IT training... impressive?

[schooltill30]

I am currently an MIS business major doing premed. I am doing this because I enjoy computers, and that career is definitely my second choice (after medicine, of course). By the time I apply for med school, I will hopefully have had some IT certifications, and, if I can pull it off, some kind of health-care related IT internship. Does anyone know how good this will be, or if I'm just wasting my time on something that won't mean anything down the line?

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[soeagerun2or]

I am currently an MIS business major doing premed. I am doing this because I enjoy computers, and that career is definitely my second choice (after medicine, of course). By the time I apply for med school, I will hopefully have had some IT certifications, and, if I can pull it off, some kind of health-care related IT internship. Does anyone know how good this will be, or if I'm just wasting my time on something that won't mean anything down the line?

Wasting your time.

 

[Robizzle]

I am currently an MIS business major doing premed. I am doing this because I enjoy computers, and that career is definitely my second choice (after medicine, of course). By the time I apply for med school, I will hopefully have had some IT certifications, and, if I can pull it off, some kind of health-care related IT internship. Does anyone know how good this will be, or if I'm just wasting my time on something that won't mean anything down the line?

Do it because you want to, not because it'll make you look good. Here on SDN some might shoot you down for mentioning any other job field, but you're young and you need to explore all your opportunities. Heck, maybe you'll find you like doing computers even MORE than medicine. Who knows! Just don't forget to do real clinical experience on top of the computer stuff.

 

[schooltill30]

Wasting your time.

Can you explain yourself?

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Can you explain yourself?

No one is going to care. End of discussion.

 

[schooltill30]

Do you have IT experience to back up your claim? Have you tried to get into a school with experience in other fields?

 

[cnoevil]

No one is going to care. End of discussion.

aw hell...i thought you got banned

 

[DropkickMurphy]

aw hell...i thought you got banned

You sound disappointed.

 

[MinnyGophers]

If you are doing it just so that it looks good for when you apply to medical school, then yeah, it is a total waste of time because med school will not give a flying rat's arse about it and it doesn't make you well rounded or original or whatever...

If you are doing it because you enjoy it and are considering a career in the IT field, then it's great. But only for you personally.

 

[deleted103644]

Yeah, I don't know why he would get banned. The person people keep getting in trouble for picking on really deserves it and should get banned himself. Med schools won't care about IT certification, but if you have time and $$$ to burn, might as well do it if it interests you. It's a useful and certainly marketable skill.

 

[spicedmanna]

Do you have IT experience to back up your claim? Have you tried to get into a school with experience in other fields?

I do. And I have years of it. Heavy-duty, 200-hr, sitting in the cold room, putting together servers, designing hundreds of commercial web pages, administrating, architecting, and working with many gigabyte/terabyte databases, and managing many IT professions kind of experience. Did it directly help me get into medical school? No. Did it help me become the person that I am now? Yes.

It was of indirect benefit. No interviewer ever thought my IT experience was cool. One interviewer was intrigued by my management experience at a DOT-COM however, simply because the company had an amusing name. It gave me a chance to talk about what I learned managing technical people and leading large teams. So if that's a benefit, then it helped.

However, if your IT internship interests you, then cool. Do it. It couldn't hurt as long as you have met all the requirements for application and the more critical EC's such a clinical experience and volunteer work.

 

[NonTradMed]

It's not going to help you, however it is good to have a backup. People on SDN tend to be very hardcore about medicine but from personal experience, I think a backup major in case medicine doesn't pan out is great advice for most premeds. Face it, most premeds will not matriculate into medical school, why put your eggs into one basket given the odds? Pick a marketable major that interests you and stick with it. However, don't expect that adcoms will love you for it.

FWIW, I was computer science and it didn't hurt me that I was one, but I doubt it gave me an "in".

 

[dsh]

I am currently an MIS business major doing premed. I am doing this because I enjoy computers, and that career is definitely my second choice (after medicine, of course). By the time I apply for med school, I will hopefully have had some IT certifications, and, if I can pull it off, some kind of health-care related IT internship. Does anyone know how good this will be, or if I'm just wasting my time on something that won't mean anything down the line?

