From High School to Surgeon | My Complete Path to Becoming a Surgeon Explained

what's up everyone this is dr. Webb here thank you guys for watching this video make sure you subscribe new videos coming every week you don't want to miss them for those who are new to the channel welcome my name is dr. Antonio Webb an orthopedic spine surgery fellow so in this video today I'm going to be talking about my path from high school to the point where I'm at today what did I do to get to this point what steps did I take what barriers I faced and some tips for you guys so I am an orthopedic spine surgery fellow that means I have completed four years of college four years of medical school five years of general orthopedic training and I'm in my last year of training in my fellowship year I actually graduated from high school seems like a long time ago in 2001 so that is 18 years ago and over the last 18 years I had a lot of ups and downs I had a lot of barriers and jumps and obstacles to face and along this whole path my whole goal was to become a doctor my high school was actually on a quarter system which means that we took classes and we stay in in the classes a little bit longer throughout the day I believe our classes were maybe 90 minutes longer instead of the traditional 50 minutes so this allowed me to complete my whole high school education in three and a half years I was 17 at the time my dad signed on the dotted line for me to go into the military midway between my senior year of high school January 16th 2001 while my remaining high school senior classmates were still in school and maybe doing some work study or take an additional classes I went to boot camp and after boot camp I went to military school to technical training or tech school and this is where I learned to become a medic or a medical technician is called a four-and-oh in the military and partway between this training I was allowed to go back to my high school and walk with my high school class in my military uniform so I joined the military at age 17 and I spent a total of eight years in the military I spent six years on active duty and two years in the reserves once I got to my duty station which was in San Antonio Texas my job was to work in a clinic I was a medical technician and I had duties such as taking blood pressures putting patients and rooms doing vital signs drawn blood and every two years we would rotate through different portions of the hospital so I worked in an ICU I worked in a Rheumatology clinic I worked at a multi-specialty clinic I worked on the internal medicine floor but knowing that I wanted to become a doctor I made it my goal to go to school as soon as I got to my duty station in high school I was actually accepted to a medical magnet program it's called the Fair Park Medical Careers magnet program and that program actually exposed me to medicine and got me off of the streets of Louisiana there was a lot of things going on in Louisiana it was really a bad environment at that time where I had several family members that went to prison including my little brother my little sister and ever since I've been young my mom has been on a knife drug in and out of jail my whole life so that program exposed me to medicine and actually kept me off of the streets of Louisiana and and to the books so ever since that high school program I made it a vow to myself and made a promise to myself that I would stick to the books and I would reach my goals of becoming a doctor once I got to my duty station and 2001 it took me about a year or so to complete all of my in training or my orientation for the medical technician job that I had but as soon as I finished that orientation I signed up for classes on base and the instructors actually came to the military base to teach us so there were several different colleges that came to the base st. Philip's college Northwest Vista Park University and this is where I actually started my education my first class that I took was actually English one and I vividly remember being in my dorm room in the military and trying to study for a English final and thought to myself like man this is hard I can't do this and I actually cried at one point because I thought that the path to become a doctor was so long and so challenging that I would never reach this point that I meant today with the military obligations and responsibilities and all the duties that I had it actually took me seven years to complete my college degree while in the military if I worked in an ICU or worked on the floor and the internal medicine floor during the day I would go to school at night time so my shift range from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and I would go to school maybe from 8 p.m. to 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. and when I worked at nighttime such as any ICU I would go to school during the daytime so my shift maybe ran from 6:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. and I would drive across the city to the campus where school was held from 8 to maybe let's say 1 p.m. go home and sleep for a few hours shower maybe work out for two to three hours and go back to work at 6:30 p.m. so I've repeated this process for a number of years and this is how I got my undergraduate degree I was really lost during this time and I didn't know what to major in or what to study I was under the impression that everyone had to have either a biology or a chemistry degree and then I came to figure out that that's actually not true you can actually major in anything that you want