If physician shadowing requires connections

texaspg
Tue, 14 May 2019 20:52:28 +0000

There is a methodical way to determine what is important for medical applications, same as undergrad. They give you spaces to fill out a bunch of activities (15), ask you to elaborate on 3 you felt gave you the most meaningful experience.

If you start filling out the 15 and find that you have a lot of activities you have done but no clinical hours, no shadowing, no medical research - not sure it is truly a major issue. If you have volunteered at homeless shelter or a soup kitchen but not at a hospital, does that truly make a difference in human experience of suffering? If you did not work on cure for cancer but worked on an app development instead, does it reduce your capability to do research?

I told my kids and anyone who ever asks me for advice - Focus on classes and tests. GPA and MCAT make up about 80+% of your application points at most schools. There are schools like UT Southwestern that dole out interviews in August without receiving recommendations or reviewing the full application based on just those two attributes or what is commonly referred to as LizzyM score.

I think medical schools take the brightest and most hard working kids and then bore them to death training them with long hours of muscle memory training (not just me - many doctors tell me this since some have kids going through primary care rotations with long hours). All the other things that go on their resumes - just to see if they can fit in.