EC activities during med school...

[Iatrogenic]

i was wondering how you guys feel about undertaking some sort of extra-curricular activity during 1st or 2nd year. i know some get involved in class council, some become 'chairpersons' for interest groups and some initiate some sort of commuity service activity.

how important do you think such activities are for residencies? i know its not good to think about doing stuff like that just to put it on your CV, but i do know a lot of people do it for that sole reason.

i'm more the type of trying to focus all my energy and time on doing as well as i good in my classes and clerkships (ie shoot for honors) and to get a kick a$$ board score. i think that even if i don't get as much honors as i would like, it's still a better idea to try to get as much honors in courses/clerkships than to try to compromise that with some EC activity. but does anyone think that an EC activity looks *really* good on your CV to get into a competitive residency? any input?

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[Garuda]

For med school itself, they cared much less about extracirricular activities than I thought they would.

For residencies, I doubt extracirricular activities matter much. People are too busy in medical school anways. Many folks already have families, which is obviously more important than a debate club or student government.

 

[azzarah]

Our school required us to participate in a community service activity throughout year 1 as part of our physician and society course. I participated in 3 projects...it was fun and didn't really affect me negatively academically.

 

[jbish]

I don't know how it fares for residency as I'm just a Med2, but here's how my life went last year:
moved to Montreal
sat around bored out of my mind for 4 days until orientation
orientation
first week of class--by now I am so bored I join the gym in my building. Me, the person who hates the treadmill and lifecycle with the fire of a thousand suns.
In the following year in addition to going to the gym 3/4 times a week, I also joined MSFC, attended Family Practice Interest Group meetings, went to lectures, and ran/was elected for a position on the Medical Student Society's executive council, and was a founding member of the med1 knitting club! (I even completed my crochet afghan project.) Now, I realize I may be an oddball as I only studied on weekends so that freed up a lot of my weekday time...but I was bored senseless just being a student. ECs keep your mind active in more ways than just memorizing biochemical pathways and latin/greek terms for anatomy.