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600 hours is a good amount of time as an undergrad to have in research exposure. I don’t think I would go in saying I want to practice academic medicine based solely off your hours because once you get into medical school, your goals and outlook on medicine will most likely change. As an undergrad, you really don’t know what you want until you go through it.I want to tell schools that I want to do research, but only have 600 hours of research that did not result in any pubs or posters or anything like that. The experience lasted for 3 years and I learned a lot from it, being one of my most meaningful experiences. I did produce a major checkpoint in a pilot study that I spearheaded and submitted an IRB proposal for it, but was not around for the data collcetion/analysis because I began a full time clinical experience. This isn't on my personal statement because it did not really influence my decision into medicine too much, but I discovered that I enjoy research through this experience. Is this enough evidence to claim I want to pursue academic medicine in medical schools and perform research?
In addition to research, I also have another extensive teaching experience that has lasted about 3.5 years totaling 1000+ hours. As teaching is also a part of academic medicine. I plan on citing both these experiences as evidence for my interest in medical education and research.
Most of my friends went into medical school wanting to do specialty A are now doing specialty B. I went into medical school wanting to become an anesthesiologist and am now doing a surgical subspecialty. I think the focus of getting into medical school should mostly be about wanting to become a physician (but you can and should bring up your fascination with research as this is what keeps medicine moving forward).