I just finished my freshmen year of college at Wayne State University. I had gone into university thinking that I wanted to become a physical therapist. Before I enrolled, I even applied to and was accepted into a competitive program called HealthPro Start that guarantees me a spot in physical therapy graduate school. However, as the year went by, I began to realize that I really wanted to go to medical school, not physical therapy school.
Luckily, physical therapy school shares a lot of prerequisites with medical school, so the courses I took were still premed classes. This year, I completed physics 1 and 2 with their labs, and some other courses (32 credits total this year), and managed to earn a 3.9 cumulative GPA. I am also part of my school’s honors college. My plan for the next few years ensures that I complete all the prerequisites, prepare for the MCAT, and earn my bs in psychology with honors.
Since I still have two years before I apply to medical school, I wanted to make sure I do everything properly. I need some advice about extracurricular/clinical/research/volunteering. Currently, I volunteer at a hospital once a week (I have been there two years now, with 400+ hours logged), and I will continue to do so throughout the rest of my college career. I direct visitors, push visitors/patients in wheelchairs, deliver flowers, etc. I know that this is separate from clinical experience. Next semester, I will also be doing a lot of volunteering in soup kitchens and drug addiction programs for some of my classes. This summer, I am trying to arrange shadowing with a local pediatrician, and I have applied to multiple research positions. I also tutor two elementary age children in math three times a week (I have been tutoring them for one year now, and I will continue to throughout college).
I guess my questions are:
How much clinical experience/shadowing should I aim to get? How many different physicians should I shadow?
Do I need to get written proof that I shadowed for medical school?
How much research experience should I aim to get?
Do I need to join a club/have more extracurricular besides all the volunteering and tutoring?
If I continue to work hard and gain all necessary experience, do I have a real shot at medical school?
There’s no simple answer to “how much”. You should gain enough shadowing that you feel you have a robust understanding of what a doctor’s job involves. You should shadow as many different specialties as you can, particularly in the primary care fields.
For clinical experience–again no simple answer, but enough that you truly gain a feel for what being around the sick, injured, mentally ill, physically debilitated and their families is like. I would say as long as your clinical position continues to offer insights into how doctors and patients interact and as long as you are learning something, you should continue.
No, but AMCAS asks for the contact information [name, address, phone, email] for each experience , along with start and end dates. (The contact info is in case an adcomm wants to verify your experience.)
It depends on what your eventual career goals are. If you’re interested in applying to research intensive med schools–lots. Specifically, your involvement should be long term and involve significant responsibilities for the success or failure of the project. (e.g. a senior research thesis or similar). If you’re not interested in applying to research intensive med schools and plan to enter into a primary care field, then enough research so that you have a have first hand understanding of the often fraught nature of the research process.
A minority of applicants (~15%) are accepted without any research.
Club memberships are not necessary. You also need to be on the lookout for leadership opportunities since med schools are judging applicants on their leadership potential, among other things.
Impossible to say until you have a MCAT score, but you’re on the right track.
Maybe you can ask a few medical students at Wayne State, make friends with them. As WOWM said, you are on the right track. IMHO Wayne State SOM probably has the best chance for you and it is a great school.
OP,
You are doing great! I have only one comment in regard to summer research opportunities. " I have applied to multiple research positions." - if you get to do research in one of the summer programs, good for you! if you will not get in to any, do not be dissapointed! Summer research programs are very hard to get in. Check at your college. With your GPA and everything else, you should not have any problem to get an internship position at Med. Research lab at your college. D. could not obtain anything outside of her college, but it was very easy to get intern position at Med. Research lab at her college. It was a long term project, she was there for 3 years, built great relationship with person in charge, result - great LOR.
Congrats with great progress so far, you are on your way!
Have you talked to the pre-health advisors at WSU? They are there to help with these questions. You can find their information here http://wayne.edu/advising/pre-health/
Or did you already talk with them and not find them helpful?
I am relatively new to CC, but it seems that not many of the posters ever mention having the students talk with their academic advisors about the questions they have. Why is that?
Privateadvisor, talking to pre-health advisors is definitely something every pre-med should do early on at their college. Some colleges require this for a committee letter. The pre-health office at Ds school was very helpful, but this can vary by school.
I think what pre-meds and parents of pre-meds can get here is information from students and parents of students who’ve been through the application process and thus have an intimate knowledge of what is needed, what works, what doesn’t. Though Ds premed advisor was great, he was a college professor with a lot of other duties, and hadn’t been through the roller coaster application cycle himself or with a child. I definitely appreciated and benefitted from the perspectives of posters here!
I also suggest getting involved with a premed organization at your school. At Ds school they had many guest speakers, provided shadowing and volunteer activities, leadership opportunities, mock interviews, and kept students up to date on deadlines.