<p>Hi, I was wondering which one to do over the summer, clinical experience or research. In the clinic, I would be mainly be some light office duties such as working with computers along with interacting with nurses and cardiologists. I would be assisting multiple clinical studies, coordinating data, contacting patients and submitting/editing protocols to hospital boards for review. The research experience would be more project-based and possibility of writing an honors thesis and conducting own projects.</p>
<p>What, in terms of what medical schools look for, is more important? Clinical experience or research? There's no way I can do both this summer because each one is pretty time consuming and I'm planning on studying MCATs.</p>
<p>And a little background information about me - I am a junior at UC Berkeley studying MCB and Business Administration. I've had some research experience at UCSF and some clinical experience volunteering at a hospital in the ER department, but nothing substantial in each category.</p>
<p>Clinical experience is absolutely vital. While I discourage any sort of ‘checklist’ thinking about EC’s for pre-meds, this really is something that it’s more important to check off than the actual impact you have as a volunteer or office staff member. Certainly the ideal situation is a meaningful position (or several) that give you exposure to patients, physicians and medical staff.</p>
<p>Research is important, don’t get me wrong, but not a mandatory aspect of your app like clinical experience is. There are some schools that will reject you flat out if you lack research, but there are a lot of med students who did zero research in UG but still got accepted - it really depends on the school and certainly the highly ranked research med schools are the ones that are going to be more hardcore about.</p>
<p>Not to judge, but why haven’t you done a substantial amount in either by the end of your junior year. I think it will hinder your application a little bit, if you are applying this summer. Are you maybe more into leadership positions in a/some student organizations. </p>
<p>I do think you should probably focus more on clinical experience at this point. With research, they like to see some type of outcome from it presentation/thesis/publicaiton/LOR from the PI and sometimes it can be hard to obtain that over a summer experience.</p>
<p>It’s true that I haven’t done a substantial amount in either. Part of the reason is that I am double majoring in two unrelated fields (I just happen to find both biology and business interesting) and that I’ve been focusing on getting good grades. Is a 3.8 BCPM and 3.7 overall from UC Berkeley decent enough though? I’ve finished nearly all my pre-reqs and my GPA is sort of “buffered” if you know what I mean - it will take multiple classes to boost my GPA if it needs to be higher. </p>
<p>With that being said, I don’t want to use this as ANY sort of excuse for not doing research or clinic duty, so with my first summer free from classes, I need to find some meaningful opportunities. I also forgot to add that I am not applying this summer. I will be applying at the end of my senior year and take a year off. Most likely during the year off I’ll look into working for a while or volunteering.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think you should be fine. GPA is good. Aim for the best MCAT score possible. With a year and half you should be able to fill in the clinical experience deficit. It really not that hard to do some shadowing (or volunteering) experience every week (ideal), or every other week.</p>
<p>You definitely need at least 1 year of clinical experience. It shows med schools that you have experienced what being a doctor is potentially like. Research I would say minimal of 1 year. This varies for the school though. I attend Northwestern for example and I’ve recently talked to the Dean of admissions for Feinberg. He specifically stated that Feinberg looks for research in applications. He basically told me that I should get into a lab asap and stay in it until I get accepted.</p>