Why Study Medicine: Top 10 Reasons to Be a Doctor

“Why become a doctor?” It’s a pretty difficult question. Whether you’re thinking of a career in medicine, your personal statement or preparing for an interview, it’s sometimes hard to articulate the exact reasons why you want to be a doctor, or the importance of doctors generally. Here, with this list of the top 10 reasons to be a doctor, I’ve tried to put words to those complex motivations, both to awaken an interest in those dormant potential doctors and to help my colleagues express their love for the discipline!

If you want a taste of medical careers before you go to university, explore our Medical Summer Schools for high school students.

1. We Can Really Help People

This tops the list of 10 reasons to be a doctor for a reason. One of the best motivations to become a doctor is the desire to alleviate pain and make them feel better. We are the caretakers of humanity, the maintenance people. Patients come to us, we patch them up, and we send them out to have the best and happiest lives they can.

And the best part?

They’ll forget our names. Every last one of them. Because it’s not about us as individual doctors, it’s about us as a people, as a collective species. We do what we do because it needs to be done and somebody needs to do it.

The importance of a doctor isn’t about self-importance. We’re not especially good or noble – we’re just the idiots who volunteered!

If you’re looking to study medicine at a top university but you’re unsure of what to put in your medical personal statement, then check out our guide on how to write a medical personal statement.

2. Become a Doctor and Use Science Every Day

Medicine is a science that we apply constantly. We generate hypotheses based on medical histories and physical examinations, and we challenge them with imaging and tests. And those methods themselves rely on scientific thinking to carry them out and interpret the results.

If you’ve got an inquiring mind with some sharp critical thinking skills, you’ll never get bored. Every case is a new puzzle with its unique set of problems.

And that’s so exciting!

3. Medicine Is Many Sciences

Okay, I know I said medicine was a science, but you’d be hard-pressed to suggest a science that isn’t somehow involved in healthcare.

If you were like me when I did my A-levels, you may not have been able to pick a degree subject from among biology, chemistry or physics. My solution was to cheat and do all of them at the same time! Later, once you’ve become a doctor, you can branch out into even more STEM disciplines.

From applying your medical knowledge to developing new equipment to coding personal health apps and student apps, to complex mathematical models of disease spread – you can literally go anywhere. And yes. Space medicine is a speciality. Medicine and space. Need I say more?

4. Becoming a Doctor Leads to Many Career Paths

With a dizzying number of specialities in medicine and surgery, you’d be forgiven for thinking that’s all you can do with the degree. But apart from anaesthetists and beyond brain surgeons, there’s a whole host of careers in medicine! So yes, one of the top 10 reasons to become a doctor is that you can become a whole host of other things afterwards.

Perhaps you want to advise governments as Chief Medical Officer or decide how concussed Premier League footballers are. Or maybe you want to change healthcare with technology and engineering to create some cool app or device. Medical training can take you pretty much anywhere, as long as humans are running about, all squishy and fragile…

5. You Can Do More Than Science

Further to the previous reason, science doesn’t have to be your whole life. If you’ve got some other passion, you can very easily combine it with medicine.

Related Read: The Man Who Made Surgery Painless

If you love writing, you could write the next Jurassic Park. Or if you’re into politics, you could stand for elections. You could even get involved in show business, advising on television programmes or film sets.

6. Doctors Use Hands-on Skills

Medicine is a wonderful blend of knowing a lot and being able to do a lot with that knowledge. If you become a doctor or surgeon, you can apply those dusty old facts through countless practical procedures while treating patients on a day-to-day basis.

This is a great attraction for those of us who find lectures and books really boring in comparison to delivering a good, old-fashioned injection! That’s the importance of a doctor: they’re proactive, but always with reasoning.

7. There’s an Opportunity to Teach after Becoming a Doctor

The word “doctor” literally translates as “teacher”, which is really convenient if you like imparting knowledge!

Teaching can be incredibly rewarding and it’s going to be necessary when training each new generation of doctors. So, if you’re torn between teaching and medicine, become a doctor so you can do both!

8. Working in Multidisciplinary Teams

Pursuing a career in medicine means you’ll always be around professionals of several disciplines. Becoming a doctor means working closely with nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists, and pharmacists – to name just a few!

The different points of view can be refreshing, and, since every profession attracts slightly different personalities, your work life won’t devolve into a series of interactions with incredibly similar people. You’ll also get a new perspective on the importance of a doctor through seeing how the profession interacts with others. This was a massive relief when I learned about it!

9. Conferences Are Fun

Because so much research happens in medicine, there’s always a conference going on at any one time.

You’ll find yourself at quite a few of these conferences during your time at medical school, and after you graduate, and they’re usually a great day out!

Think of them as frequent holidays in random cities, with fancy food and big-name speakers. And lots of freebies. Lots of freebies. You’ll never need to buy a pen again!

10. People Believe in Doctors

Finally, this is the great privilege of being in medicine. We, as a profession, are placed in a unique position in the eyes of the public. Patients trust us with their lives, their health, and their secrets. They tell us things they wouldn’t tell anyone else; we get to see so many lives in a single day.

And then, after it all, we’re allowed to try to help these people. It’s incredibly humbling to realise just how much the public believes in our ability and integrity, and that faith is a huge part of the reward.

11. Extra Reason to Become a Doctor: Great Job Security!

Doctors tend to have great job security as there is always demand for them and a shortage of doctors. For instance, in 2024 the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK had a shortage of doctors in certain specialities, particularly in primary care and psychiatry. This shortage may have led to more job opportunities for doctors in these fields.

Are You Ready To Study Medicine At University?

Here we are, at the foot of the list of the top 10 reasons to be a doctor, hopefully with better insight into life in medicine and the importance of doctors generally. It’s not an easy career and the lifestyle can be difficult to keep up with, but there are certainly many positives that make it worth it.

If these reasons to study medicine have piqued your interest, and you like a challenge, I’d urge you to visit some medical schools and apply!

Want to Make Sure Becoming a Doctor Is Right for You?

Our 2-week long summer schools in Medicine take place across the world. You can choose between an Academic Insights programme, taking you deep into the theory and knowledge necessary, and Career Insights, focussing on the realities of working life as a doctor. Either way, check out our Medical Summer Schools for high school students. There you’ll explore in-depth topics essential to careers in medicine or biotechnology.