few questions on ECs

[swamprat]

so i've done a lot of different things. shadowed a surgery rite in the OR less than a foot from a cracked open chest .. shadowed 2 physicians, did a little bit of volunteer work at a hospital up at school and a decent amount of volunteering/conducting studies @ a hospital at home. i also shadowed a pediatric endocrinologist for the day and i'm an EMT and i TA biology.. im trying to get some research in next semester as well. i mean damn if this doesn't show that i know the profession and that im committed i dont know what else will. what do u think, skimping on anything? the only problem is i don't rlly have exact hours logged for any of this stuff and i hear that you have to report the hours? i really have no idea? help?

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[AdmiralChz]

I wouldn't worry too much about not knowing exact hours. I have no idea how many hours I've done. AMCAS asks for amount of hours per week - just give a rough guestimate. It's the quality of the ECs (which you seem to have), not the quantity (number of hours). As long as you've been committed for an extended period of time for a few of these, I would think that's pretty good.

 

[Tensyle]

What I did for my AMCAS was give a rough total estimate of how many hours under the extracurricular activity "Shadowing".

And then I listed each surgery or procedure or shadowing experience, with a rough time breakdown for each, along with a short description of what I learned from the expereinces in general.

goodluck!

 

[magikdoc]

As every good pre-med advisor would tell you, you need to do research, clinical volunteering, and also spending some time shadowing.

From my experience though, I think shadowing is really useless after a month of so, because you really have seen how the system "works".

Clinical volunteering is always good, but often it is very difficult to get "hands-on", so I think you should write down any good patient interaction stories you may encounter later for your application.

Research in my opinion, is the best extracurricular to have, and if you can excel in it, I think it can really concretely show your interest and desire to work in the medical field.

 

[Tensyle]

As every good pre-med advisor would tell you, you need to do research, clinical volunteering, and also spending some time shadowing.

From my experience though, I think shadowing is really useless after a month of so, because you really have seen how the system "works".

Clinical volunteering is always good, but often it is very difficult to get "hands-on", so I think you should write down any good patient interaction stories you may encounter later for your application.

Research in my opinion, is the best extracurricular to have, and if you can excel in it, I think it can really concretely show your interest and desire to work in the medical field.

I'm not sure I would fully agree with this. Yes, research is a very important part of extra curriculars, but it is not of utmost importance while applying to medical school...unless you have a publication. If you are just doing research to get some experience, I believe that you will be better off getting some solid leadership experience in a campus organization, or racking up clinical shadowing hours with a few physicians to show that you have explored what a doctor's life is like, in different specialties.

Research does become important if you apply to heavily research-based med schools like Harvard or UCSF. It is true that at least some research experience is required - if you dont have any, people will frown. But if you do have some experience, but nothing too important to show for it, then not many people will probe you.

During all of my interviews, I always was asked to talk about everything except for my research...like leadership on campus, being an RA, etc...

 

[thegetupkid]

With regard to the hours thing, I always made it a point to make sure I was underestimating my reported hours. If it ever came up later (maybe pre-matriculation), I wouldn't want it to seem that I was exaggerating on my app--but that's just me.

BTW, your extracurrics are GREAT. Maybe try some non-medically/non-research/non-academic extracurrics to develop your whole person though?