<p>What is more valuable to medical schools, tons of research with a little bit of volunteering or a ton of volunteering with a little bit of research?</p>
<p>I think med schools would judge clinical experience (hospital volunteering, emt work, physician shadowing) to be most important. For the top med schools, you will need both volunteering and research experience.</p>
<p>if the choice is either or, which i don't think it should ever be, then volunteering or some other form of clinical exposure is definately the more important.</p>
<p>However, if it's a question of the ratio of the two, I would actually air on the side of saying that it's more valuable to have a lot of research experience and less volunteer work.</p>
<p>My reasoning is like this: ongoing research shows commitment to a project, you could potentially get published, which is a big deal, and you make good connections with people who can write a good recommendation about your work ethic and intelligence. Most volunteer work and the like is fairly menial, and at the hospital where I volunteer there are so many premed volunteers from my school and others that the program is high throughput by design and it really serves just to get you that first exposure to working in a hospital, which is all I really think med schools are looking for.</p>
<p>This reasoning comes with a few caveats:
1) this only applies if you work in one lab for an extended amount of time, rather than hop all over the place</p>
<p>2) this also only applies if your clinical experience is relatively run-of-the-mill stuff like physician shadowing or volunteering. Something very intensive like being and EMT would obviously carry more weight</p>
<p>One final point is that it depends on the program you apply to. The top med schools tend to be research-oriented, so it's logical that they care that you have research experience. And if you're applying to something like MD/PhD programs, then research FAR outweighs any clinical work.</p>
<p>Research, research, research!!!! You have to realize who is going to accept you to medical school - - - it's Doc's who work at tertiary care centers and they are, for the most part researchers. My experience is that the docs at these institutions pretty much look down on those who don't do research. </p>
<p>That said, I didn't do much research as an undergrad and I got into an Ivy medical school. Once I was there, though, it was pretty clear that they wanted all of us to do research in med school (I did) and after we left (I didn't.)</p>
<p>what about finding some sort of research in medical humanities? the college of medicine at my school offers undergraduate research opportunities in this field. Would it help to try and get that position? Or just find any science lab?</p>
<p>1.) I wish I could answer your question about non-science research, but I'm afraid I really don't know the answer, and in fact don't even know enough to hazard a reasonable guess. Here's hoping somebody else does. I obviously know it's a good thing and a strength on your application, but I don't know if it substitutes for science research.</p>
<p>2.) I would argue that a little bit of clinical work is crucial, but that devoting a great deal of time to, say, physician shadowing, is not particularly important. Some types of clinical work - international humanitarian work, in particular - are very important and can compensate for deficiencies in research, but generally speaking large amounts of time spent researching are quite important for the application process.</p>
<p>3.) With that said, I do happen to think clinical work is more important for your personal growth as a doctor and in deciding whether the field is right for you. I spent three weeks with an orthopedic surgeon for nearly 200 hours and learned a great deal there.</p>
<p>the college of medicine at my school, FSU, has research labs focused on clinical studies. Like theres biomedical research labs and humanitarian research labs. Does it really matter which I should pursue if I also do some physician shadowing?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Having done clinical research this summer with a sociologist (rather than "bench" research), I can say that the two are going to be very different experiences. Clinical research will be much much more important in your development as a doctor compared to understanding a very specific property of an enzyme or something.</p>
<p>Many of my friends did bench research this summer while I was out in the clinics, and for the most part they felt that while the work was somewhat interesting it lacked a lot of relevancy to their career goals. Only the kids who were MD/PhD were really "into" their research, and felt it applied. Meanwhile my research - over how doctors and patients talk about preventing illness - was a lot more practical, a lot more relevant, and in the end will probably be more likely to make me a better physician than the research done in the labs by my friends. I was in the clinic everyday, interviewing patients on what they liked and didn't like about their doctors. So not only was I getting information about what patients like - specifically saying "I like when docs do this", but I was also getting experience just talking to patients, which undoubtedly helped my interview skills. And since about 80% of the time a diagnosis can be made from the history alone, being able to take a good one is important. </p>
<p>Now does what I've said apply to non-science, non-clinical research? I don't know. I had a friend who did psychology research in undergrad, but it was over food choices and moods - something that could possibly, if "spun" the right way, be made to seem very applicable. What if I had done research on factors influencing prevalence of drinking on college campuses by fraternity or sorority members with a professor of Sociology (my major)? That's a lot harder to say for sure the benefit I might have gotten in admissions.</p>
<p>I guess what I'm saying is that if you can do the research through the COM at FSU, you'll be sure that it's probably beneficial to you. If you just have a choice of doing research with either a chemistry professor vs. an English prof or an Econ prof, then chemistry is probably the much safer route.</p>
<p>I'll also agree with BDM, NCG, and Philly - clinical experience (either shadowing or volunteering) is an extremely important component of your application - practically to the level of being a necessity. However, b/c of it's vital position, it's not very noteworthy unless you do something brilliant. Research is not as "vital" (I didn't have any research experience), but it can be something more impressive. This is probably due to the fact that research has standards of achievement that volunteering and shadowing lack. You can hang your hat on being published or even just submitting a paper for review. It's hard to identify a similar quantifiable record of your experience with volunteering.</p>