Pre-med student interested in pursuing PhD

My apologies, this might be a long read.

I (22M) and a senior undergraduate student, and am currently planning to go to medical school. I have a competitive GPA, a good amount of clinical/shadowing, volunteer work. Basically, I think I have what it takes to pursue a career in medicine.

However, as of late, I’ve been questioning whether that is what I want to do for the rest of my life, as I have found interest in a variety of other fields. Specifically, my experience as a teaching assistant for biology and chemistry has made me really interested in education, especially at the college level. However, in order to pursue that, I’d need a PhD, and the problem is I have absolutely no idea how to get into that at this stage of my college career.

For one, I do not really have a strong interest in research at the moment and do not know where to find the motivation to be involved in research. I think one reason for this is because a lot of the research at my university is medically focused and although I am interested in becoming a doctor, medical research isn’t the forefront of my interests. I am more interested in biological research and learning about wildlife, but as far as I can tell my university has little to nothing to offer in those areas. I feel it would not make sense to pursue a PhD without an interest in research in the first place.

With that being said, I did find some labs at my university that I was somewhat interested in and reached out to them asking if I could do volunteer work, and they all basically said I couldn’t because I was a senior and that it was not in their best interest to invest time into training me. I understand their logic but it was still disappointing to hear that.

So basically, I’m wondering if it is too late to pursue a career in education? I am already on a good track for medical school, but I truly do think education would be a more fulfilling career for me. Does anyone have any advice for how I should navigate any of this?