Pre-med volunteering in a dental public health lab

[boxedhornets]

Hi everyone, I'm a junior who recently started volunteering in a lab associated with my university's dental school. I reached out to them mainly because I saw that they were looking for Spanish speakers, and since I spent 9 months learning Spanish during my gap year, I thought it would be a great way to apply what I learned. So far the tasks I've been doing for the lab haven't involved speaking Spanish, but the commitment is two years long so I imagine there will be many opportunities to use it eventually.

My question is, will ADCOMs see it as a red flag that I volunteered in a DPH lab over a lab at my university's med school (although there wasn't much of a choice, since research positions with the med school can be hard to come by)? Will they think I'm not 100% committed to being an MD? I hope that if I explain to them why I chose to volunteer with this lab they'll understand, and maybe I'll be able to have my PI (who is a prof at the dental school) write a letter of rec that expresses my desire to go to med school.

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[Blueprint Med School]

It'll be fine. If you do a lot of research in this lab, it'll be expected that you get a LOR from your PI anyway.

 

[boxedhornets]

Awesome, thank you! It's just a little hard for me not to worry over making this big commitment to the lab only to have it bite me in the ass later haha

 

[Catalystik]

Hi everyone, I'm a junior who recently started volunteering in a lab associated with my university's dental school. I reached out to them mainly because I saw that they were looking for Spanish speakers, and since I spent 9 months learning Spanish during my gap year, I thought it would be a great way to apply what I learned. So far the tasks I've been doing for the lab haven't involved speaking Spanish, but the commitment is two years long so I imagine there will be many opportunities to use it eventually.

My question is, will ADCOMs see it as a red flag that I volunteered in a DPH lab over a lab at my university's med school (although there wasn't much of a choice, since research positions with the med school can be hard to come by)? Will they think I'm not 100% committed to being an MD? I hope that if I explain to them why I chose to volunteer with this lab they'll understand, and maybe I'll be able to have my PI (who is a prof at the dental school) write a letter of rec that expresses my desire to go to med school.

Involvement in hypothesis-based, scholarly investigation in any field will benefit your med school application.