Shadowing vs. Volunteering

[Katatonic]

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Good morning,

I'm planning on applying this year (July or August) to see what happens, but I know that there are 2 main things lacking in my application for MD/PhD. First, my only real clinical exposure is hospital volunteering in high school, and shadowing a clinical researcher (MD) at the NIH for a summer while doing a research internship. Secondly, my lower gpa of 3.36.

Not knowing what my MCAT will be, I'm just wondering if my 2 years of full-time research experience after undergrad (been in a virology lab) coupled with my time shadowing a clinical researcher (something MD/PhD's are geared toward) would in anyway potentially alleviate my lack of volunteering during college. I know clinical exposure is important, and I feel that I have accomplished in an even more applicable way because I really got to see human trials, go on rounds and observe the doctor meeting with his patients.

Any advice is appreciated! Also to those of you who recognize me, I'm back...I think I've been "pre-med" 3 times now?

 

[delirium81]

As long as you have some relatively recent experience in a patient-care setting, that's fine. It doesn't matter if it was during or after undergrad or if it's volunteering vs. shadowing. Ad coms just want to know that you understand what's involved with patient care.

I'm assuming you also did research throughout undergrad? If that's the case, then that plus 2 years of full time research experience will help out your application quite a bit, especially if you'll have super stellar recommendations from these experiences. However you should aim to blow the MCAT out of the water to help assuage the concerns that the committee will most definitely have about your below average GPA.

 

[soundnin]

Good morning,

I'm planning on applying this year (July or August) to see what happens, but I know that there are 2 main things lacking in my application for MD/PhD. First, my only real clinical exposure is hospital volunteering in high school, and shadowing a clinical researcher (MD) at the NIH for a summer while doing a research internship. Secondly, my lower gpa of 3.36.

Not knowing what my MCAT will be, I'm just wondering if my 2 years of full-time research experience after undergrad (been in a virology lab) coupled with my time shadowing a clinical researcher (something MD/PhD's are geared toward) would in anyway potentially alleviate my lack of volunteering during college. I know clinical exposure is important, and I feel that I have accomplished in an even more applicable way because I really got to see human trials, go on rounds and observe the doctor meeting with his patients.

Any advice is appreciated! Also to those of you who recognize me, I'm back...I think I've been "pre-med" 3 times now?

is it that hard to shadow a few docs here and there? to me, it's not something hard to do, so why not just do it instead of asking if shadowing a clinical researcher is the same as shadowing a physician in the eyes of the adcoms?

also, i just went through this past cycle with a GPA similar to yours, and i think your research (the one thing MD/PhD adcoms care about the most) needs to be stronger to make up for it. i had 3 years research undergrad and 4-5 years research postgrad with an out of this world pub list, and my interview to rejection ratio was about 1 to 7. the low GPA hurts a lot.

 

[Katatonic]

Thanks for the info! @Delirium I was more comparing shadowing a clinical researcher/physician and volunteering since I have no volunteering after high school. I'm definitely going to shadow another doctor or 2 between now and application season. Volunteering wise I can't find any hospital that'll take applications until June. I've got other non-clinical stuff going on though with my Church, so it's not as if I'm too one-dimensional.

That's rough news, I figure that if it doesn't happen this cycle (or if I bomb the MCAT and need to wait) it can only strengthen my future application to have more research experience at my current job. It would give me a chance to get published as well (still working on that, we're writing up a paper at the moment). Congrats on your acceptances though, gives me some hope!

 

[Katatonic]

Also as far as undergrad research, I was a lab aide for 1 year (no real projects involved, just general lab duties) and did a 3 month full-time summer research internship at the NIH so I suppose I have ~3 years of research experience. I'll have great LoR's from my undergrad lab job, my NIH internship, my current supervisor, and also the director of the Institute I work for (part of the medical school I will apply to). Professors will be a challenge for me, but I'm going to talk to a few soon and see if they'll help me out.