Hello...Introduction and a ?

[ChocolateTae]

Hello fellow boardies, I've been lurking the boards here on SDN since about November or so. I finally have a question so instead of lurking I've continued to join in. I'm 23 and I attended Howard University for a year and a half. I've been out of school since 2005 and will hopefully start again next year.

I plan to attend medical school but haven't a clue what kind of doctor I'd like to be. It was Cardio for the longest but now Anesthesiology is looking good. I'm also thinking about Family Med or OB/Gyn because I would like to work in an inner city clinic back home (Baltimore, MD) and provide free/below cost healthcare to the uninsured (I'd also really like to do this to provide sex education to the teens and even the adults because theres a lot of teenage pregnancy, STDs, promiscuity, and HIV/AIDS in the community).

Since I've been reading the boards and looking at a few MD apps, it seems that research and volunteering in hospitals and clinics is reallly important and helps your app. Until I came to the boards I had no idea it was so important for your app to med school. I've done some volunteering at Our Daily Bread back home in Maryland working in the kitchen and serving meals to the homeless. When I start school again I plan to do some volunteering with a particular sorority. I thought that would be enough but after looking here it doesn't seem like it.

I think I need to volunteer in hospitals, shadow a doc or two, and do some research. So how do I get started?? I figured now would be a good time for me to start since I'm not in school and I can do more volunteering. Will the fact that I'm currently not in school affect my chances at getting research opportunities and volunteer opportunities?

I'm soooo sorry this post was so long, if you read this far I appreciate it and if I could I'd give you a cookie or brownie or something. LOL Thanks in advance for any input and help.

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[Mobius1985]

[Virtual] cookies, fresh from the oven, with melty chips, and crispy edges, are definitely an acceptable medium of exchange here. Welcome to SDN.

Non-student status is no bar to getting a clinical volunteer position. I think it's a great idea to get that started ASAP. You've no doubt seen that some accumulate hundreds of hours doing this before they apply. Besides hospital volunteering, consider free clinics, nursing homes, hospice care, etc.

Getting a research gig might be harder outside an academic institution. You might contact someone in a local public health clinic, RN or MD, and see if there are any projects you could volunteer to help on, especially considering your interests in that area. If some patient interaction was required, you'd have clinical exposure, as well as clinical research, in the same project (more time efficient).

 

[ButImLETired]

Hello fellow boardies, I've been lurking the boards here on SDN since about November or so. I finally have a question so instead of lurking I've continued to join in. I'm 23 and I attended Howard University for a year and a half. I've been out of school since 2005 and will hopefully start again next year.

I plan to attend medical school but haven't a clue what kind of doctor I'd like to be. It was Cardio for the longest but now Anesthesiology is looking good. I'm also thinking about Family Med or OB/Gyn because I would like to work in an inner city clinic back home (Baltimore, MD) and provide free/below cost healthcare to the uninsured (I'd also really like to do this to provide sex education to the teens and even the adults because theres a lot of teenage pregnancy, STDs, promiscuity, and HIV/AIDS in the community).

Since I've been reading the boards and looking at a few MD apps, it seems that research and volunteering in hospitals and clinics is reallly important and helps your app. Until I came to the boards I had no idea it was so important for your app to med school. I've done some volunteering at Our Daily Bread back home in Maryland working in the kitchen and serving meals to the homeless. When I start school again I plan to do some volunteering with a particular sorority. I thought that would be enough but after looking here it doesn't seem like it.

I think I need to volunteer in hospitals, shadow a doc or two, and do some research. So how do I get started?? I figured now would be a good time for me to start since I'm not in school and I can do more volunteering. Will the fact that I'm currently not in school affect my chances at getting research opportunities and volunteer opportunities?

I'm soooo sorry this post was so long, if you read this far I appreciate it and if I could I'd give you a cookie or brownie or something. LOL Thanks in advance for any input and help.

Hi Chocolate! Welcome to the active side of SDN, aka the addictive side. Thanks for the cookie.

I'd like to first point out that SDN people are unusual in the sheer amount of stuff they do. I have no idea how some of them manage to maintain a 4.0, be presidents of 1230258 clubs and be published in Nature, but as with most things on the Internet, first thing I'd do is take it all with a grain of salt.

That being said, if you're really interested in working with underprivileged, underserved populations, research might not be necessary. Research is always nice, it's just one more thing the med schools get to check off on the unspoken list of premed must-do's, but some schools definitely give it more credit than others (Stanford is pretty much unattainable unless you've been published a couple of times, but most non-super-top-tier schools don't really care whether you've done it or not). I also have a feeling that med schools can tell when you really do things you love and when you only do things cause you think you should. It really sounds like you'd be more interested in the volunteering/ clinical side of things, so I'd stick with that, unless you're really looking into one of the top ten schools, in which case some research would probably look nice. However, if you're going to argue to them that you want to work with underserved populations, make sure you have a LOT of evidence that you want to do that, otherwise they'll question how you could possibly know that if you've been stuck behind a lab bench for 3 years.

