Need advice and suggestions for my future applications, please send help.

[sscott20]

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So I am about 5 semesters away from graduation (I take summer semester classes as well for a total of 3 a year) so I really wanted to start adding noteworthy things to my application. To be honest the advising at my school is not the best so I have been reading these forums for a while to get more information and finally decided to join so that I could ask my own questions. I also just have some general questions that I could use some advice on. I would also like to mention before I start that I plan only on applying for DO schools when I graduate in case that changes anything. I know that its also important to have a good GPA and a good MCAT score. I plan to be about average on both of those which is why I think I need to focus a lot on these other things.

First I am worried about leadership experience. I was my Greek Council president for half a year, VP of my sorority for a year and 2 years now of being president. I don't plan on running for anything in my sorority again. I actually plan on going alumni since I will have my associates and that's all I really need for them to accept me. Is there more that I should do? I get really mixed reviews about how schools feel about being greek affiliated. I am sure I could easily find other opportunists if this isn't enough if that isn't good enough.

I also work at the hospital near my school 40 hours a week registering patients. However I do plan to switch to working in the ED doing something similar as soon as an opportunity becomes available to me but I have seen most people work as medical assistants or scribes. Is that something I should be switching to doing to get the experience?

For shadowing, I luckily am friends with one doctor who said she will let me shadow her for as long as I want. However, she is in England and only practices in England and sometimes New Zealand. Does that matter in regards to shadowing hours? I obviously also plan on shadowing other doctors she is just currently my easiest option since we are already friends and its a great excuse to take a vacation! I have one other doctor that I will be shadowing as well but these are all just through connections I have and I am unsure how to go about asking other doctors that I don't have personal connections to.

I am completely at a loss for research. I know there are summer research programs but I don't really know how to get into one. I also don't really know how to go about getting into one at my own school, I guess that is a better question for my academic and pre-med advisor, but I am getting a degree in health administration and to suggest my own research topic I don't really know that my degree is really research oriented, so I think this is currently my biggest weakness that I have so any suggestion would be nice.

As of right now I only have a little over 100 service hours doing various things. Starting this next month I volunteer 4 hours a week at the hospital I also work at and hopefully I am allowed to switch to doing 8 a week instead after a while (They are worried right now with the whole covid outbreak) as well as continuing to do all the small events with my school, so all together hopefully ending up having around 600 hours by the time I am applying. Is that enough or should I go for more?


Any suggestions or comments or anything on these would be great. If you also have any other suggestions to do anything else as well I would appreciate it.

 

[Kardio]

I’m just going to respond to things that stood out to me. You might have more responses if you post an abridged version of this in the pre-allo forum.

would also like to mention before I start that I plan only on applying for DO schools when I graduate

Just do your best and then apply where you’re competitive/would like to go.

I know that its also important to have a good GPA and a good MCAT score. I plan to be about average on both of those

Don’t plan on being average. Do as well as you can.

I also work at the hospital near my school 40 hours a week registering patients.

I assume from the previous quote that your grades are short of spectacular. If it’s possible to decrease your work hours to focus on school, I’d recommend it. I don’t know how AdComs will view the registration work as “clinical.”

she is in England and only practices in England and sometimes New Zealand. Does that matter in regards to shadowing hours?

It is important to shadow American doctors. Reach out to individual physician offices and ask to shadow. If that doesn’t work, try your state’s association of osteopathic physicians.

Shadowing a US doctor is essentially a requirement.

For DO schools, shadowing at least one DO is preferable. Even better if they use OMM. Getting a LOR from a DO is icing on the cake.

 

[Goro]

Op you do NOT have to scribe. It's a passive activity and is glorified shadowing, but yet it passes for patient contact experience. Its positive side is that it's a job, and any employment history is good in my book.

 

[deleted859689]

Op you do NOT have to scribe. It's a passive activity and is glorified shadowing, but yet it passes for patient contact experience. Its positive side is that it's a job, and any employment history is good in my book.

I would have to disagree with Goro on this one. While some scribe jobs you are treated as a glorified dictaphone, it depends on the physician you scribe for. The physician I scribed for allowed me to write entire notes and read basic x-rays (anything I was uncomfortable with, I would ask). Ofc in the beginning we would go over my notes at the end of the day, but after a few months he would just sign off on them. One thing to note is ANYTHING I was not confident about I would ask. We would also discuss literature and he taught me how to code (made sure to put extra things in the note to up-code). He actually let me sit in on a meeting with the group auditor for coding and we found out that he could upcode cause I was so thorough with my notes.

 

[Whysoez]

I would have to disagree with Goro on this one. While some scribe jobs you are treated as a glorified dictaphone, it depends on the physician you scribe for. The physician I scribed for allowed me to write entire notes and read basic x-rays (anything I was uncomfortable with, I would ask). Ofc in the beginning we would go over my notes at the end of the day, but after a few months he would just sign off on them. One thing to note is ANYTHING I was not confident about I would ask. We would also discuss literature and he taught me how to code (made sure to put extra things in the note to up-code). He actually let me sit in on a meeting with the group auditor for coding and we found out that he could upcode cause I was so thorough with my notes.

In my case, whenever I was assigned to a preceptor, I was basically doing IM rotations alongside with the med students. Other times I was part of the resident team, sitting in pre and post-round meetings and teaching conferences. Scribing as been an amazing opportunity for me.