Throughout the last four years as a pre-med student, the biggest stressor I have seen in myself and my peers is what I like to call The Checklist Syndrome. When we start on this journey, we are told: “You will get into medical school if you have this GPA and that MCAT and volunteer at a hospital and shadow five doctors and volunteer at the soup kitchen and hold a leadership position in a student organization and work in a research lab and, and, and…”
Recently, I was talking to a peer that I have taken classes with for a few years now and she said, “So I think I have everything in order to apply to medical school except I need to find a research position.” I asked her if she was interested in research and she wasn’t so sure. All she knew was that she “needed” research to get into a good medical school.
I know how easy it is to get caught up in the Checklist Syndrome of it all. A couple of years ago, I was on the prowl for a research position and I was doing everything that you are supposed to in order to get a research position. I was spending so much free time emailing professors on campus coming up with reasons why I would be interested in their research and asking for meetings. All of this effort was to no avail so eventually I decided I could get into medical school without research, so screw it.
It was very soon after that when I was sitting in a professor’s office hours when out of the blue he asked me if I would be interested in becoming a part of his research team. I immediately agreed and almost two years later, it has become one of the biggest influences in my education throughout my entire college career. The point that I think one should take away from this is that the best things come to you when you are not looking for them. There is a balance to be found between stressing yourself out looking for positions that you are not passionate about and seizing opprotunities that you have worked towards.
The truth is, AMCAS does not have boxes labeled: research, shadowing, volunteering, leadership, et cetera. The application has 15 boxes for your experiences with three most meaningful. That is what medical schools are looking for: meaningful experiences. The qualities that medical schools are looking for in a future physician are passion, altruism, and dedication. You can show your dedication and passion for medicine through your grades and tests scores – the quantitative portion of your application – and the reality is that schools will use a computer program to screen out applications using minimum values in these areas but you can also show these aspects via the qualitative portions of your application. If you are pursuing opprotunities that are important to you and you are gaining experience and maturity, you will be prepared for medical school.
We all know how stressful the whole process is and we want to do everything in our power to increase our odds of admission but if you are just checking off boxes on a list, you will end up doing yourself a disservice by making your application seem insincere.
Tips for great experiences on your AMCAS:
- Advocate for a Cause >> start or join a club advocating for a cause you are passionate about, such as women’s rights and the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA)
- Research to the Beat of Your Own Drums >> look into undergraduate thesis programs at your university and start a research project that you are interested in instead of jumping into a lab that you feel forced into
- Volunteer Outside the Box >> instead of applying for a volunteer position at the hospital like every other pre-med, try looking into other volunteer opprotunities in your area like becoming a guardian ad litem for children in court, volunteering as a camp councillor at a summer camp for chronically ill children, or Boys and Girls Club, nursing homes, churches… the world is your oyster
- Brighten Up Your Shadowing >> while your pre-med friends are shadowing their family primary care doctors and childhood physicians, you could be shadowing in a foreign country through programs such as GapMedics, Atlantis Project, or Child Family Health International
Thank you for your interest in my very first post! Please support my blog by following via email.
