MEDLIFE experience and medical school admissions

[senecca]

Adcoms, how do you view years of experience with MEDLIFE organization in the context of medical school admissions?

A couple of high school kids (medical school aspirants) started a MEDLIFE chapter in their school while in 9th grade and they want to continue to work with the same organization while in college.

MEDLIFE partners with low-income communities in Latin America and Africa to improve their access to medicine, education, and community development projects.

Since this organization focuses on underserved communities in foreign countries like Latin America and Africa, do you view this experience favorably or unfavorably? Do the students have to focus on local communities instead?

Thank you for your response.

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[LizzyM]

Short-term service trips abroad have gotten a bad rap and one's involvement with such an organization, even if it is different than many others, might result in conscious or unconscious bias on the part of an application reviewer or interviewer.

Service to local communities is less problematic and, as college students, your friends might want to direct their efforts toward to domestic efforts to provide clinical and preventive services.

 

[senecca]

Short-term service trips abroad have gotten a bad rap and one's involvement with such an organization, even if it is different than many others, might result in conscious or unconscious bias on the part of an application reviewer or interviewer.

Service to local communities is less problematic and as college students, your friends might want to direct their efforts toward to domestic efforts to provide clinical and preventive services.

Thank you for the kind response

 

[doctor_tangerine]

I've worked with physicians to develop technologies for global health, and in my experience, it is difficult to plan out mission trips (think $$ and the # of clinicians/surgeons available), hence why these international trips to developing countries aren't as frequent as you'd think. MEDLIFE is also a very popular organization at my undergraduate (T20), and I think their mission and trips (albeit 1-3 times a year) are meaningful. It is also about the way you describe your experiences that can really portray whether those few days abroad were really intended to serve the underserved or if it was for tourism.

 

[LizzyM]

I've worked with physicians to develop technologies for global health, and in my experience, it is difficult to plan out mission trips (think $$ and the # of clinicians/surgeons available), hence why these international trips to developing countries aren't as frequent as you'd think. MEDLIFE is also a very popular organization at my undergraduate (T20), and I think their mission and trips (albeit 1-3 times a year) are meaningful. It is also about the way you describe your experiences that can really portray whether those few days abroad were really intended to serve the underserved or if it was for tourism.

Whether "intended to serve" or just "tourism" doesn't change the fact that many faculty members have concerns about the ethics of this type of engagement with communities in low resource areas. You can intend to do good while actually doing harm and that is what becomes the issue. Then adcoms develop a bias, even an unconscious bias, against these types of activities. Even if they go into an interview with an open mind, the way in which a applicant speaks of the experience (references to the people served as "natives", describing the experience as "cool", or describing activities that would not be permitted in a US setting) can hurt them.

 

[senecca]

@doctor_tangerine & @LizzyM , just FYI. I don’t know how MEDLIFE chapters work in college setting, but these high school kids never been on overseas mission trips.

 

[LizzyM]

Generally speaking, applicants don't list things they did in HS on the application because they have 15 more recent activities to list there. If they continue engaging with MEDLIFE in college, the question would be, "what activities did you take part in? Were you soliciting donations or planning/participating in fund raising events/activities? Engaging in letter writing campaigns? Meeting with policy makers to advocate on behalf of people in low resource areas? Collecting and packaging information to be used in social media campaigns? Reaching out to grow the membership of the group? Passively listening to presentations about circumstances in these low resource settings from people who have been there?"

To have a view on the experience, one would need to know what the experience involved.