Medical Education US

hey, i'm a sophomore in high school. I want to become a psychiatrist, for sure. I don't know what classes i should take or what i should do.

I know alot of people say take "science" classes, such as chemistry, Anatomy, Physics, and blahhh, i suck at science.

ALOT of my friends and people come for me when they need help, to give them good advice and such.

I LOVE philosophy, Reading quotes, learning more about life, interacting with people, and i wanna learn more about this.

can SOMEONE please tell me everything there is to know, and not just re-direct me to another website. i want to know

the real truth and everything there is to know about it. i also love getting high man! it's amazing...

it truely does let your mind be free, free from problems, makes you happy, hungry as hell, hahaha.

and fuck anyone who says "POTHEAD!" and shit like that, w.e. man, my grades are great..

A's and B's only!! don't even get me why i think weed should be legal in the U.S.

-420 ALL DAY!

I'm going to reply to your message in two parts. The first part will be steps to take to become a psychiatrist. The second and more interesting part (as I hadn't really looked into this before) is the use of illicit drugs amongst medical students.

As for steps to become a psychiatrist - I've already outlined the information elsewhere on this site: Post on how to become a psychiatrist. I know you said you don't want to be referred elsewhere, but all of the information is there. If you have more questions, feel free to ask the specific questions and I'll do my best to get you an answer.

As for your love of marijuana - my initial reaction is that pursuing medicine is probably a bad idea given your habit. After searching around a bit I did find a few interesting articles although nothing too recent.

Cocaine and marijuana use by medical students before and during medical school. - from one medical school in 1987:

Before entry into medical school, 21% of the respondents had smoked marijuana 10 times or more, usually at least monthly, while 9% had smoked marijuana 10 times or more during medical school. Six percent had smoked marijuana daily in high school or college, while 1% smoked marijuana daily in medical school. Few students who used cocaine before medical school abstained from it during medical school. Cocaine was used by 17% of the respondents before and during medical school. Frequent use of cocaine (greater than 10 times) during medical school, reported by 5% of the students, was directly related to excessive alcohol intake, tobacco dependence, frequent use of marijuana before and during medical school, and medical and behavioral problems related to alcohol and other drug use.

Substance use among senior medical students. A survey of 23 medical schools. - from 1991:

Substance use prevalence rates during the 30 days preceding the survey included alcohol, 87.5%; marijuana, 10.0%; cigarettes, 10.0%; cocaine, 2.8%; tranquilizers, 2.3%; opiates other than heroin, 1.1%; psychedelics other than LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), 0.6%; amphetamines, 0.3%; barbiturates, 0.2%; LSD, 0.1%; and heroin, 0.0%.