Volunteering versus Biomedical research

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Datdoctor

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First off, I'm a junior and I will hopefully be applying in June. That said, I am thinking of doing some sort of biomedical research this coming quarter and Spring quarter. I was wondering if schools would rather see me volunteer at the university hospital than do research or vice versa. I feel like I don't have too much time because I recently switched from pre-dent to pre-med. I currently have a summer internship lined up at my pediatric dentist's office for this summer. Do you think this will still be advantageous? I know it isn't what I would be going to medical school for but I think it can still be used for training in patient interactions and medicine in general. Any opinions are welcome as I am pretty confused about what to do now. Thanks!

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First off, I'm a junior and I will hopefully be applying in June. That said, I am thinking of doing some sort of biomedical research this coming quarter and Spring quarter. I was wondering if schools would rather see me volunteer at the university hospital than do research or vice versa. I feel like I don't have too much time because I recently switched from pre-dent to pre-med. I currently have a summer internship lined up at my pediatric dentist's office for this summer. Do you think this will still be advantageous? I know it isn't what I would be going to medical school for but I think it can still be used for training in patient interactions and medicine in general. Any opinions are welcome as I am pretty confused about what to do now. Thanks!

If you don't have much clinical experience or volunteering, definitely go with volunteering. And don't do research because you think you're supposed to. But if you like research, go for it.
 
volunteering (clinical exp) is pretty much mandatory for any medical school. research is just shy of mandatory for most and really mandatory for the top few.
 
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Suck it up and do both. I decided to go pre-med in my Junior year in college finishing my engineering degree. I had to do basic science research by day and volunteer in the ER by night to prove that I wanted to get into med school. Just manage your time well and you can do it.
 
First off, I'm a junior and I will hopefully be applying in June. That said, I am thinking of doing some sort of biomedical research this coming quarter and Spring quarter. I was wondering if schools would rather see me volunteer at the university hospital than do research or vice versa. I feel like I don't have too much time because I recently switched from pre-dent to pre-med. I currently have a summer internship lined up at my pediatric dentist's office for this summer. Do you think this will still be advantageous? I know it isn't what I would be going to medical school for but I think it can still be used for training in patient interactions and medicine in general. Any opinions are welcome as I am pretty confused about what to do now. Thanks!

Do both! or if you can only manage one because you can not handle it, then do clinical work. It is more important to have.

Also, I think you need to shadow MDs and not DMD/DDS. I know I would be curious as to why you were shadowing a dentist when you are applying to medical school. I would think you were applying to both and doubt your true interest in medicine. I also know someone that applied to both and did not get accepted to either with very competitive stats because they found out.

I would get myself away from the dentist perception now before I apply to medical school.
 
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