Extracurriculars

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>What kind of extracurricular activities should a premed participate in?</p>

<p>From <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=206567:%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=206567:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
bluedevilmike: I hate answering questions like these, because the right answer is, "Things that you love", but it's not quite specific enough.</p>

<p>So I'll try to be as nuanced as possible in discussing this, but I must be frank that I feel guilty about answering questions for somebody who would appear to be seeking a formula where - and rightfully so - none exists. Furthermore, I believe these questions have been addressed numerous times elsewhere in this forum. But I'll try and elucidate despite this.</p>

<p>The first answer is that you must spend time in a clinical setting. This might be shadowing, it might be volunteering in a free clinic or helping AIDS patients in Ghana. At a (much) higher commitment level, being an EMT is also a good path to take. This is huge in medical school admissions, but it is also an important thing for you to do personally as well: how else can you know if you are actually interested in being a doctor? If these activities prove to be unenjoyable for you, then it will be a good and well-worth-it career lesson.</p>

<p>Second, many medical schools strongly emphasize research. This varies substantially, but the schools on USN's "Research" list, not surprisingly, value this highly - again, as well they should. Upwards of 85% of their students perform research as undergrads, and many schools are 90%+. Research is not merely about credentialing; it is about patience, persistence, intellectual pursuits, curiousity, and the scientific method.</p>

<p>Third, of course, anything else you do will be valuable, too - leadership in campus organizations, writing for the newspaper, volunteering, ballroom dance - all of these things are important as well. From what I can gather, it seems that 2/3 or so of accepted premedical students have some form of non-clinical community service.</p>

<p>Now, here is the important thing. Medical schools have extensive secondary essays and interviews precisely because they know that many students simply treat these activities as a checklist. They will probe you to see what you learned and how they changed you. They will want to know why you became involved in them, what you feel like you accomplished, and how these things helped you want to become a doctor. If you are treating these things as a checklist, then you will find yourself struggling at these junctions. You must really, intently find the meaning involved in what you are doing, and why it matters to you, or you run the risk of having spent your time doing things that didn't matter to you and don't help you get admitted to medical school.</p>

<hr>

<p>Bigredmed:Of the three, research will have the highest variability in relevance to med schools. I did no research during undergrad, and while one of my interviews didn't bring it up, the other asked why I hadn't. So I did have to explain myself (coincidentally if I remember correctly I believe I said something to the effect that I didn't want to do research simply for the sake of my resume, and I couldn't find a project that combined my interests well enough).</p>

<p>The other thing I want to emphasize is doing things FOR YOURSELF. Don't do things simply because you think they will look good on a resume, do them because you feel that you will enjoy them. If your heart is in them, then they will be worth it and you will know how and why they will make you a better doctor.</p>

<hr>

<p>my$0.02: This study explores the value of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) experience for students applying to medical school:
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...6&dopt=Citation%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...6&dopt=Citation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"The median rating for the consideration given to EMS experience was "some consideration" for both EMT and paramedic experience... CONCLUSION: EMS experience receives at least some consideration during the admissions process at most of the responding institutions in the United States and Canada. Experiences at either the EMT or Paramedic level are viewed similarly. None of the responding institutions viewed EMS experience negatively."

[/quote]
</p>

2

<p>this should be stickied, it should help a lot of people.</p>

3

<p>should research be in a science or medicine related field, or can it be in, say, a humanity?</p>

<p>so i guess what i'm asking is, do they want you to research just to get experience in the art of good research?</p>

<p>thanks</p>

4

<p>1.) We know that any research is better than none.</p>

<p>2.) I think that science research is better than non-science research, but I have no evidence to back this up. I have been told by one admissions director that this is not the case at her school, but she, of course, only speaks for her one school.</p>

<p>3.) Medically-related research, of course, does not have to be scientific. Sociological implications of psychiatric disorders in various ethnic groups, for example, is not a basic science but it is certainly medically related. Reseach on the FDA's pattern of drug approvals relative to pending lawsuits is also not in basic science, but is medically related.</p>

<p>4.) In my judgment, it is quite important to be medically related -- and this is much more important than being natural-science based. But I do not know any of that for sure.</p>

<p>5.) To reemphasize: what we do know for sure is that research is very important at research-heavy schools. Beyond that, nothing is certain.</p>

