weigh-in on summer work

[Vaseline]

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Hello all,

i would appreciate some input on a summer internship i am planning on starting this upcoming summer. specifically, it is an internship with a cancer clinic that conducts clinical research. from my knowledge, my actual duties will consist mainly of helping transfer patient records to a new electronic data program. aside from that, i was told i would be able to attend meetings with some of the researchers and shadow different personnel (research nurses, clinical coordinators) to round out the experience.

from a pre-med perspective, how does this experience look? a viable summer option?

anyone helped out with clinical research before? how was the experience?

any input is appreciated

 

[Vaseline]

this would be my sophomore summer. as far as clinical experience goes, i have been/ will continue to log clinical hours working in patient transportation at a local hospital. also, i already have about 50 hours of shadowing, and will end up applying with two semesters of wet lab work, as it is part of my major's curriculum.

the internship initially appealed to me because i already will be doing wet lab research in the future, and i wanted to see what clinical research is all about. the realization of limited patient contact was kind of a bummer, but i still see the opportunity to learn about different types of treatments/ drugs for different cancers.

with that additional info, what do you all think??

 

[CheA]

this would be my sophomore summer. as far as clinical experience goes, i have been/ will continue to log clinical hours working in patient transportation at a local hospital. also, i already have about 50 hours of shadowing, and will end up applying with two semesters of wet lab work, as it is part of my major's curriculum.

the internship initially appealed to me because i already will be doing wet lab research in the future, and i wanted to see what clinical research is all about. the realization of limited patient contact was kind of a bummer, but i still see the opportunity to learn about different types of treatments/ drugs for different cancers.

with that additional info, what do you all think??

I think your reasoning is sound, especially if you are interested in doing research as part of your future career. I haven't had any clinical research experience prior to med school applications, and I feel that I would have benefited from having perspectives from both the basic and the clinical sides of research. Timing is good given this is your summer after sophomore year (meaning early enough), and the depth of experience shouldn't matter all that much as you will be doing wet lab research later on. Although ultimately your wet lab research where you take ownership of a project will be more valuable for application purposes, some exposure to clinical research cannot hurt. If I were you, my goal would be to gain understanding of how clinical research is designed and managed, and to enjoy the summer before you begin junior year (summer after junior year will be busy and you should focus only on things that really matter).