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[Dral]

I will preface what I say with this: I am not trying to be a jerk, I am only trying to be helpful.

My advice it to be very careful with your narrative (regarding the sick relative and physician error as an impetus to be a physician). I will start by saying I am sorry to hear that happened. However, your narrative, as you’ve presented it, comes off as “I’m going to be the perfect doctor and save patients from other incompetent doctors”. That does not sit well for several reasons.

Part of what we do as physicians puts patients at risk all the time. We always (hopefully) try to the right thing, but mistakes happen. I don’t know what happened with your relative nor am I asking you to expand on it. However, your narrative as you presented it here might not sit well with some.

Again, I’m not trying to be rude or mean. I just want you to consider how you present your narrative when you apply. I can tell you have good intentions, but it may not be taken that way by everyone. You don’t have to change your narrative, but just carefully consider how you present it.

 

[Bonne Nuit]

Congratulations on your upcoming graduation and the excellent GPA trend. I won't be able to help much with the formal post-bac program selection, as I did a DIY postbac, which means I took the med school prerequisites a la carte at my local state university. However, as a nontraditional career-changing applicant, now second year medical student, I can speak to certain aspects of your post. Perhaps others more familiar with formal post bac programs can weigh in as well.

Regarding clinical experience - You have a good, strong reason for considering medicine as a career. I, however, am of the personal opinion (and I say it about five times a week on this subforum) that nobody should commit any money to their nontraditional premed process UNTIL they have gained substantial physician shadowing and/or clinical experience (paid or volunteer) (saying it loudly for those in the back, not yelling at you).

There were about 5 other nontrad med school hopefuls where I did my postbac. Two switched to other allied health professions after they shadowed/worked in hospitals and saw what doctors actually do all day long (which is to say an appalling amount of charting and paperwork). It turns out these students desired careers with extensive direct and bedside patient care activities, and nursing/PT were much better fits in this respect. But coming to this realization put them into several thousand dollars of additional debt and cost them year of their professional lives.

IMO, someone really cannot know whether they want to be a doctor until they've spent a lot of time in a clinical setting. I know this doesn't help you out much, since you're limited in what you can do due to your COVID risk status, but please please please shadow a primary care physician for at least 40 hours/5 work days before you enroll in anything.

Regarding extracurriculars - high school stuff doesn't count, unless it continued into college (i.e., your music performance) OR was a truly remarkable, unusual achievement (international awards/honors, Olympics, etc.) Med schools will want to see more recent service, and a lot of it. I'd say 200 hours is pretty much the de facto minimum to apply to medical school, and some service oriented medical schools want to see 1000+ hours!

Regarding research - This is a lower priority for nontrads. Many do just fine without any research experience beyond their lab classes. Keep doing your music research if you like it, but it's unnecessary. Be aware that, fair or not, some medical schools really mean "scientific research" when they talk about "research experience." I discussed my extensive social science research background on my application, and not one single medical school cared at all about it. They only wanted to talk about my basic science/bench research projects. One interviewer literally cut me off as I was starting to explain my social science research and said "No, we mean the project you did in Dr. X's lab, tell us about how you got involved in that."

GPA - You will be expected to maintain as high of a GPA as possible in a postbac (formal, DIY, or otherwise). Aim for a 3.8 or above. You're on a great trajectory as it stands, so keep it up.

 

[Dral]

Oh yeah I understand. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I was actually trying to keep that in mind while I was typing but I will have to figure out how to word it better.

I think when you present it, you don’t have to play up the mistake/negligence. I think you could mention it since it’s part of what really happened. But framing your motivation more on how your relative’s illness affected you and caused you to want to help others (leaving the part out about doing it to prevent medical mistakes) would be a better presentation of your narrative in my opinion.

You never know who you’ll encounter. Someone on an admissions committee could only have the best intentions in their work but may have been accused of negligence in the past. That is a huge stress on someone’s career. They could read your narrative wrong. I don’t want a missed opportunity to happen for you due to something like that.

 

[aceegreene]

Regarding research - This is a lower priority for nontrads. Many do just fine without any research experience beyond their lab classes. Keep doing your music research if you like it, but it's unnecessary. Be aware that, fair or not, some medical schools really mean "scientific research" when they talk about "research experience." I discussed my extensive social science research background on my application, and not one single medical school cared at all about it. They only wanted to talk about my basic science/bench research projects. One interviewer literally cut me off as I was starting to explain my social science research and said "No, we mean the project you did in Dr. X's lab, tell us about how you got involved in that."

So even public health, mental health research doesn’t count?

 

[Bonne Nuit]

So even public health, mental health research doesn’t count?

It's not that it "doesn't count". I'm sure any research can add interest to your application. But it has been my experience that when interviewers/adcoms talk about "research", they really care mostly about experimental research, i.e., hypothesis-driven projects that indicate you have a decent grasp of the scientific method and scientific research design.

Who knows. Like anything else, interest in your specific research will vary from person to person (especially if you luck out and get an interviewer that has a background in the field you did research in), but all I know is that everyone's eyes glazed over when I started talking about my psychology research projects - if they asked about it at all.

But whatever research you do - basic science or otherwise - it's not all that impactful either way for a medical school application, unless you're a PhD level researcher in your field. Do whatever research you like and find personally fulfilling, because it honestly doesn't really matter all that much.

 

[aceegreene]

It's not that it "doesn't count". I'm sure any research can add interest to your application. But it has been my experience that when interviewers/adcoms talk about "research", they really care mostly about experimental research, i.e., hypothesis-driven projects that indicate you have a decent grasp of the scientific method and scientific research design.

Who knows. Like anything else, interest in your specific research will vary from person to person (especially if you luck out and get an interviewer that has a background in the field you did research in), but all I know is that everyone's eyes glazed over when I started talking about my psychology research projects - if they asked about it at all.

But whatever research you do - basic science or otherwise - it's not all that impactful either way for a medical school application, unless you're a PhD level researcher in your field. Do whatever research you like and find personally fulfilling, because it honestly doesn't really matter all that much.

That makes sense, thanks!