<p>Hello all!</p>
<p>I've been constantly debating between going to med school or pursuing a PhD throughout college, and I am now a junior. </p>
<p>Some of my stats -
Overall GPA - 3.93
Science GPA - 3.98 (The A- in general chemistry my fall quarter of first year will forever haunt me)
Undergraduate Institution - University of Chicago
Majors - Biology (Honors candidate, Specialization in microbiology), Chemistry, and Biochemistry
Research - Have been working in a microbiology lab for over a year now, with 200+ hours booked, including working full time last summer and presumably again this summer.
EC's - I'm a TA for the biology fundamentals, taught a collaborative chemistry course, and am involved in a dance group on campus which I was a treasurer for.</p>
<p>So my question is - how important are volunteer hours (assuming my MCats are sufficient, and my recs and essays are as well). I am interested in medicine as a field of study I think largely because of it being a field of learning and adaptation. While I am, obviously, interested in treating and working with patients (I feel like pathology and infectious disease would be my area of expertise), I think I am most interested in the level of knowledge required to be a great doctor. In particular, I appreciate medicine as a field of study in which doctors must constantly learn and adapt to treat their patients. I think this makes me slightly different from some candidates, because I feel as if many of my friends who are applying to med school are specifically interested in treating patients, whereas I am particularly interested in learning medicine. With that in mind, are my volunteer hours necessary even if I reflect that in my essay? How big of a detriment would this mindset and my lack of volunteering have on my application?</p>
<p>Thank you all for your help!!</p>
<p>Yes
The Md/Phd program is perfect for you and it require less clinical volunteering. </p>
<p>Volunteering is very necessary. You won’t be seriously considered for MD or even MD/PhD admissions without at least some clinical volunteering.</p>
<p>Clinical volunteering provides evidence of 2 things that admission committees are looking for in applicants:</p>
<p>1) evidence that you understand what you’re getting yourself into–that is, that you understand the rigors and sacrifices that a career as physician will require as well as how well you deal with being around the sick, the injured and the dying.</p>
<p>2) evidence of altruism, compassion and a willingness to serve humanity</p>
<p>As noted above, less clinical volunteering is expected of MD/PhD applicants than MD applicants, but less is not the same as zero.</p>
<p>If you are more interested in research rather than clinical practice, a PhD or MD/PhD is probably a better career pathway for you than a straight MD.</p>
<p>Thank you for your responses, I appreciate it! So, sounds like I should look into volunteering at the hospital at UChicago. Based on my research it seemed like this was the most glaring hole in my application that I should attempt to fill at this point. Is there anything else that I seem to be lacking that I should focus on to prepare myself for an application?</p>
<p>You will need 2 types of clinical exposure:</p>
<p>1) physician shadowing (typically at least 50 hours is expected, less if you have physician parents or a very large amount of direct patient contact)</p>
<p>2) direct patient contact (typically at least 100 hours) Note that not all hospital volunteering involves patient contact. (In the words of LizzyM: if you’re close enough to smell them–then it’s direct patient contact.)</p>
<p>You don’t need to volunteer at a hospital. There are other clinical settings that may offer better patient contact opportunities: hospice centers, nursing homes, groups home for the mental or physically disabled, stand-alone clinics. </p>
<p>You also are lacking in non-clinical volunteering. This is also expected of med school applicants. (It’s the altruism thing again.) </p>
<p>Lastly, you need to think long & hard about why you want to be doctor. If it’s purely for the intellectual challenge, then a MD probably isn’t the best career choice for you. A MD program trains physicians to be clinicians–to treat patients. If you’re not interested in patient care, then why do you want to be doctor?</p>
<p>@WayOutWestMom
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<p>True, but it can be very close to zero. </p>
It’s also not about the number of hours but the quality of the experience. You could spend a million hours with your family doc but if that’s not helping you articulate what you view the life/role of a physician as being and in particular, how it relates to your research career, then it won’t matter. If you spend a couple weeks with a doc and are able to answer that eloquently it would look a lot better.
You need SOME exposure to physicians/physician scientists that demonstrate you understand what you’re signing up for.