to major in you can major in music you can major in aquatic therapy or nutrition or basket-weaving then just do the prereqs for medical school so my major was actually biology I actually got my associates degree first at the Community College called st. Philip's college I went to Northwest Vista and took some classes there so my college was a little bit disjointed I went to several different schools because of my schedule in the military in 2007 I actually completed my time on active duty for the military and I got off of active duty and wouldn't sue the reserves before I completed my time on active duty I actually had orders to Korea so they were trying to send me to Korea for two years but I was actually able to turn down that set of orders because I was getting out the military and knowing that I wanted to get up in military and go to medical school I turned down those orders got out the military and went into the reserves so there in his time I think I had one semester left of completing my undergraduate degree I transferred to the University of Texas at San Antonio and that's when I completed my college degree and graduated in May of 2007 so May of 2007 to October 2019 12 years ago I got off the military in 2007 started my reserve duty and completed my reserve duty in 2009 I was actually at UTSA taking a chemistry class or organic chemistry class I think it was actually physics and I was talking to one of my classmates who was actually leaving that day to go on the medical school interview and I said wait you already applied to medical school how are you how did you already apply to medical school and how did you already get interviews and at that point I knew nothing about the application process I didn't have you know mentors or family members that were doctors already that I can acts or kind of guide me in the right direction and that was the birth of my youtube channel and my blog that I first started so my vlogging actually started as a blog when I finally got into medical school I wanted something that my family members and other friends and people that were coming behind me could go to to reference and I just talked about my day-to-day life and activities as a medical student and this kind of transformed into a video blog and that's where this channel kind of first started because I realized there's not a lot of information out there in terms of things that you need to know what should you major in what should your GPA be how many schools did you apply - that information was not just available when I was going through the years so that's why I'm so passionate about making videos for you guys because I realize that having a mentor or someone who has been through it is actually the best resource for you so I graduated college in 2007 and it was time to apply to medical school and after talking to my friend that was in my class who had already applied to medical school had already taken his MCAT I knew nothing about the MCAT I didn't actually take my first MCAT until I actually I had graduated college and the first time I took the MCAT I actually made uh 17 that was the old scoring system I'm not sure what the equivalent score is to the new scoring system but that was pretty low my verbal score was actually the lowest it was three that's the lowest score that you can possibly get so that's how lost I was during this time with that MCAT score I decided that it wasn't probably a good idea to apply to medical school so I actually took the MCAT again for a second time and I think my second time I improved my score by let's say I don't know three points or so but not that high so after that second MCAT score had came out I was devastated I had studied for months on end I had to even hired a tutor I took Kaplan I took Princeton and I just didn't get the score that I wanted so I was actually working in the ICU as a LVN at that time as a contractor for the military been in the military as a medical technician allowed me to challenge the California Board of vocational nursing and I just centrally just took a test and got my LVN license and that's what I did between the military and from starting medical school so after that second MCAT score I realized that my chances of getting into medical school with the score of that low was pretty slim this was a big decision for me and a really a big risk because I had purchased the house a couple years prior to that and I had other bills to pay such as my car note and credit card and things like that but I knew that if I wanted to get into medical school then I would have to increase my MCAT score by a lot so the decision came up for me was that I would quit my job as a LVN for the military I was a civilian contractor and study full-time for the MCAT and that's what I did I actually quit my job I didn't have any income coming in it was actually just a savings that I had that I lived on for that particular time and I studied for like six months and I took the MCAT and scored low again and there in his time I think I had applied to a medical school after my second MCAT I was like what the hell I might as well just apply and see what happens I think I got one interview and that school just didn't picked me up the second time that I applied to medical school I didn't get any interviews and it wasn't until the third time that I got I think two interviews and I contacted the schools and asked them what can I do to increase my chances of getting into medical school and I already knew the answer I needed to raise my MCAT score my GPA I think was like a 3-4 or 35 so