The majority of medical students who dedicate years and years of their lives to becoming a practicing physician generally stick to the path laid out before them.  Who wouldn’t?  If you take what is essentially a decade of your life and relentlessly pursue the goal of becoming a doctor, what could deter you from that path?

A recent article on Entrepreneur.com suggests that the only thing that could divert a promising medical student is the siren’s song of the start-up.  While most medical school student’s parents probably would shudder upon hearing this, the article suggests that some medical students may be uniquely equipped to enter that world.

The author, Shiv Gaglani has extra incentive to believe his thesis since he is among those medical students venturing into the world of, well, ventures.  He recently took a hiatus from Johns Hopkins Medical School (you may have heard of it) to work on an education technology startup.

He believes that there are certain qualities med school students possess which help them excel in the dog-eat-dog world of starting a company from scratch.  The first is the ability to keep a singular focus on one thing for a very long time.  This one might be the most important since in both medical school and the startup scene, the amount of effort you put forth plays a major role in whether or not you succeed.  Whether it’s pulling an all-nighter in the library, or spending all of your waking hours coding to launch an app on time, the same skillset applies.  This kind of mental discipline is possessed by any med student worth his salt, probably at a higher rate than those in the startup space.

For more qualities that Gaglani believes equip med students for the startup world, feel free to check out the full article.  He makes a valid argument about the skills required, but also slips in an interesting caveat.  While most medical students have the work ethic for entrepreneurship, many don’t possess the risk-taking nature it requires to make a leap like leaving med school for an unknown future.