D is a junior who has recently decided she wants to pursue an BS/MD program. She decided this based upon the research she did last summer at a medical school (top 5 medical school–avoiding saying more to preserve anonymity), and will do so again this summer. But she interacts mostly with full professors and post-doc students, not medical doctors and patients.
How will this lack of hospital hours be viewed in the context of BS/MD applications? Is this a non-starter?
@hebegebe Not at all. Your D already has a strong position by doing medical research for 2 years in a top 5 medical school. Also most of the time, the volunteer hours in hospital does not mean it is dealing with patients or doctors, but helping in the front desk or gift shop etc. Certainly it will help if there is an opportunity but it is not an absolute must. GL.
@hebegebe, In terms of BS/MD applications, yes, it will be a non-starter, if she has no experience with seeing some level of patient care. Only doing research, with professors and post-docs while a great addition to a BS/MD application, tells me nothing about you becoming a physician and whether you are comfortable with the profession and what it entails.
That is disappointing to hear, but better to hear it now while we still have an opportunity to fix it. Does it need to be something like shadowing a physician, or can it be a general volunteer position that @GoldenRock mentions above. If it is shadowing, would 100 hours of shadowing be a reasonable amount?
@hebegebe, I would do a variety of things, but yes, physician shadowing is one good one. 100 hours of physcian shadowing is reasonable esp. over a summer.
I suggest she utilizes this summer to solidify her medical ECs. As mentioned above, shadowing is great.
However, my perspective is slightly different I think from others that have posted. I don’t feel the number of hours per se are nearly as important as most think. A student can spend a thousand hours shadowing or working in a hospital. It doesn’t mean that they get to that kernel of an ‘ah ha!’ moment that I believe the adcoms are looking for. The moment, that one pivitol Ah Ha moment a person realizes THIS sings to my soul can come to a person at any time, in any situation.
The importance of shadowing, hospital, clinical patient exposure, etc, IMO is in the fact you are exposing yourself to the realities of practicing medicine and are not going into the field with just daisies in your eyes. The majority of people going into medicine do so because at the core, they do want to help people. Reality of practice however, is starkly different and doctors are handcuffed at every turn. Medical exposure early on knocks some of those daisies out of their eyes.
My son did have a good amount of clinical exposure by default of his circumstances but very very little hospital exposure other than to round on post op patients a couple of times. He also had research, but it was not medical research. Until the summer between junior and senior year he was debating pursuing medicine or engineering in college. It wasn’t until he did a full time engineering internship that summer that he realized engineering is not at all what he wanted to do. So in his case, his Ah Ha moment came while working with engineers, not in medical exposure situations. It took not having core elements he held dear and took for granted missing for him to realize his why medicine and put his finger on exactly what it was.
His medical ECs were not nearly as impressive as many of the other applicants on CC because he took time to explore another path. But he was able to use that experience to further confirm his reasons for dedicating himself to medicine and as a result, has a solid why medicine.
As for your daughter having what I’m sure is impressive medical research but not a lot of other exposure, I always say use what you have to your advantage. Perhaps she’s more interested in pursuing a physician scientist pathway. Her forte and what certain programs want match up well! Really research the programs to understand what they are geared towards. Some want to crank out primary care docs, some what to produce more researchers. Shop intelligently for the right program for her. Machine gunning applications to many or all BSMD programs looks absolutely exhausting. My son did not do this. He applied to only 3 programs, only 2 of which he said he’d really want to join if accepted. He absolutely targeted what he wanted & went for it and is now in one of the 2 BSMD programs he wanted.
So don’t worry too much about do I have this box checked off to prove medical dedication and enough ECs. My advise is to maximize returns on the ones she does have checked off as much as she can and then shadow to double check that the actual practice of the field is truly palatable to her or not. Why medicine should not be a difficult question to answer if your exposure is solid enough. Just my two cents fwiw.
If the student doesn’t have any experience in the hospital, then the student doesn’t truly know if he/she wants to go to medical school. Research is great and will definitely help her application, but without any experience in a hospital I find it hard to believe that she truly understands what a career in medicine entails.
Her goal at this point is to be shadowing and volunteering in the hospital, preferably in different departments, to understand the field better.
Following the advice given above, she has met with a couple of doctors, and is scheduled to shadow one for a week, and possibly a different doctor for another week. But she is already committed for six weeks this summer so she won’t be able to much more than that now. Perhaps she will be able to do more in the fall.
I think all this hype of shadowing doctors, hospital volunteer etc. is useless. They are what they are hype. The people who look at the application for bsmd really look at the sat/ act scores. Gpa, and class standing. They then look at the state and locality the kid went schooling. You can expect a kid from the dakotas to get all the exposure of volunteering job shadowing etc from these places as you would get in California or texas etc. if they get a high act of 33, 34 they are on par with 35 in other places. These kids dont have tuitions or mentoring like others. That is what is expected of students joing bsmd.
@actsatmed I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that. I have a friend’s sister who got into Stony Brook’s OOS BS/MD program (which typically has less than 5 spots) almost soley based on her research and hospital experience. She wasn’t in the top 5% of my school and her SAT"s were good but not perfect, but her EC’s were fantastic and she got into more than a few programs. Anywhere you go, even in “the Dakotas” you can always find a hospital to volunteer in. It just depends on how much effort and time you put into looking.
I am from the dakotas. Here you need to be 18 years to have volunteer/ job shadowing with a doctor. The only jobs that are allowed here are for greeters, food service etc. Dont know how you can call that job shadowing. I am sure that the people who interview these kids know the handicap that these kids come from. Here kids have to travel 90 miles to go to the nearest hospital. By the way there is only 3 hospitals for the full state. By the way the whole purpose of “studies” is to learn. That is why we go to school “to learn”. So like it says the interview is based holistically and i think it has nothing to do with the job shadowing experience.
@actsatmed Agree, opportunity to shadow/volunteer in a hospital may differ depending on the situation, suggest if you are interested in BS/MD, find a way to demonstrate the passion towards medicine/community service for underserved population. If there is any local hospice or elder care place, or any program which helps who are vulnerable or need help.
Even in California, my D had a challenge and did not do any shadowing because she decided only during junior year and when she approached few Doctors they gave the reason she can not because of need to have insurance. Though our community hospital is close and volunteered for 100+ hours, she got exposure only in front desk, gift shop and eventually in birth center (for not shadowing any clinical staff). Though she had the best test scores and GPA, leadership and general community experience, and applied to many programs, she hardly got any interview.