Medical General Guidance for Premed?

[Goro]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hello! I am a college sophomore right now and I just want to ask a few questions about my competitiveness so far and where specifically I can improve. To give you an idea, here is a better description:

College: state public school

Race: white

Major: BA in Biochemistry/molecular bio and BS in Quantitative Economics

Overall GPA: 3.95

Science GPA: 3.86ish right now (B+ in Bio 2 and A- in Stats)

Clinical Volunteering: ~400 hours as clinical research volunteer and volunteer in surgery clinic (hours are meshed between research and volunteering time)

Non-clinical volunteering: ~60 hours total volunteering at local soul kitchen, ~90 hours volunteering at hospice camp for kids, ~40 hours volunteering for local neighborhood sustainability program (build resource packets for families in the area)

Research:
general surgery for about a year now, most of the hours are concentrated over the summer (10 weeks), 400 hours total (combined with the volunteering), one second author publication, two pending third author publications, name on poster for three national surgical conferences

Molecular medicine research for a year and a half now, over 250 hours, one abstract, two university conference presentations, Name on poster for national conference

Leadership:
president of homeless advocacy organization, super passionate about it, this club is my baby, we do a lot of awareness events, volunteering, and hold a 5k to create care packages, very active in the community and on campus, I’ve held an officer position for a year now, and been president since November, my mentor originally founded the club so I am very close to it

Membership officer for human trafficking organization, very active on campus, since December

Women in surgery conference planning committee member, spoke on a panel about generational differences representing Generation Z, help plan and organize conference, contact speakers and residency directors, A year and a half so far

Shadowing:
110 hours shadowing general surgeons, includes a liver specialist, an oncology specialist, and colorectal surgeons

Planning to shadow a general practitioner this summer to get some primary care exposure

My questions are, do I need to look into doing more clinical volunteering so that it isn’t meshed with my research hours? Are there any other areas that could be improved? I just want to start thinking about it because I plan to take the MCAT next April and apply that June, so I want to start building weak areas of my application.

I totally understand that there’s no definitive answers because I haven’t even taken the MCAT yet, but assuming I do well, where can I improve?

Clinical research isn't research unless you are actively interacting with patients. And no, enrolling them in your studies is not interacting. You have enough research so stop that and start getting real clinical exposure, shadowing some doctors who interact with alert/functional patients, and a little more service to others less fortunate than yourself.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Also I’m a bit confused about the “clinical research isn’t research....” part. Does that mean that it would not count as an AMCAS research experience? Or did you mean that it just doesn’t count as clinical volunteering?

I am commenting on the "clinical research" bit. I guess it depends on your vantage point, but I would say that for me, I would consider the general description of your research as clinical research (not knowing the titles of your posters or what is necessarily involved). Clinical research usually involves human subjects or tissues (to me) or has direct relevance into a diagnosis or decision-making. For my own background, the line blurs a little bit since I had been in a lab where a lot of research on electrocardiograms from humans as well as other animal models was conducted. In the end for me, research is all going to be similar if it is mentored, has a deliberate process of evaluation/assessment/statistical analysis, has a hypothesis (but not mandatory), and advances the field. Obviously if it is done in a context of addressing a clinical question, that's satisfactory for me.

The other comments of what constitutes patient interaction, I agree, but I want to be sure the applicant really understands the patient-to-doctor connection and how that differs from patient-to-nurse etc. Now not all doctors have a lot of contact with patients, but that will be the primary interpersonal connection that you'll have in preclinic (in my opinion).