<p>Hi, I just finished my freshman year at college and have come to the awful conclusion that scientific research is (with no other way to phrase it) so not my thing. I would do it if I have to but I kind of cringe at my genchem lab / physics lab tests where the experiment doesn't work half the time, and my friends with research internships tell me how their ideas and the tests they run rarely strike gold. With my fellow premeds scrambling left and right for any research opportunity they can get, is this going to substantially hurt my medical school application if I don't have any publications or longterm research positions under my belt?</p>
<p>More importantly, how much of the actual medical school experience is similar to this scientific research process? I know I'm going to find work in the medical field once I graduate, but I'm still evaluating if allopathic medicine is the route I want to take. Thanks for any replies!</p>
<p>No its not bad. You don’t need research to get into a medical school, although it can help your application. You probably won’t be able to get into some of the top medical schools in the country, because most of those schools like to see research. If you just want to go to a medical school, then your fine.</p>
<p>Research is often frustrating and requires great patience and dedication. (And a tolerance for failure and sometimes mind-numbing repetitiveness.) It’s definitely not for everyone. It’s good that you found this out now rather than later. You definitely will never want to go to grad school in a science field since grad school is all.about.the.research.</p>
<p>Clinical medicine involves very little actual research lab-type work, but you still will be working in an environment that is noisy, busy and often frustrating, and where things don’t always go as planned no matter how meticulous you are about following directions. Also in clinical medicine, depending on your field, you may never get see final outcomes/results.</p>
<p>If you can’t handle that, then maybe medicine isn’t a good choice for you.</p>
<p>While research isn’t a requirement for med school admission (except at few top ranked schools), having research is quite common-- perhaps even expected. IIRC correctly something like 90% of matriculants have some research experience–even if it’s just one summer. Research doesn’t have to be of the chem, CS, engineering, physics or bio lab variety. Public health, psych, econ–perhaps some others I can’t think of-- research (non-lab) is also acceptable.</p>
<p>I think what medical schools are looking for–and what research is serving as proxy for–is a dedication to a project and perseverance in the face of obstacles. </p>
<p>In D1’s med school class ( sample size: 97 students at lower mid tier school) only 1 had no undergrad lab research. He was a music performance & theory major. (Instead he wrote and performed an hour long original musical composition, plus wrote a 45 page thesis on the theory of blues music composition. So actually he had research too–just not the conventional kind.)</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is the case any longer, but when I was applying to medical school there were certain schools that made it explicit that they viewed their mission as training future doctors to deliver primary care, rather than creating the next generation of physician-scientists. You probably don’t want to bother with applying to the latter type of school (Johns Hopkins being a key example) and you may want to look into whether there are other schools that still articulate their mission in that way.</p>
<p>IIRC, one of these was Eastern Virginia Medical College. I imagine there are others, particularly in areas with large underserved populations.</p>
<p>D1’s school is one of those schools whose mission is to provide PCPs for the state (says so right in their mission statement, and 41% of grads go into primary care residencies).</p>
<p>^ I do not know the class size of your D1’s medical school is so small (97). It is likely a a tightly knit class in the sense that everybody knows everybody.</p>
<p>I always thought most state medical schools are relatively larger. I probably got the impression from the “Texas size” of Texas public medical schools (220 previously, maybe 230 now? And this class size is likely for almost every public medical school here except TT and A&M.)</p>
<p>I also noticed that the ratio between females and males of the flagship university at your state is not as balanced as many other colleges’. Maybe it is a result of no “affirmative action” for boys? (These days, boys may need some boost in college admission at many mid-level/somewhat-top colleges.) Sometimes I feel the only things boys excel at are 1) video games 2) music bands - esp. non-vocal parts 3) standardized tests. (Well…I have exaggerated it. But it looks like the trend is that boys need some affirmative actions in GPA, while girls need the same in standardized tests. If the video game skill is a part of the criteria for college admission, boys will likely blow the girls away.)</p>
<p>OP, From our experience, it is too early to tell whether you are into research or not after freshman year. DS refused to accept a paid research position in the summer after freshman year. (It was stupid for him to forfeit that opportunity that came with the college admission, if he was gung-ho about being a competitive premed. But it was his choice.) Guess what, the research grows on him in his later years. It could change. The key is whether you have the luck of having a good mentor. Being in a wrong environment, everybody would possibly dislike that. This more likely happens in the labs associated with most introductory science classes. To an extent, being a premed is all about tolerating a not-so-friendly learning environment especially in the early college years, idk. It could get better later. – BTW, some equipment used in some introductory labs does not work very well due to improper maintenance. Somebody DS knows, a very good chemistry major who went on to a graduate school and did quite well at research, cringed when she took the introductory physics lab. She did not dislike research; she disliked THAT LAB. She almost changed her major (to some other science major which requires only one semester of physics lab) because of that – this could tell you how much she hated that lab.)</p>
<p>Actually there’s a lot of diversity (both ethnically, by age and by undergrad institution) at the med school. They’re tight knit when they graduate, but relative strangers for the most part going in.</p>
<p>What happens here is that our state’s high achieving students tend to leave the state for college. (Hence the state’s free tuition scholarship program to encourage them to stay.) But they do come back for med school since admission is less competitive than many places and state residency is HUGE plus.</p>
<p>Actually the med school is very, very proud of its female complement. They used to brag they were among the first in the US to enroll a female majority class. (On the whole white males face a tougher time getting interviewed and admitted here than white females or minority males. I suspect it’s at least partially because the school’s mission is to develop PCPs and women are more likely to go into those areas than men.)</p>
<p>I didn’t realize the 97 was that small of a class. Until 2 years ago it was only 75, but the state received an increase in Medicare (Medicaid?) funding which in turn helped expand the programs at the med school and hospital. They’re hoping to expand class size again in the near future to 125.</p>
<p>RE: undergrad male-female enrollment disparity reflects the state’s high school graduation rates–which are lopsided. Also about 1/3 of the state flagship uni’s enrollment are non-traditional older students, most commonly women seeking a better education so they can better support their kids. Sad, but that’s the way it is.</p>