Hello!
I'm a graduating senior planning on applying this cycle and have two job offers for my upcoming gap year. One option is to work as a research assistant in my undergraduate school's dermatology department, while the other is a medical assistant position (not certified) at a dermatology office. My ultimate goal is to match into dermatology, so I want to make sure I'm taking the right steps early on to maximize my chances, but also want to know what might look best on med school applications. The pay is more or less the same for both jobs and both would be full-time.
I have about 600 research hours in my lab (orthopedic research) and about 200 hours of clinical volunteering in a hospital. I worked in my school's dermatology department for a year as a lab technician but was not doing research (worked in processing of tissue samples + paraffin sectioning for the department's research projects). I'm not sure how much weight matching may put on gap year activities, but is there a recommended route to go? I prefer to not do research, as I am not the biggest fan of it, but would doing research + getting my name on some dermatology publications during my gap year alleviate some of the pressure to take a research year between M3/M4 or be helpful in the future? Would one of these opportunities reflect better for medical school applications than another?
Any insight would be helpful, thank you!
I'm a graduating senior planning on applying this cycle and have two job offers for my upcoming gap year. One option is to work as a research assistant in my undergraduate school's dermatology department, while the other is a medical assistant position (not certified) at a dermatology office. My ultimate goal is to match into dermatology, so I want to make sure I'm taking the right steps early on to maximize my chances, but also want to know what might look best on med school applications. The pay is more or less the same for both jobs and both would be full-time.
I have about 600 research hours in my lab (orthopedic research) and about 200 hours of clinical volunteering in a hospital. I worked in my school's dermatology department for a year as a lab technician but was not doing research (worked in processing of tissue samples + paraffin sectioning for the department's research projects). I'm not sure how much weight matching may put on gap year activities, but is there a recommended route to go? I prefer to not do research, as I am not the biggest fan of it, but would doing research + getting my name on some dermatology publications during my gap year alleviate some of the pressure to take a research year between M3/M4 or be helpful in the future? Would one of these opportunities reflect better for medical school applications than another?
Any insight would be helpful, thank you!