I used to want to work with computers. Although I studied bio since I really like it, I spent a lot of time working on open source projects and other nerdy things. I did database programming for spending cash during the summers. Most of my income during the school year was through a freelance computer repair business I made and implementing network/data management stuff for small offices. This was thoroughly documented on my AMCAS and on secondaries.

The topic has not come up in a single interview. None of my interviewers were younger than 50, and I doubt they know or care much about computers beyond the scope of their work.

I don't think it helped or hurt me in the admissions process. I'd still do everything if I were to start over, as I made a lot of money in relatively little time for a student job.

 

[gary5]

Yes, wasting your time. If you're going to do anything extra, it should be clinical.

 

[Cirrus83]

Do you have IT experience to back up your claim? Have you tried to get into a school with experience in other fields?

Dude, I worked with healthcare related computing and quite frankly I don't think it'd do anything for you med school app wise. Sure, it's better than if you worked on Wall Street and did absolutely nothing medically related, since you'll be able to say that you realized being a doctor is what you want to do while working at your job, but other than that it does nothing for your application.

So don't get it based on some delusion that the adcoms will actually care.

Point is, do it if you want to, just make sure your app is solid otherwise because nobody cares about IT.

 

[schooltill30]

Well, I want to do some IT mainly because it is my second career choice. I think my app will be able to stand alone without mentioning IT anywhere. I was just wondering if the hospital setting would help in general to get me a better knowledge of how the business works. I probably would be able to get better pay outside of a hospital, but if there is some experience, then I'll take the tradeoff.

 

[notdeadyet]

I think hard-core computer engineering might be a slight asset in an application, but anything less won't do a whole lot. An IS/IT degree/certification probably won't do much for your app.

That said, do what you love. You can get lots of experience volunteering in addition to a day job you enjoy.

 

[epigastric]

I am currently an MIS business major doing premed. I am doing this because I enjoy computers, and that career is definitely my second choice (after medicine, of course). By the time I apply for med school, I will hopefully have had some IT certifications, and, if I can pull it off, some kind of health-care related IT internship. Does anyone know how good this will be, or if I'm just wasting my time on something that won't mean anything down the line?

If your resume becomes IT-heavy, you'd better subtly mention as many times as you can in your application that you can, in fact, communicate with people away from a keyboard. Because believe me, they're going to looking for proof that you can. I held a few part-time and summer IT jobs during undergrad for the money, never touched it again, did three years of clinical research with lots of patient interaction, and still spent most of my interviews explaining how heavy on human interaction the IT positions were. One interviewer even said he was suprised I managed a 13 on the verbal and an S, given my tech background. I was not amused.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

One interviewer even said he was suprised I managed a 13 on the verbal and an S, given my tech background.

I was not amused.

I bet. Nice.

 

[swissmiss]

You should look into medical informatics. It ties information technology pretty closely to medicine. A good place to start is the American Medical Informatics Association (www.amia.org) website. Good luck.

 

[Wanna_B_Scutty]

You should look into medical informatics. It ties information technology pretty closely to medicine. A good place to start is the American Medical Informatics Association (www.amia.org) website. Good luck.

Yup, I was having the exact same thought. Bioinformatics/medical informatics is hot-hot-hot right now thanks to the Human Genome Project and related research. IT in and of itself will not impress anyone, but I'll bet you can get some sweet reserach opps in Bioinformatics.

Like someone else said, though, make sure you do lots of touchy-feely, communication-oriented volunteer stuff, too! Fair or not, IT folks do have the reuptation for being a bit... erm... socially challenged.

 

[notdeadyet]

Fair or not, IT folks do have the reuptation for being a bit... erm... socially challenged.

Which I find really ironic. I found premeds to be much more socially limited than the folks I met in tech. Go figger....

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Which I find really ironic. I found premeds to be much more socially limited than the folks I met in tech. Go figger....

No kidding.....judging by >90% the premeds I've met, they have no room to point out the alledged social shortcomings of any other group.

"Here she is.....your polished turd for the evening."
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AwFd1zsz8[/YOUTUBE]
Sounds like a lot of premeds during interviews.