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Old 01-29-2007, 01:31 PM
AZK AZK is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: medical school
Posts: 6,450
Default Re: Ask AZK about being Pre-med/Getting into Medical School

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I've only looked at the requirements for my university's med school, so I would like to know how much the premed requirements vary from med school to med school.

Also, my school recommends shadowing people in medical fields as well as community service. How much of each of these did you do and how much would you recommend doing?

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Most requirements are the same at all schools:

a year of physics
a year of bio.
a year of chem.

all with lab.
2 semesters of english
a semester of math/mathematical science
certificate of graduation
mcat

Certain schools require extra courses (i.e. biochemistry, stats, advanced bio.) and others want you to be well-rounded (1/4 of your 120 credits in social sciences (usc)) Generally the more competitive the school, the more requirements.

Shadowing is interesting...when you actually know something. I shadowed a doc once or twice in college, both of which were in my senior year, I got close to nothing out of it. I was horribly bored, didn't find anything remotely interesting, and I was kinda tired of waiting around and wandering around with him not having a [censored] clue what was going on. Good shadowing experiences are directly proportional to the amount of material you know. Freshmen year I got nothing out of it, senior year I close to nothing out of it, last week I shadowed a doc where virtually every patient we saw that day I had learned about something related to their illness in my classes. I didnt even feel the time go by and was completely interested. I'd shadow a little bit just to write it down and say that you've done it, but I wouldn't go overboard. I think I did <15 hours of shadowing in all of undergrad.

Community service...this is a big one. I was not much of a community service person(I did a lot of research instead) but it is really really important that they see you do this. Try and pick 1 activity med related and 1 non-related, and just try to do several hours consistently each semester. If you volunteer at the hospital it looks better doing it 3 hours /week for 2 years than a semester full time (12 hours/week), it's also easier to stomach. My application was lacking in community service...I did 1 year in the Michigan ED (3hours /week) horribly boring, and I taught hockey to kids for 3 years (fun, easy, community service)...
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