5

<p>You rock man.</p>

6

<p>oh okay</p>

<p>would you recommend sticking with one project for a long time? or would you go with think broader but less in-depth research?</p>

7

<p>


</p>

<ol>
<li>You become very involved and knowledgeable about the subject.</li>
<li>Possibilities of publications. </li>
<li>Awesome LOR from your PI for medical school.</li>
<li>Shows you are not just doing it to put on your resume.</li>
</ol>

8

<p>I am a rising junior in college. Research I did as a rising junior in high school was published in NCI publication last year and the research I did as a rising junior in high school will be published this year. The paper went through many revisions and I had to review and comment each time. I am the 3rd author in both of the papers. I did spend time in college on it but not as much as I did research. Would I be able to include the publications in the 15 item list of the medical school application ?</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
Medical schools have extensive secondary essays and interviews precisely because they know that many students simply treat these activities as a checklist. They will probe you to see what you learned and how they changed you. They will want to know why you became involved in them, what you feel like you accomplished, and how these things helped you want to become a doctor. If you are treating these things as a checklist, then you will find yourself struggling at these junctions. You must really, intently find the meaning involved in what you are doing, and why it matters to you, or you run the risk of having spent your time doing things that didn't matter to you and don't help you get admitted to medical school.

[/quote]

How can I find the meaning involved in what I did and why it mattered to me? Even if I knew about these, I doubt I'll be able to speak in a convincing way during an interview; I'm not an eloquent speaker. :( I have two years left until applying to med school. What are the best ways of preparing for these things?</p>

10

<p>ysk1:</p>

<p>
[quote]
How can I find the meaning involved in what I did and why it mattered to me?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Frankly, if you don't know why the heck you bothered doing any of the things you're doing, you need to figure that out. Why you participate in whatever premedical activity you do or why you want to be a doctor? Seriously, reconsider medical school.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I doubt I'll be able to speak in a convincing way during an interview; I'm not an eloquent speaker. I have two years left until applying to med school. What are the best ways of preparing for these things?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.</p>

<p>Despite my background as a Peer Educator, which involved frequent speaking in front of small groups, I kinda flubbed my first two interviews because I didn't practice. By "flubbed" I mean that I felt like a clumsy idiot after them. I got waitlisted at both schools.</p>

<p>Since I applied late, I then had about 3 months until my last interview in March. During those three months, I set up a "practice interview" at my school's career center, interviewed in person to teach for Kaplan, interviewed over the phone for Teach for America, and relentlessly practiced how to answer interview questions I gleaned from SDN's interview feedback section. All that interviewing really helped me do much better at the third interview. (I still got waitlisted, though that could've been due to the extremely late interview date.)</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I've since gotten into two of the three schools. That's good enough by my standards, given my late applications and the fact that "talking" is not a gift of mine. Getting good at talking to people is a skill worth practicing.</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
Frankly, if you don't know why the heck you bothered doing any of the things you're doing, you need to figure that out. Why you participate in whatever premedical activity you do or why you want to be a doctor? Seriously, reconsider medical school.

[/quote]
I'm just going into second year, and I didn't start participating in any premedical activities, yet. I'm thinking of starting those activities beginning September, 2007. Fortunately, I'll still have time to think about why I want to go to med school until I actually plunge myself into doing those activities.
Thanks so much for your advice on interviewing. That really helped. :)</p>

12

<p>Let's say if I want to apply to MD/PhD, which of the following choices looks will be valued the most and why:
a) 2-year undergrad research
b) 1-year undergrad research + 1-year hospital/EMT volunteering
c) 2-year hospital/EMT volunteering</p>

<p>Just in general; if I just want to apply to MD NOT MD/PhD, does research experience really matters that much? Nowadays, is "clinical experience" really a "MUST" for med-school applicants?</p>

13

<p>1.) MD/PhD has research as the most important component, but clinical experience is still necessary.</p>

<p>2.) Not if you're not applying to a research-heavy school. Else, yes.</p>

<p>3.) Yes, clinical experience is a must for med school applicants. Which is fine, because, as a future physician, I'm sure you love clinical experience. So it works out nicely.</p>

14

<p>I would pick option B. Quality is better than quantity. Some people achieve more in 3 months of summer research than 2 years of research. You just need to make sure your time is spent well and is productive.</p>

15

<p>Medical</a> Milestones By Kay Singer-Under the Gargoyle-Duke Magazine-January/February 2007</p>

