research experience...should I drop it?

[uki323]

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Hello 🙂

I am currently a Junior at UC Berkeley, and I am taking 16 units this semester.
I have no clinical experience and I was thinking that I should start volunteering at a clinic near by the campus. But the professor that I work under discourages any EC besides the lab experience...
To be honest, he is a very demanding professor. But working in his lab is a good experience because he promises every undergraduate researcher that he/she will publish a paper sometime before graduation lol. He also expects everyone to work atleast 20 hours per week... (ave. 20-30hrs/wk)

So my question is:
Should I keep working at the lab until I publish a paper? (would probably take another year) or should I quit the lab and focus on getting more clinical experience at a local hospital/clinic??

Any advise/recommendation will be greatly appreciated 🙂

Thanks!! 😀

 

[fizzle]

No research = okay for medical school.

No clinical = rejection from most, if not all, medical schools.

That said, I don't see why you can't do both. Seeing as research is just 20-30 hours a week, your professor shouldn't be able to dictate what you do in your time outside of the lab.

 

[Bacchus]

Just 20 - 30 hours a week?! Thats a huge investment. Up until now how do you know you want to do medicine? A gut feeling is not going to win over any interviewer or admissions committee. Get the CLINICAL EXPERIENCE pronto, especially before applying!

 

[sleepy12]

I think that you should keep your research opportunity, it sounds like a great opportunity. Try finding somewhere you can volunteer for a few hours every other week. Or get clinical experience by volunteering intensely over winter break at your local hospital so you are not overloaded during school.

 

[Bacchus]

I think that you should keep your research opportunity, it sounds like a great opportunity. Try finding somewhere you can volunteer for a few hours every other week. Or get clinical experience by volunteering intensely over winter break at your local hospital so you are not overloaded during school.

Multiple clinical experiences or a long-term exposure is best. Just getting experience over break is not going to shout "I LOVE MEDICINE AND WANT TO COMMIT MY LIFE TO IT." Are you getting paid for working in the lab? If you're doing it for only credit or free-will then get out. Anything less than paid research (20-30hrs a week) is a ripoff, imo. Yeah, you'll get the experience out of it, but if you have a good amount of research you probably don't need more.

 

[Mobius1985]

You don't need your name on a paper in order to enter a research experience on the AMCAS application. If you already have a year at the lab, that is enough, unless you really love it there. You do need a Letter of Recommendation from your research mentor. You do need a respectible amount of clinical experience listed on your AMCAS application also. The stress of being premed, is finding a way to balance all those needs. I, too, find it ridiculous that your PI demands a minimum of 20 hours in the lab/week.

 

[AlanAlanine]

You're not in Dr. Firestone's lab are you?

i think that there are less intense research opportunities here at Cal, that will allow you to do clinical stuff on the side. I think URAP is still open so you could apply to some of the extended projects. Stick with it if you enjoy the research -- but if you have crappy time management, then find something else.

 

[AlanAlanine]

way to duplicate this thread from pre-dental. maybe you should spend less time doing research and more time figuring out if you want to be a doctor or a dentist.

jk

 

[213965]

way to duplicate this thread from pre-dental. maybe you should spend less time doing research and more time figuring out if you want to be a doctor or a dentist.

jk

Are you having a bad day, Alan? j/k

To the OP, I am finding more and more that while it's nice to have both, in the level of importance, clinical > research... I have 2 research publications and so far it doesn't look like it's gotten me anywhere, yet having no clinical LOR has already screened me out of 90% of D.O. schools pre-secondary!! So like fizzle posted earlier, if you have to choose between the two I'd definitely focus on the clinical and do some research on the side (not 20 hours/wk); even just a few weeks over the summer should be enough to write about in the secondaries/talk about at interviews.

Good luck!! 👍

 

[musicalmedicine]

If you are posting this in both the pre-allopathic and pre-dental then you need to go for the clinical experience, clearly you are unsure of what field you prefer and need experience in those two fields and not in a research lab.