<p>OK. So first question is about courseload. Will med schools view my courseloads as weak if they are ~15 hours including applied music classes (average courseload at my school is 15 hours)? I'm in band and trombone studio, which (depending on the semester, amount to 3 hours). Band is a one hour class, rehearsals 2x a week, plus individual practice time as needed. Grade is basically contingent upon you showing up knowing your part and having a good attitude. Trombone studio, is two hours, which includes a weekly private lesson, trombone ensemble rehearsal, listening assignments (listening to famous pieces of music in trombone-lore and turning in written reactions), as well as attendance to masterclasses given by visiting musicians. Grade is contingent upon attendance, listening assignments, and juries in the middle and at the end of the semester (basically you perform a piece either for the instructor or for a panel of music professors and are given a grade based on your performance, for those who know little about this sort of thing). Anyway, this thought just occurred to me.</p>
<p>Second, ECs. I've volunteered at the same hospital for the past five summers, accumulating somewhere close to ~500 hours. Should I classify this as community service, clinical experience, or both? While I do feel like I've gotten some good clinical experience at the hospital (for instance, this summer, my work has been exclusively in the OR at the hospital, where I've gotten to go into rooms and see surgeries pretty frequently). However, there have been other times in previous summers where I've worked in the gift shop or just helping out with random, non-clinically relevant things (putting up balloons around the hospital for some sort of celebration of some achievement or something of that nature) which feel more like community service. Also, I'm starting in a new lab in the fall semester and will be learning about various brain scanning techniques and working with patients with autism and depression. I don't think this is "clinical research" technically speaking (correct me if I'm wrong), because we're not testing treatments. However, I would have extensive patient contact, so would this be viewed as a clinical experience (as well as a research experience)?</p>
<p>I'm just thinking about this stuff while I have the time (ie before the semester begins in two weeks!).</p>
<p>Q1) You won’t be hurt by this, as far as I can see.</p>
<p>Q2) It will be classified as health related community service I believe (which would mean both clinical experience and community service). Don’t worry about classifications and stuff, the AMCAS application has all the options set up for you. That research gig would definitely count as clinical experience. I would personally classify it as clinical research, but maybe there’s a specific definition that I’m not familiar with?</p>
<p>I thought I heard somewhere that technically speaking, clinical research is usually something along the lines of testing out a treatment (which I would not be doing). Although, the definition for AMCAS purposes may be different. What are the EC classifications on the AMCAS application?</p>
<p>I don’t recall them all. Work, military work, volunteering, clinical volunteering, award, something along the lines of a fine arts creative project. There are ample things to choose from, I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s a minor detail. Regardless of what you put it under, ultimately the adcom will judge if it falls under their definition.</p>
<p>It’s free to create an account, so if you wanted to read them yourself for this current cycle you could.</p>
<p>I agree that I have heard what you are saying about clinical research and the whole basic research to translational to clinical. I guess the proper term for what you are doing in preclinical research, since you aren’t trying to form a treatment at this point. However, clinical trials also seems to imply that it is all research that uses humans rather than cell lines or animals… Maybe someone else with more knowledge on that subject will chime in. My research was pure nonmedical.</p>
<p>So next semester I’m thinking of either volunteering at my university’s hospital and/or joining a community service group on campus. I’m pretty sure that I’d enjoy doing both (that would be the ideal situation), but I’m not sure if I will have time. As much as I hate asking these questions (I know the real answer will be to do what I want to do, which is ultimately what I will probably do, knowing me), I can’t help myself in this case. What do you think I should choose: hospital volunteering or joining a community service organization?</p>
<p>Things to consider:
Hospital Volunteering-
Requires a minimum 20 hr/semester commitment.
I already have 450+ hours at a hospital in my hometown through volunteering the past several summers. However, the bulk of these hours were performed during high school (although I have continued volunteering there in college).
I will be getting clinical experience from my research job that I’ve arranged for this semester.</p>
<p>Community Service Organization-
Requires a minimum 10 hr/semester commitment (or the one that I have some friends in that I’m looking to join in the fall semester does).
I have NO community-service type activity thus far in college.</p>
<p>Typically, how many hours do premeds volunteer at hospitals before they apply to medical schools?</p>
<p>For example, suppose that a student volunteers 20 hr/semester for 6 to 7 semesters, s/he will accumulate 120 to 140 hours only. Is it enough?</p>
<p>I am always amazed by the fact that quite a few premeds are capable of putting in 500 or even 1000 hours. I guess DS may put in 200-250 hours at most. He has so far accumulated about 120 hours only, I think. But he started this activity not as early as most premeds did. He plans to volunteer 3 hours per week next semester.</p>
<p>mcat2- I would say that at least 100 over at least one year is enough. More is better if you are getting something out of it and enjoying it.</p>
<p>I had maybe 50 hours of college hospital volunteering, but my dad’s a doc and I also helped start a medical program for college kids during my senior year. I just did so much in high school that I felt like I had gotten everything that I wanted out of it.</p>
<p>Phony, 30 hours a semester is like 2 hours a week. Why not just do both? If you have to do one, I’d do the community service unless you feel like you will get something new and interesting out of the hospital.</p>
<p>Phony, I hope you would not mind I piggyback my question on top of yours on your thread. The question is in line of what you were asking though. I just hope somebody who has been through this could elaborate the points you have raised.</p>
<p>BTW, DS found out from his experience that it is better NOT to volunteer in the recovery room where the patients rest right after a surgery. The patients are either asleep or too painful to talk to you. All you do is to wheel them to the recovery room and leave them alone (and sometimes wheel them to the front lobby before they leave the hospital.) Most of the time, you do not have much to do. He is now volunteering in the oncology department. Much more patients contact/interaction there. He has much more to do because the coordinator in that department, who is very nice to volunteering students, will assign him a variety of jobs (including preparing/delivering snack for the patients maybe) whenever he is idle.</p>
<p>I’m not just in the recovery room. Sometimes I am, but more often than not, I’m helping the secretaries out with paperwork (ugh, but as I understand it, there is A LOT of paperwork in medicine), talking to families of patients/helping them find where they need to go, assisting patient transporters, and when I’m lucky (and there’s nothing else to do) I get to go in the rooms and observe a surgery. I actually like it a lot, and am sad to be leaving it at the end of the summer. Also, the reason I have so many hours was that I started volunteering at the hospital in high school, so this is a combined total.</p>