Summer Success for High School Students Interested in Medicine

Medicine is an extremely rewarding and competitive career path, such that many people dream of becoming doctors from a young age and want to begin preparing as soon as possible. If you are one of these people, there are several action items you can complete during the summer that will prepare you for success in the field of medicine.

For most American kids, summer is the time of the year to enjoy unstructured free time away from school and other commitments. But for high achievers looking to one day enter medical school, high school is the time when summers become increasingly regimented and filled with summer school, test prep courses, or internships designed to boost one’s chances of getting into college or beyond.

Certainly, college and medical school admissions are becoming increasingly competitive, and many students (or more accurately—their parents) are pressured into embracing the arms race that is the higher education system in the US. And you should—Your college education absolutely does affect your future career.

That said, please make sure to have fun and leave yourself some free time to spend doing the things you love with the people most important to you. You will have the rest of your life to work hard and achieve your goals.

Now without further ado, here are five tips that high school students interested in medicine can follow in the summer to get ahead of the curve.

1 | Demonstrate Leadership

Demonstrating leadership is probably the most important (and convoluted) tip for someone interested in medicine from a young age. Physicians are leaders who are respected by those in their communities, and medical schools are looking to admit students who will be future leaders in medicine.

Furthermore, proving that you have leadership potential will not only help you get into college and medical school but also help you succeed in life. Summers offer plenty of free time to pursue extracurricular activities that exemplify your capacity for leadership.

A great way to demonstrate leadership is to identify and commit yourself to a longitudinal volunteering opportunity, particularly one with underserved communities. Working with the disadvantaged is particularly beneficial for young people interested in medicine, as doing so will deepen your empathy skills and demonstrate your commitment to the needy.

Some excellent volunteer opportunities include tutoring students from disadvantaged backgrounds, serving homeless populations, or working with disabled individuals. Whatever you do, stick with one volunteer opportunity you’re passionate about so that you can demonstrate your commitment to service and possibly take on more responsibilities.

This longitudinal volunteer opportunity does not necessarily have to be related to medicine—in fact, it’s better if it’s not. This is because you likely won’t be given enough opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills in a medicine-related volunteer activity, as medicine requires years of specialized training. Regardless of how dedicated you may be to learning, you’re still in high school.

Another great way to demonstrate leadership is to get involved in student government or clubs. These activities will teach you how to organize events, bring your peers together, and manage your time well. Like your single longitudinal volunteer commitment, work in student government or a particular club throughout high school so that you can rise through the ranks and hold a few different leadership positions in the latter years of high school.

Check out these 5 Tips for Summer Volunteering Success.

2 | Volunteer in Something Related to Medicine

Exposing yourself to medicine through volunteering offers several advantages.

For one, you will start to understand what being a physician actually entails and what working in healthcare facilities is really like. Secondly, volunteering in a medicine-related field demonstrates your commitment to and interest in becoming a physician.

Some volunteer opportunities related to medicine include volunteering in clinics, hospitals, or emergency rooms. Bear in mind, that you will likely be doing mundane tasks like folding sheets, cleaning patient rooms, or wheeling patients around in wheelchairs. However, exposing yourself to the world of medicine from an early age is one of, if not the best, way to gauge your comfort with and passion for the hospital environment.

Read our Extracurricular Volunteering Guide.

3 | Shadow Physicians in Different Specialties

Shadowing physicians is a great way to see what medicine is like and understand what it takes to become a physician. If you have any family or friends who are physicians, make sure to reach out to them to see if you can shadow them.

If you do not have such connections, a good place to start is asking your primary care provider if you can shadow them or if they can refer you to someone who you can shadow. Cold emailing a physician is unlikely to turn up much, so treat this option as a last resort.

If you have the opportunity to shadow different physicians in different specialties, take it. There are many, many different kinds of doctors. Are you eager to become a family medicine physician, developing longitudinal relationships with an entire family? Are you most interested in surgery and its many subspecialties? Or are you most interested in exploring the brain through psychiatry or neurology?

When it comes to medicine, the world is your oyster. There are innumerable ways you can make your patients well, so expose yourself to as many specialties as you can to explore and determine the career path that most excites you.

How Many Shadowing Hours Are Required for Medical School?

4 | Apply for Research Internships

Laying a strong foundation in scientific thinking and investigation is crucial for aspiring physicians. This can be done by taking the initiative to secure biomedical research internships. Apply for internships at major research universities that are close to your home. This is because many of these internships are unpaid, and you’re still in high school. Your parents likely aren’t going to be too keen on you moving out this soon!

For instance, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. The closest major research university to the house I grew up in is Stanford University. After a brief Google search, I found that Stanford offers an 8-week program for high school students over 16 years old that exposes them to basic research on a medically-oriented project. It is likely that the major university closest to your house offers something similar.

These are competitive internships, so make sure to start working on your application well before the deadline.

Learn more from our Premed and Medical Student Summer Research Guide.

5 | Take Summer Coursework

Taking summer courses is another exceptional way to beef up your academic numbers and ensure you have the grades and test scores to get into a competitive college.

That said, only take academic coursework over the summer if you have poor grades or test scores. Summer should be about enriching yourself with extracurricular activities (emphasis on the extra), and more schoolwork is not going to broaden your horizons or open your mind to new things.

If you do decide to attend summer school, I would recommend focusing your attention on courses related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). These include math, biology, chemistry, and physics. Make sure that you are prepared to take the AP and SAT II tests relevant to these subjects and STEM.

Succeed in Summer and Beyond

For those of you who have been interested in medicine from an early age, high school is a great time to begin preparing yourself for this rewarding career.

The five tips described in this post will ensure that you are ahead of the curve compared to your peers and will make you stand out to college admissions committees. We at Med School Insiders applaud the initiative you are showing in researching how to prepare yourself for medical school; however, make sure to keep an open mind throughout the remainder of your high school and college education.

Medicine is indeed a wonderful field, and there are so many different ways to be involved, but there is also so much else out there. Do not want to pigeon hole yourself into one career path too early. Do your research, and keep an open mind.

Curious to learn more about what you can do to prepare yourself for one day applying to medical school? Med School Insiders will pair you with a physician advisor who fits your specific needs. We can answer your questions about what to do with your summers, how to make the decisions that best suit your work style, habits, and goals, and how to succeed in applying to medical school.

Reach out to our team to learn more about our services, and follow the Med School Insiders blog for the latest how-to advice, strategies, personal stories, and industry updates. As you progress in college, we have comprehensive guides dedicated to helping you create the best possible medical school application, from acing your MCAT to your personal statement to your letters of recommendation to your extracurriculars and beyond.