We would like to give you some advice here.
What do we mean by professional development and what does that have to do with you as a medical school applicant?
Applicants often ask what they should do before they apply to medical school. Perhaps you have asked. Perhaps what you really meant was -- what should you do to help you get into medical school? Is volunteering in an emergency room a good thing to do? How about research? How much? What kind?
Those questions suggest a "recipe" approach -- one semester of research plus a stint in an ER plus a visit to a soup kitchen equals a successful medical school applicant.
We disagree. There is no checklist of approved activities and there is no formula for getting into medical school.
So what do we want? We want you to be convinced -- and then to convince us -- that you have the aptitudes, interests, and motivation to be a good physician. We want you to be convinced -- and then to convince us -- that you've tested the waters and know that it's right for you. To do that you need to actually have done some things -- research, hospital volunteer, tutoring, shadowing, AIDS education, VISTA, Peace Corp, whatever -- and that you have:
Learned more about yourself
Learned more about medicine
Learned more about people
Learned more about science
and had fun doing it. We want you to be convinced -- and then to convince us -- that your goal is your own professional development and not simply getting into medical school.