How long does it take to become a doctor? A long time. Undergrad, college, internship, residency, post-residency training... it adds up. Let's do the math and see how long it really takes. http://medcareerpower.com/how-many-years-does-it-take-to-become-a-doctor/

1. How many years does it take to
become a doctor?
We all know that a physician's training is long
and hard. Very arduous. Only for the dedicated.
But how long does it really take to become a
doctor? How many years do you really have to
spend training? In this article, we're going to
break it down and find out how long it really
takes to become a doctor.

2. First things first
The first step to becoming a physician is to attain
your baccalaureate degree. As you all
(hopefully) know, this takes (or should take,
rather) four years. You need a bachelor's
degree to go to medical school. It's that simple.
This is the first step. There is no way around it.

3. Medical School
The next step is to get into medical school! This is
a difficult challenge. Many promising students
fail to make the cut. Medical school entrance is
very competitive. This does take place during
undergraduate study in most cases though, so it
doesn't add any time.

4. Moving forward...
After getting into medical school, you need to go
to medical school! Medical school takes four
years. At the end of those four years, you get
your MD degree and can make people call you
doctor. You're not allowed to practice medicine,
but you're called physician. Pretty sweet.
Making people call you doctor is probably at
least half of the reason anybody goes into
medicine anyway.

5. A word on internships
Following medical school, you've got your internship. This takes
one year. Depending on your specialty, your internship year may
or may not be included in your general residency program. For
most specialties, it is in fact the case that you do not go through
a freestanding internship year. For some weirdo specialties like
neurology, you still have to do the archaic one year before
residency thing. After your internship is done, though, you're
legally allowed to practice medicine! Good for you. Many
attending physicians actually practice medicine while training.
How they find the time and energy to do so is unknown, but it
does happen.

6. Residency
After your internship, you're got your residency.
This takes anywhere from three to eight years,
depending on what type of medicine you're
going into. Want to be a surgeon? You're going
to need significantly more training than a
pediatrician or a family practice doctor. That's
just how things go.

7. Post-residency training
After residency, you may or may not be done with
your training as a physician. It varies. The
primary determining factor is how specialized
you want to go. If you want to do something like
cardiology, you need more training. Post-
residency training usually takes place in the
fellowship setting. These may take anywhere
from one to three years, depending again on
specialty and the length of the individual
program.