Becoming a doctor

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i have wanted to be a doctor for a very long time, but i am not sure whether AS or autism would make it harder for me to become a doctor.
i am not officially diagnosed, but i have been told i have the qualities of AS and my friends and some teachers believe i have AS, this will obviously make an interview harder as i find it very hard to amke eye contact, and talk to people i dont know. i do not want to shutdown at an interview (if i get one).
I have always found minds that dont function 'normally' fascinating, and i like the science of how the body works. i dont know whether to try to see a psychiatrist to be checked because i do not know whether it would decrease my chances of becoming a doctor.
If anyone has any advice, i would greatly appreciate it.
i am new to this site, so hello, i hope i can make friends here.

umm.... to be a doctor you need to have a shedload of intuition and a super memory, and to put 16-17 hours a day studying then working. doctors are always walking on a razor edge because if their patients or fellow doctors don't like them, they can get into a lot of trouble for no fault of their own. a doctor is SUPPOSED to give a patient as much time as they need and to give them good teaching, but reality is that you don't have more than 5-10 minutes to do it and the patient won't even pay for that. there is so much uncertainty and 50% of differential diagnoses are wrong, which is not harmful, but shows you that even if you do the perfect interview, assessment, check labs, and follow up, a big percentage of your diagnoses and treatment will be false. if you are charismatic and a good actor, people won't make a big deal. but if you are an aspie, i'm afraid you will find yourself in big trouble.

I love medical things, as well, which is one of my main interest. It has taken me 10 years to figure out what I want to do in the medical community. Because of my Asperger's I am not able to work with patients, but I love to do research and love to work in a laboratory. I decided that I want to become a Histology Technician. As a Histology Technician, I will be studying tissues of the body. I would be preparing slide, tissues, and other preparations for a pathologist. It is a great job because I will be in a laboratory all day, plus I would not have to deal with patients, just the pathologist, themselves. One person is better than a bunch. I was going to take the clinical laboratory technician program, but I have to be trained in phlebotomy, which mean i have to deal with patients.
At the school I am going to, A Histology Technician(deals with tissues and cells) and whose job is just to prepare the samples, plus only the pathologist deal with the patients, not me,so I would not deal with patients. Plus, the tissues is usually drawn by either surgeons, doctors, and/or other specialist during surgeries and other procedures, and since Histology Technicians do not perform such duties, I would not have to deal with patients.
A clinical Laboratory technician who deals with blood and urine, in some places of employment would not only be helping the clinical laboratory scientist/specialist, but would have to be a Phlebotomist and deal with patients, as well. that is because some places want to save money and not hire a separate Phlebotomist, so they have to draw the blood.

Well, for one thing, there are degrees of everything. Perhaps you do have AS, and perhaps it will make it harder for you to become a doctor. Seeing a psychiatrist and finding out what exactly the problem is, and finding ways to work around it would make your life easier, not harder, provided that you were seeing a good psychiatrist.
Doctors are people too, and have all sorts of disorders and features of disorders. There's an excellent book called Welcome, Silence which is the autobiography of a schizophrenic who eventually gets her M.D. and becomes a psychiatrist.
In addition, while there are many fields of medicine where people skills matter, there are many where they don't matter too much. How much would you mind a great surgeon that didn't have good people skills? Certainly better than a lousy surgeon who's fun at a party.. In many cases, it's they type of thing someone with AS might be really good at.

I started out college as a pre-med major.. I ended up having problems and leaving after awhile, but part of me still hopes that someday I'll get it together enough to finish up my bachelor's in biology or biopsychology and go to medical school.. that's why my biology teacher wanted me to do.
spending 24/7 with your nose in a book is something that people with AS tend to rock at!

Most likely seeing a psychiatrist wouldn't make it more difficult to get into medical school. Those records are private. If you go through insurance, your insurance company will know too, but only to a certain extent.
If you're having symptoms that are making things particularly difficult, not doing something about them will probably cause more difficulty than doing something about them will.

i have wanted to be a doctor for a very long time, but i am not sure whether AS or autism would make it harder for me to become a doctor.
i am not officially diagnosed, but i have been told i have the qualities of AS and my friends and some teachers believe i have AS, this will obviously make an interview harder as i find it very hard to amke eye contact, and talk to people i dont know. i do not want to shutdown at an interview (if i get one).I have always found minds that dont function 'normally' fascinating, and i like the science of how the body works. i dont know whether to try to see a psychiatrist to be checked because i do not know whether it would decrease my chances of becoming a doctor.
If anyone has any advice, i would greatly appreciate it.i am new to this site, so hello, i hope i can make friends here.\

Hi Cellardoor and welcome,
I have AS and I have worked in a hospital as a nurse for 10years. My therapist diagnosed me with AS about 2 - 3 years ago and knowing about AS has helped with my social interactions immensely(!) If you want to be a doctor, I say do it!! Knowing about AS can help you with difficult social interactions and you could learn measures for things to do to help you through them. I just finished grad school in a nurse practitioner (NP) program and will be looking for a new job after my certification exam. Having AS could help with all the memorizing you need to do, as I have found generally that people with AS have good memories (IMO), also I have to agree that minds that don't function 'normally' are fascinating and if you like the science of how the body works all the more reason for you to go to medical school. And, where I work there is a doctor with AS (I don't know if he is out about it to other people, but I had him as a patient and he talked to me about it) there is another doc who I think is also on the spectrum but I haven't had the opportunity to ask him about it. So we are all proof that you can work in health care with AS.

thankyou for your welcome godess.

and thankyou everyone else, it has been useful.
yes i have quite a good memory and i like reading my textbooks.
i would like to see a psychiatrist but i am sure my mother would not allow it.
she will not have anything 'wrong' with any of her children, it is not allowed, she doesnt even like me reading about autism and aspergers even though i find it so very interesting and am not trying to link it to me at all. she would hate to know that i have joined this community.
is it possible to see a psychiatrist without a parent knowing?
i would not be able to tell people because they might talk to her and she would get angry.
Maybe i can only do this when i am 18?

