university. You can’t afford to procrastinate. The examinations you would face would demand your thoroughness of study, and last-minute study can’t help at all.

Students choosing to study medical courses need to stop over-reliance on their supposed retentive memory. No one is immune from the effect of forgetting things crammed into the head on the eve of examinations. This would mean you would have to learn how to prepare a personal reading timetable. So, do yourself a favor by studying as you learn.

Don’t Just Attend Classes, be Punctual

In this very matter of punctuality, you can afford to cut students some slack because most of the time, the classes aren’t worth spending time at because the lecturers are just dictating verbatim what they give out in their course material, or they don’t come at all.

Still, you can’t gloss over the fact that some lecturers can be very cheeky and choose on their whim to take tests when they see the class turn-up is poor or award marks to those who consistently attend classes early. You can’t risk this; do yourself good by attending classes always and punctually.

It is a Marathon and Not a Sprint

These should be written in bold letters for undergraduates as one of the important things to know before choosing to study medical courses. The reality is that sometimes, you would get your test scores and won’t even believe it is yours because of the amount of work you put in to study. 

In these situations, it is easy to give up and accept that you might never make it anyway in your journey to becoming a medical professional, but this is so untrue. There would be failures here and there, but it is only the consistent that wouldn’t be sidetracked by failure.

You would need to chin up in those times and study even harder again. Why? Because choosing to study medical courses is a marathon that would demand a good number of years to complete.

Don’t Be Your Only Friend 

There is this tendency as an undergraduate who is studying any medical courses to want to stay alone to stave off distractions. While this is true in a sense, it is equally untrue to think you can go through the hurdles of studying a medical course all by yourself.

There would be times you wouldn’t want to continue, you would need the encouraging voices of your friends to buoy you up, and sometimes the course materials would be so overwhelming that you can’t complete them alone, just seeing your friends studying can be a big confidence booster. 

Did we forget when you need to repeat what you have read consistently? Discussion groups can prove very helpful in these times. So, don’t shun good companies. Make yourself as friendly as possible to attract good friends.

Conclusion

Can we end this article with the critical things to know before choosing to study medical courses without credence to some reasons that nudge students to study medical courses?

Choosing to study medical courses indeed gives you a wide range of career opportunities; more so, the financial returns are also great too, especially those medical laboratory scientists’ salaries in Nigeria. Job security is also another thing since the demands for medical professionals would also be high.