<p>
[quote]
During my tenure, I made certain that students had the information they needed to become strong applicants; however, they never received from me a checklist of what they needed to do to prepare for medicine. That would encourage a "check-list mentality"—shadow a doctor? Check. Conduct research? Check. The result would be a group of cookie-cutter applicants, or what one former medical school admissions dean disparagingly called "perfect pre-meds." Instead, I encouraged students to pursue their own passions and to commit themselves deeply to their academic work, independent scholarship, and activities that are meaningful to them—in other words, to distinguish themselves.</p>

<p>I encouraged them to pursue what most interests them and then ask, "Are my interests consonant with a career as a physician?" rather than to decide they want to be a physician and then pursue activities that would "look good" on their applications.

[/quote]
</p>

16

<p>what exactly does “doing research” mean? I went to Northwestern University for a leadership conference and we got to visit a hospital in Chicago. We were told that a man was doing research when we saw him on his computer in a lab. However, I dont know what it means to do it. What kind of tasks are involved? If I want to be a neurologist, and treat patients for migraines, would i have to do “research”? I mostly want to prescribe medication and find out the cause of it. Also, if I become a neurologist, do I have to work with patients who have say…alzheimers and other disorders?</p>

17

<p>Research in the biomedical context usually involves lab testing and animal models. Obviously it involves a lot of reading and writing. Some of it involves computer simulation.</p>

<p>You won’t have to do research to get into neurology, although it’ll help.</p>

<p>Becoming a neurologist does involve treating patients who have degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. You could certainly subspecialize in a specific area to avoid degenerative diseases, but you will still have spent many years caring for such patients. If that’s a problem for you, then medical school as a whole should be out–and certainly neurology should.</p>

18

<p>Well, I just don’t like touching stuff like Pig’s eyeballs and stuff…I did that at Northwestern, and I don’t mind doing it if i HAVE to but i’d rather not. I chose neurology because I have had a history of migraines and it’s something i want to help other patients overcome. I was also thinking about pharmacy but I wouldnt want to work in Rite Aid. And I want to interact a little bit with patients because I’d probably go crazy working behind walls without anyone there. </p>

<p>What happens if you don’t score a 30 or so on the MCATs? Is it still possible to go to NYU or can it be done with studying? I’m a little worried that if i go into medicine and take all the courses for 4 years, i wont make the cut to a fairly good medical school. i dont hope to get into harvard or anything but maybe USC or NYU, which i know, are still pretty competitive.</p>

19

<p>You will be doing a LOT of that in medical school. A LOT.</p>

<p>The vast majority of pharmacists work in places other than Rite-Aid. They have some interaction with patients, although admittedly not as much as physicians do. Of course, they also have coworkers and such, so it is not as if they are working by themselves in a small room.</p>

<p>A poor MCAT score will usually keep one out of medical school. However, the definition of a poor score varies depending on your race and home state.</p>

20

<p>I heard during this winter break that the researchers often spend a lot of time on reading papers while they are waiting for some experimental results.</p>

<p>In DS’s lab, they need to grow some kind of bacteria. A problem is that the bacteria grows extremely slowly: It takes about too weeks to grow. Before the bacteria is grown, the researchers mostly sit by their desk and read one paper after another. This means that before the bacteria is grown, a student doing the research may spend almost 20 hours reading papers as the lab requires you to be in the lab at least 10 hours a week. Most researchers in the lab are full-time employees rather than students.</p>

<p>It seems that there are not many “quick actions” in the day-to-day life of a researcher. Is it the norm or DS happens to join a lab that requires more patience? Also, I heard that if the bacteria fails to grow, 500 dollars are wasted. It is very costly to me. Also, sometimes the researchers do not really know why the bacteria dies out. When it happens, they need to consult with some more experienced researchers who have been there for 4-5 years, from whom they may learn some ad-hoc techniques to increase the odds of preventing this from happening. I heard it is sometimes a hit-or-miss process.</p>

<p>Are many researches in such a slow motion like this? DS said he hopes some day he could do something more with his hands, like doing something to a mouse or rat. It is interesting to learn that the researcher needs to play with a rat even on the day when he really does not have to do research on the rat. The rat is hurt after you have a surgery on it; it will distrust you and you need to re-build its trust by playing with it.</p>