- clinical experience is any situation where you can observe close up and first hand the interaction between physicians and patients. You also need to interact with the patients yourself. (And by close up, the LizzyM test applies–you have to be close enough to smell the patients.)
Clinical experience can be done at a hospital, a stand alone clinic (like Planned Parenthood, Healthcare for the Homeless or a public county free clinic), a hospice, cancer center, rehab hospital, stand alone surgical center, group home for the mentally ill or physically disabled, skilled nursing home.
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study abroad. You can do a summer abroad after sophomore year. Or you can spread out your med school pre-reqs over 4 years instead of 3 and apply after you graduate. You’ll have a gap year, but that might not be a bad thing. It will give you time to enjoy your college experience and time to strengthen your ECs. (BTW, 1/2 of all applicants take gap years.)
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while aiming high is commendable, your goal should be to get into ANY medical school, not just a top 20. Every year 60% of med school applicants don’t get a single acceptance.
Medical school admission is much more than just having great stats. While having a great GPA and MCAT score is important, if you are missing the expected ECs (physician shadowing, clinical experience, community service with those less fortunate than yourself, leadership and for top 20 programs-- significant bench or clinical research), your application won’t get a second look from adcomms.
Read p. 4 to see what attributes adcomms value in applicants:
https://www.aamc.org/download/462316/data/2017mcatguide.pdf