Do you have medical insurance? I'm not sure how that's handled so far as parent notification..

However, the age of consent for psychiatric treatment is 14. It may vary state to state, I'm not sure. But it is distinctly younger than the age of consent for general medical treatment, which is usually 18. So there is a chance you could get into treatment even without your mother's agreement.

Look for mental health services in the state/city you live in and you will find what the age of consent for your state is. It definitely varies, in Washington state the age of consent for mental health services is 13, many states have an age range of 15-18 for services.
My more pressing question is why is it so upsetting to your mother that anything be 'wrong' with her children?(everybody has got something wrong with them - better to learn to live with it and cope than deny it (for me anyway)) Is she so worried about something reflecting badly on her and if so then why?
I wish you good luck on finding a therapist that is a good match to you especially if they have experience working with us on the autistic spectrum.

My more pressing question is why is it so upsetting to your mother that anything be 'wrong' with her children?(everybody has got something wrong with them - better to learn to live with it and cope than deny it (for me anyway)) Is she so worried about something reflecting badly on her and if so then why?

um, my mother is not a very tolerant person. she shouts at me for not being the kid that everyone wants instead of their own. my brothers and i are her little trophies in a sense. she likes to boast to other people what my brothers are doing, and saying what grades i get.
so if there is something 'wrong' with us then she will not be able to boast as much anymore.

i think she thinks it will reflect on her, even though she is not stupid and knows that AS or autism is not caused by upbringing. people might try to pity her for having a kid on the spectrum, she would hate that and it would make her lash out at us more.
i dont want to cause that.

Do you have medical insurance? I'm not sure how that's handled so far as parent notification..

However, the age of consent for psychiatric treatment is 14. It may vary state to state, I'm not sure. But it is distinctly younger than the age of consent for general medical treatment, which is usually 18. So there is a chance you could get into treatment even without your mother's agreement.


i am not sure about medical insurance.

i am in England so i am not sure if it varies here. i will check,
thankyou.

I work in a pathology lab, and I couldn't agree more. We always say our office attracts the doctors who don't like working with patients! I'm the same - the medical stuff is fascinating but I'm not so hot on 'people' stuff. We have a total of seven people, but we more or less keep ourselves to ourselves most of the time.

It will depend on whether you have to interact with patients. Most brain surgeons are Aspies (according to the psychologist), and the interact with patients in a way...

If you work as an Anesthesiologist, the patient is oftentimes, "unconscious" so there is little interaction with patients. Brain Surgeons, like any Surgeon, have to deal with patients after surgery when they are in ICU recovering from such invasive procedures.

Radiologists, who read x-rays are actually "Aspies"rather than Brain Surgeons...they have limited patient contact except when performing a major Radiologic Procedure, like Fluoroscopy, Angiograms, etc. Radiologists make "big bucks" like Brain Surgeons, too.

Yeah, if you're bad with people there's lots of thing you can do as a doctor that don't rely heavily on that skill.

You do, however, have to be REALLY good at school, including not just intelligence (you don't have to be a genius, but you do have to be good at learning), but the ability to concentrate on learning, schedule your time so you don't get too disorganized to learn, and interact with professors and other students in learning groups. You don't have to be perfect at it right now; but you do have to be capable of becoming good at those things before you hit the really tough stuff where you can't just coast by on sheer smarts. If you're bad at any of those things, you need to learn before you get to uni.

i can be ok with people, as long as they dont touch me or shout, then i can force myself to pretend to 'normal'. i think if i get to be a doctor (or something along those lines) then i will work REALLY hard to be able to manage lots of people.

i am good at learning i think but i do need to work harder and study, at the moment i am getting by with very little work, college is easy at the moment. thankyou for your input callista.

a pathology lab does sound interesting as well! thanks.

your hardest part will be getting through med school and the intership, after that, as others have said, you get to specialise and it becoems easier *fingers crossed*

I'm not 100% familiar with the UK system, but I know from the colleges I considered, most are trying to teach clinical stuff from the word go (i.e. you'll be out on the wards, experimenting on patients ). This will probably be tough if you have social anxieties; you will be expected to examine and take histories, and then often answer questions on the spot from the consultant or other doctors. Most of the doctors aren't too bad; they realise you're a student and the worst you'll get is indifference. However, some consultants enjoy picking on students in front of patients, and you'll have to grow a pretty thick skin at times.

I study in Ireland; our first 2 years had very little clinical exposure, but then we got landed in the deep end in third year, and it's hit me quite hard (getting easier though; although, I've only 2 more days left of the term ). If you think the 'learn first, then practice' approach would benefit you more, consider applying to colleges like Oxford or Cambridge, which still use this method of teaching.

lol, Thatredhaireddgrrl, I'm definitely considering pathology at the moment!