How to become a doctor - or at least something resembling one?

They say there are many ways to skin a cat. I think that's disturbing and wrong. I love cats. But there really are many ways to become a doctor. At Wits, that is.

In matric you apply to study MBBCh (at Wits or MBChB at the other medical schools in the country). Now one of two things happen - you get accepted (yay!) or you don't (ahh...); either way, if you want to become a doctor, you'll be one! If you got accepted from matric, you enter medicine in first year (basic sciences), go on to second year (anatomy and dead people and stuff) and the years three (GEMP I) to six (GEMP IV).

Didn't get accepted? Then you go on to doing a Bachelor of Science (BSc), or Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) or, quite frankly, any degree with some biological subtext. You finish your degree and then apply for the GEMP. What's the GEMP? It's a fancy side door into medicine. See this site for a way better explanation than I could give. Should you get accepted you enter GEMP I (the equivalent of MBBCh III) with all the peeps who got in from matric. Pretty cool.

You can enter the GEMP after you've done your honours, masters or PhD. Any age, too. Just a warning - it's a pretty tightly contested entry point. You need to work super hard in your first degree and try to be the best!

I, inadvertently, went for the third option. I received my rejection letter from Wits in December 2009. It sucked so badly. I then got an SMS from Wits saying I got accepted to do a BSc. I didn't even know what that was, but hey, I was now a university student. At the end of my first year I went to chat to a prof at the medical school and asked him if I could do anatomy in my second year of BSc. He suggested I apply to do BHSc and do anatomy with the guys who got into second year medicine. So I did that. At the beginning of second year the Dean spoke to us and said that there are 20 spots available for the top performing students. At the end, 7 of us made the cut!

I'm not too sure whether Wits offers that anymore. It might have been a once off thing.

Anyway, that's it for now. If you have any questions, comment below.