What does it take to become a doctor? How long does it take?

Also you haev to do very well in college if you want to get into a decent med school. The MCAT test is impt, grades in biology/related courses are impt, also other things like volunteering at a hospital or something like that. You have to be an good all around person to get into med school. Once you get in, you just have to survive long enough to get the MD, they won't try to kick you out. But getting in is very very competitive for most decent schools.

Four years college Four years medical school. There are some programs that combine college and medical school into a six-year program; when you graduate, you earn both a BS and MD simultaneously. Following medical school is internship and residency. Internal medicine/Family practice is usually a 3 year residency program. Cardiology is a three or four years residency program AFTER medical school. Cardiac surgery: Five to six years residency following medical school. If you graduate college at 22, then medical school at age 26, you probably won't be a cardiac surgeon until age 31 AT THE EARLIEST. During your residency, you begin practicing actual surgery on patients as an assistant to the attending or chief surgeon. Your involvement as a surgeon in the first two years is quite minimal: you might open a patient's chest and that's all; you might participate as an adjunct support person with the perfusion (bypass) team. Or, you might assist in closing the chest or doing other simpler surgical tasks. By your third year as a cardiac surgery resident, you'll be doing some pretty serious procedures. In your fifth year, you can do almost any widely practiced procedure; you might participate in some highly risky novel procedure, but only under the direction of a very skilled, highly experienced chief surgeon.

It takes very good grades and the right courses before college so you can get into college, 4 years of pre-med, then medical school, then an internship and passing the medical boards - about 8 years after high school. Then there is the surgery training....