Whoa, this is turning out to be really long, sorry about that.

As for opportunities to shadow/volunteer, it's really about being proactive. It's rare to find "official" shadowing or volunteering gigs, you just kind of have to look for them yourself. Do some internet research on the hospitals/clinics in your area. Look up doctors, find people who are doing something you find interesting, and start emailing. I did that with a few people and it's worked out. Show interest, be passionate about what you want to do. Usually people respond to that. You might even get lucky and find someone who's doing some population-based research on the underserved, in which case you'd be set (I worked with a social worker for a while on the psychiatric care practices of the Dominican population of New York City, and I really kind of stumbled into that project through shadowing). Anyways, again, be pro-active. Find people who do stuff you find interesting and bug them

Ok, sorry for the super-long post. Hope it helps.

 

[ChocolateTae]

Hi Chocolate! Welcome to the active side of SDN, aka the addictive side. Thanks for the cookie.

I'd like to first point out that SDN people are unusual in the sheer amount of stuff they do. I have no idea how some of them manage to maintain a 4.0, be presidents of 1230258 clubs and be published in Nature, but as with most things on the Internet, first thing I'd do is take it all with a grain of salt.

That being said, if you're really interested in working with underprivileged, underserved populations, research might not be necessary. Research is always nice, it's just one more thing the med schools get to check off on the unspoken list of premed must-do's, but some schools definitely give it more credit than others (Stanford is pretty much unattainable unless you've been published a couple of times, but most non-super-top-tier schools don't really care whether you've done it or not). I also have a feeling that med schools can tell when you really do things you love and when you only do things cause you think you should. It really sounds like you'd be more interested in the volunteering/ clinical side of things, so I'd stick with that, unless you're really looking into one of the top ten schools, in which case some research would probably look nice. However, if you're going to argue to them that you want to work with underserved populations, make sure you have a LOT of evidence that you want to do that, otherwise they'll question how you could possibly know that if you've been stuck behind a lab bench for 3 years.

Whoa, this is turning out to be really long, sorry about that.

As for opportunities to shadow/volunteer, it's really about being proactive. It's rare to find "official" shadowing or volunteering gigs, you just kind of have to look for them yourself. Do some internet research on the hospitals/clinics in your area. Look up doctors, find people who are doing something you find interesting, and start emailing. I did that with a few people and it's worked out. Show interest, be passionate about what you want to do. Usually people respond to that. You might even get lucky and find someone who's doing some population-based research on the underserved, in which case you'd be set (I worked with a social worker for a while on the psychiatric care practices of the Dominican population of New York City, and I really kind of stumbled into that project through shadowing). Anyways, again, be pro-active. Find people who do stuff you find interesting and bug them

Ok, sorry for the super-long post. Hope it helps.

First, thanks a lot for replying I really appreciate it. Is there a way I can see which med schools are big on what?? I mean is there a way I can see which university are known for graduating the most primary care physicians or internal med physicians?

Also you said that research isn't such a big deal with some schools as it is with others. What about Mayo?? I absolutely LOVE their program and the fact that they only admit 42 students per class (I'm not too fond of the location though). I'm just kinda going in circles here because they are sooo many med schools to choose from. Why did you pick the med schools you applied to??

 

[nonesuchgirl]

I would like to work in an inner city clinic back home (Baltimore, MD) and provide free/below cost healthcare to the uninsured (I'd also really like to do this to provide sex education to the teens and even the adults because theres a lot of teenage pregnancy, STDs, promiscuity, and HIV/AIDS in the community).

I've done some volunteering at Our Daily Bread back home in Maryland working in the kitchen and serving meals to the homeless. When I start school again I plan to do some volunteering with a particular sorority. I thought that would be enough but after looking here it doesn't seem like it.

I think I need to volunteer in hospitals, shadow a doc or two, and do some research. So how do I get started?? I figured now would be a good time for me to start since I'm not in school and I can do more volunteering. Will the fact that I'm currently not in school affect my chances at getting research opportunities and volunteer opportunities?

So first, take a deep breath! Look on the website for local hospitals- they'll usually have some contact info for the volunteer department. You don't have to volunteer at a hospital. But you do need some clinical exposure- either paid or not- to show you've seen the "real" world. Shadowing is strictly optional, as is research, unless you're going MD/PhD or to a school that's practically all research.

Doing stuff you'd do anyway is vastly more important than checking off SDN's little boxes. You need the academic pre-reqs, some face time in a hospital, some EC's that show leadership. Be committed to something.

That you're not in school won't matter a whit. IDK where you are right now, but I know Hopkins has some jobs in Public Health that are community research, if you're in the area you might want to check it out. The site is jobs.jhu.edu

As to what school likes whatever, check the MSAR. Your local library should have a copy. Match stats I think are available online, but you have to realise that that sort of thing is completely random- one class might be all ophthal kids, while the next goes crazy for IM.