Research and Volunteering

[xxdczz]

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[tautomer]

At my school, you can actually take a "research internship" course, for credit. They also offer "Independent study" courses, where you're in the lab actually doing research. You actually can decide how many credit hours you want it to be worth, anywhere from 2 hours, where you're in the lab approx. 4-5 hours a week, up to 5 hours, where you're in the lab approx 9-10 hours a week. You can also do research earning cash at my school, but from what i've heard, it's less hands on and more scrubbing dishes, etc. You may want to look in to see if they offer similar courses at your school. If not, they offer plenty of research opportunites at other universities and institutions over summers, etc.

As far as volunteering, I was lucky to "know a guy who knows a guy who knows a surgeon," so I was able to get some really great hands on job shadowing experience that led to a paying gig at a clinic. Best of luck.

 

[xxdczz]

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[Pinkertinkle]

If you volunteer at a hospital, you can build a good relation with your supervisor who you can ask to let you shadow a doctor for a while. Of course you're volunteering and can't always be shadowing, but you can learn plenty from a few hours.

 

[tautomer]

ya, I forgot to mention that sorry. Evidentially, more recently, doctors have been shying away from shadowing becuase of the privacy rights to patients. Actually, to job shadow at the university hospital where I go, we acutally have to sign a form concerning "confidentiality of Protected Patient Information." It has to deal with a newly formed act called "The Health Insurance Protability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)." Don't ask me what it's all about but it basically says that if you break the confidentialty rules, you could pay up to a 250,000 dollar fine and could possibly spend 10 yrs. in jail. Obviously, doctors are a lot more hesitant to bring ANY student in to shadow them.

 

[xxdczz]

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[jlee9531]

if you like kids.... a childrens hospital is a great way to gain patient interaction....and take care of people who really need you there to help them thru their time at the hospital...

 

[Hallm_7]

If you wanna do research i highly recommend the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships/Research Experience for Undergrads programs that many (if not most) med schools have. Most of them are 10 weeks long, pay about $3000, and offer you a chance to learn tons and tons about science and research. If you take it seriously you work ~50 hours a week, and you can actually get some positive results back (or negative in my case. 😡 ) I participated in one last year and it was the most amazing thing I've done academic-wise. You'll learn more about science/medicine in those ten weeks then you will in a full year of courses if you take time to ask questions, read journals, and understand the experiments and techniques you're using.