Medical What should gap year plans be?

[GoSpursGo]

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Hello, I'm asking for my sister. She's graduating this June with a Biology major and plans to apply next cycle. (So, this would mean taking 2 gap years.) She's not too sure how to spend her gap years and which opportunities to apply to. Her school does not have a set pre-med advisor and the advice she received from a career coach was not helpful.

She has around a 3.4 gpa and hasn't yet taken the MCAT. Hopefully she can do that by the end of this year or at least by early Spring of next year. She's done 3 years of research, sometimes spending 20 hours a week in lab. She's worked in neuroscience/neuroengineering labs dealing with traumatic brain injury and neuron stimulation, so it's not at all clinical research. Last year, she received a research scholarship for an independent project in her lab. She's also been involved with a TBI nonprofit chapter at her school and was president of it for one year. She's also on the executive board of the national (student-run) nonprofit as well and plans to continue in that position after graduating. She's just started virtual shadowing and plans to volunteer in a hospital during her gap years as well.

Do you have any advice on how else she should be spending her gap years? Or, even opportunities she should apply to/focus on?

Thank you!!

Honestly with a 3.4, she should strongly consider a DIY post-bacc. The average GPA for med school matriculants is closer to the 3.6-3.7 range. She probably can't quite get up to that level, but a couple of semesters of 4.0 performance would help a lot to prove that she has what it takes to withstand the academic rigor of med school. Caveat is that she has to be willing and able to fully commit to that--if she does it while she's trying to juggle too many other things and doesn't perform well, this would really hurt her.

I'm sure she wants to get into med school ASAP, but it's really critical to take the time she needs. Rushing things can lead to mistakes that are difficult to come back from.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

If she wants MD, she will need post-bac coursework. She also needs to get clinical volunteer work. She has none thus far? She should get AT LEAST 150-200 hours before she applies. Now, she has to do all this AND study for the MCAT.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Why doesn't she want to do research? There are a few research programs i know that recruit students interested in translational research and work with clinicians. What shadowing and clinical work has she done?

 

[GoSpursGo]

Thank you. It sounds like a big priority for her will be to take science courses (maybe 2 or 3?) from a local university and to get A's in them. Is it possible to take independent post-bacc courses or will she need to enroll in a program. I also believe, after this semester, she might be able to bump up her undergrad gpa to a 3.5 (which is not ideal, but at least slightly higher.)

I believe she has about 20 hours of virtual shadowing so far and can steadily chip away at that. In the TBI campus organization she's involved with, I believe she has around 80+ hours giving peer support (through video calls, phone, and e-mail) for people with a traumatic brain injuries and organizing structured activities for them. Does this count as clinical volunteering at all? She might also be able to get more clinical volunteering experience through a crisis text line as well, which is more flexible in terms of hours?

She has been thinking about applying to a clinical research position (probably part-time if she needs to do post-back classes and volunteering or even just for her second year?), but we were worried that she already has so much research under her belt that more would not be helpful. Other things we were considering were scribing, an AmeriCorps position that's based in a clinic, or a nonclinical/public health service year (but it seems she needs a lot more clinical work), EMT, or phlebotomy courses.

The bolded is not correct—think ~30 hours total. Getting a couple of A’s isn’t enough, she needs to prove that she can handle the academic rigors of Med school.

that needs to be priority one. However else she acquired Clijical hours is important too, but she can’t lose sight of how important it is that she excel in these classes and do well on the MCAT. You can always get more hours later, but she needs to ace her academics from here on out.

 

[Goro]

Your sister's GPA is fine for DO schools right now. If she's more interested in MD, then she needs to read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

She needs to prove for at least a year that she can succeed in medical school level courses...not 2-3 courses.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Peer support through phone or text in my book leans more towards community service (even if you're getting paid) since you are not observing the doctor-patient relationship. The counter-argument in favor of clinical exposure is whether the training and supervision comes from health care providers at the appropriate level of credentialing in collaboration with physicians. If you want clinical experience, in my opinion, you have witness the impact of doctor-patient relationships in the US health care system... not just about being in a hospital. This is not always a clean definition since it varies among who you/I talk to.