Pediatrician?

Question

I want to be a Pediatrician when I get older (I am 12) because I love to work with children. What are some things that will prepare me for college, medical school, redensicy,ect because I want to be really prepared for it. Plus can you answer these following questions?
Will I need to do any internships?
What is the typical day of a pediatrician?
How many hours do I work a day? a week?
How much time do I get off for the whole year? like sick days or personal days
Do I get a union?
What is the average starting Salary of this job?What do you make a year when you start your job?
When I graduate college what degree do I have to have to get excepted into medical school? Example You could have a bachelors degree in science or something.

Also, I know how much blood sweat and tears that you have to go through to be in med school, but I want to be a Pediatrician anywayz thanks!

Answer 1

Okay. I'll do my best to answer them in the order asked:

After med school, you will need to do internship. So does every other doctor.

Depending on the type of practice you join, you'd probably either do hospital rounds (i.e. go see the newborn babies born to your patients or any kids your practice has admitted) or do phone-in hours or walk-in hour - or one right after the other. Then you see scheduled patients. If you're lucky, you might get a full hour for lunch. You have to do phone messages from parents who need to speak to you.

Hours a day? Anything from four to fourteen - depends on the time of year, among other factors.

Time off? Depends on the contract you agree to with the practice you join. If you become a solo practitioner (which is rare in today's world) you can forget about ANY time off.

No union that I'm aware of.

Once you get out of residency - where you make about $35-40K a year, you can start at about $110K or more - again, depending on the size of the practice you join.

You need a bachelor's degree in some sort of science. Usually, biology or chemistry, but a doctor I worked with had his in psychology, and I know of one with a zoology degree.

Blood, sweat, and tears? A LOT. You could probably fill an ocean.