Your school is built to help you find clinical and research experiences, be it through fellowships abroad, local summer internships, or work in the university's research labs. And many prospective medical students use personal connections to land volunteering gigs and shadowing experiences, which is great. Get these however you can…
But, what do you do if your school isn't automatically flooding you with information on opportunities and your aunt's fiancé isn’t the top brain surgeon in your city? Try this.
1. Seek out your pre-health advisor and pre-med professors. “[An on-campus pre-health advisor] may be in the academic dean’s office, a science professor, or a counselor in the career services office,” says AAMC. If you don’t know of an advisor on your campus, you can find out if there is one through the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP) database. No advisor on campus? Contact the NAAHP to find a volunteer advisor. Can your advisor or a pre-med professor help you connect with someone at your university's medical school so that you can help in a lab or at an affiliated hospital? Can they give you the contact info of a physician alumnus who you can shadow? Your advisor and professors are motivated to help you; they want your application to be a success. You just might have to be the one who makes the first move.
2. Hit up your school's medical school and science department. Same DIY deal. If, for whatever reason, your pre-health advisor isn't available to you, go ahead and contact these folks yourself. It shows initiative and you could make valuable connections on the administrative teams.
3. Check out the Student Doctor Network's Activity Finder. We're big fans of SDN, a nonprofit, and overall terrific resource. Their Activity Finder is a one-stop shop that will guide you towards NIH and other research opportunities, volunteering gigs with Americorps and more, virtual shadowing experiences, and clinical work by location and position.
4. Check other online listings—for research opportunities, especially. Besides SDN, some university websites have databases of summer research opportunities at both their college and others. (You don't have to go to a certain school to work at it. We had a client who went to UConn do her summer research at Yale.) And definitely peruse AAMC's database of summer research opportunities for undergraduates.
Related:
Your Pre-Med Priorities: Gain Clinical Experiences
Your Pre-Med Priorities: Clinical Experiences that Medical Schools Love
Your Pre-Med Priorities: How to Find Clinical Experiences for Your Gap Year(s)