not too high it was actually affected by working full time in the military and every school that I contacted told me that I needed to do a postback program so this led me to looking at different programs and I found one at Georgetown University this was a postback program that actually teaches you how to study how to take tests how to do well in medical school and this program actually set me up for success in medical school and the premise was that if you do well in this postback program your chances of getting into the medical school we're pretty high so we took classes with the medical students we took Anatomy we took physiology we took biochemistry and we were graded on the same scale as these medical students and the day that I actually at the email stating that I was accepted to medical school was probably one of the happiest days of my life I was actually in front of the library I think we had just finished studying and we got emails from the Georgetown University email system stating that congratulations we are extending an offer to you for the class of 2014 one of the happiest days of my life so I got into medical school and actually did quite well in medical school I made honors and a lot of different classes high pass my evaluations and my clinical years were really good and it was time to apply to read and see and for me going into medical school I knew that I loved working with my hands and surgery was at the top of my list but I didn't know what type of surgery it wasn't until the end of my third year that I realized that orthopedic surgery was something that I absolutely loved I love the fact that orthopedic surgery for did me the opportunity to have immediate gratification a patient comes in with a hip fracture or a broken wrist or a broken leg I can take that patient to surgery and fix their fracture or fixed her hip or fix their ACL and then get that patient back to their normal function and I really enjoyed that about orthopedics and that's the reason why I went into orthopaedics my third year of residency training it was time to apply to fellowship and the fellowships in orthopedics there's a number of them you can go on two hand surgery foot and ankle pediatrics oncology spine surgery and I chose spine surgery because I was always interested in the brain and spinal cord I love the surgeries it's very meticulous it's very precise surgery and I really enjoyed that about spine surgery so that leads me to the fellowship gear that I'm currently in the fellowship year is one year long we're about three months into this year and it's been great I'm learning a lot I'm operating a lot I'm doing a lot of surgery I'm able to travel and do research and do a lot of other things so I just wanted to share kind of my path from high school to college to college to medical school medical school and residency residency to fellowship 2002 to 2019 17 years it took me a long time to get to this point but I always tell people don't look at it from a perspective like that 17 years that's a long time look at it from a day-to-day basis look at it from the aspect of what portion of your life or you currently and if you're in college just focus on college hey I got four years of college that I need to get through medical school four years of medical school this is what I need to get through you get to your red and see I got anywhere between three to seven years of residency this is what I need to get through and then fellowship so break it up in chunks don't think of it as a long path because that can discourage a lot of people but there is a light at the end of the tunnel I think it gets better with time you're getting to medical school in the first two years kind of sucked because you're sitting in the classroom and you're studying all the time not really doing much other than the books but you get into your third year your fourth year and you're in the hospital or you're actually a student doctor didn't get in to read to seeing your intern year sucks because you're at the bottom of the totem pole but as you go through the years actually gets better you have more responsibilities you have more autonomy and it's a lot of fun because you're actually doing something that you enjoy doing then you get into fellowship and that's actually what most people would say is the best year of their life because you're not a full staff or attending yet you still have responsibilities but not as much as a full staff so you're just in between your residency and also attending life and that's a great year in this path so that's kind of my path for you guys I suggest that you take a day-by-day if you want to become a doctor never never never never give up if it would have took me ten years to get into medical school I would apply every single year because that's how bad I want it to become a doctor so that is my advice for you guys thank you guys for watching this video make sure you subscribe new videos come in every week we'll see you next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Antonio J. Webb, M.D.

Views: 211,310

Keywords: surgeon pay, surgeon salary, orthopedic surgery, ortho, residency life, life as a resident surgeon, MCAT, my path to become a doctor, how to become a doctor, neurosurgery residency, orthopedic surgeon, radiology, mcat prep, princeton review, medical school, medical school application, medical school acceptance reaction, how i got into medical school, how to get into medical school, high school to medical school

Id: fVI-mLuEvsI

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019