Quote:
Originally Posted by Echo M3
You'll find that shadowing gets boring REAL fast. I had a pre-med shadow me last month, and she looked bored to tears after about 6-8 hours (it was an outpatient clinic).
Instead, do what I suggested in the other post - find a job or opportunity to help with a clinical trial or research project. You'll get your patient exposure, you'll have a chance to interact with med students, residents, and attendings, and you will learn MUCH more. Bonus points if you can get your name on any publications that come out of it (although completely unnecessary).
|
I somewhat agree and disagree with shadowing getting boring very fast. It may, but be sure to choose a field that you'd really enjoy, or else the hours and hours in clinic, ER, or OR can get boring. Most of my shadowing (3.5 years +) was all done in Orthopedic surgery and I still enjoy it to this day.
As for working with med students and residents, I highly recommend it. They can give you recent insight that perhaps older physicians cannot provide. Also, they are making a lot of publications while in residency or med school, many of which are clinical studies. Most are always glad to have an undergrad help them out and I have found that to be one of the quickest, and easiest ways to get some research experience and get a publication under your name. As for the higher ranking academic institutions, publications certainly do help, and might even be necessary for admission. I also agree with sending out your AMCAS information early. Letter writers lag with writing letters of rec, transcripts take forever to send (send them out months in advance), and writing a good application take some time. I submitted a few days after the app opened and it worked greatly to my advantage in terms of getting secondarys.