Research and Hospital work

[Sherif]

Now i have a question, prob a stupid one. Do med schools require that you get hospital expirence/Clinical and do research or if you just do one of the two you should be just fine

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[Spartacus]

I think it really depends on the school. Ideally, it would be best to have both clinical experience and research, however, if I had to pick what was most important, I would probably say clinical experience. This is pretty much a necessary component to get in for the most part. But if your applying to schools that are major research universities then I would say that research experience is very important. For me, at my state school, clinical experience is absolutely essential and they won't even look at you seriously unless you have some quality experience (from what I've heard).
Hope this is helpful!

 

[jlee9531]

they dont really require anything. however if you have nothing then most likely you will not get accepted.

some people do research and have little clinical experience.

others have a lot of clinical and basically no research experience.

and others have a bunch of both.

all three types get in.

now you have to ask yourself some questions...

for instance do you like research for instance...if you have absolutely no desire to do science research then i recommend you spend most of your time gaining clinical experience in any way shape or form. ie...volunteering, shadowing etc...

but ya might as well try a bit of everything out to see how you feel about it and pursue the things that interest you and not really get into the things that you dont particularly like.

 

[jhrugger]

what exaclty is "clinical experience"? does shadowing in the OR and doing some predominantly clerical work at a clinic count? i just never really knew what clinical experience means since premeds arent qualified to 'treat' people really

 

[jlee9531]

shadowing in the OR sounds like great clinical experience. you may not be treating them but you get to watch directly which is always a treat.

 

[Sherif]

yaa i do not like research at all. I would love to do clinical, just need to find a job

 

[NRAI2001]

Is working at a free clinic considered clinical work. At the free clinic i was thinking about working at there are doctors, but they are on a volunteer basis so it is very different from a hospital setting.

 

[Spartacus]

yeah, this is all good clinical experience. i would say clinical experience is really fairly broad, anything that you do that gets you exposure to clinical medicine, more specifically patients, is good experience. it doesn't necessarily have to be at a hospital, it can be anywhere really.
i think med schools want to see that you know what medicine is like and that you learned something from your experiences.
hope this helps, feel free to pm me anytime!