Need help with extracurricular activities!

[localmotion2189]

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Hey guys, I was just wondering what kind of extracurricular activities would look good on my resume? I plan to apply in about a year and a half and have only done about 50 or so volunteer hours at a nursing home. Also, how do I go about applying for internships and research? Should I also shoot for a certain number of shadowing hours? I really have no idea where I should start so any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

 

[WingedOx]

If you're only doing activities to fill your resume, don't bother doing them.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Where to start...

1) Do things you like doing.
-If they are related to medicine this is a good sign you will end up in medical school

2) Don't do things to "get into medical school" or to "put on your resume" this will lead to disapointment when you apply because you will not stand out among other applicants and will be a boring applicant.

But since most premeds do it and eventually get in somewhere in general you need
-exposure to patients
-exposure to doctors

Thats it. But please, do something you love so I don't have to be bored when I have to start interviewing med school applicants again.

 

[deleted357625]

Hey guys, I was just wondering what kind of extracurricular activities would look good on my resume? I plan to apply in about a year and a half and have only done about 50 or so volunteer hours at a nursing home. Also, how do I go about applying for internships and research? Should I also shoot for a certain number of shadowing hours? I really have no idea where I should start so any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

Average applicant tends to have:

-Volunteer work in hospital/clinic setting. (Patient contact 100-150) anything more than that is unnecessary. Nursing home is good, but you will need exposure to the a hospital/clinic setting and environment dealing with patients.
-Shadowing 2-3 docs 60-80+ hrs (Include a primary care doc)
-Volunteer/community service (anything non-related to medicine.)
-Anything that shows leadership roles
-Research 1 yr or even less, try to shoot for presentations/pubs, How to intern for a research positions, go to your college website, and look up any department your interested in and there should be tabs for research and then find the professors who need help etc. Also, there are many summer research programs available that pay you a stipend. If you try any research position at your college, it might be like the dirty work in the beginning but you climb up the ladder. A lot of post-docs need research assistants and any exposure to research is good.
https://www.aamc.org/members/great/61052/great_summerlinks.html
http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.cfm
-And anything else that interests you or sets you apart from others.