Hi all. I'm a 25 year old sophomore in college with a family. I work full time and go to school at night.
I am a biology major and should be attending Roosevelt U in Chicago soon.
The thing is I have no medical/research experience at all and I feel a bit intimidated.
I read a lot of people's diaries and posts here and sdn and most people have some type of experience.
Is there anyone out there who is new to the road to med school who really has no experience yet?
Hi! I tried to respond to your similar post on SDN but the server is kinda slow right now.
I'm 39, no real medical experience. The closest I've come is helping to care for my invalid aunt in high school and a couple of hospital vigils–my father has had two major surgeries (abdominal aneurysm repair and hip replacement) in the last few years and we had to have family members with him all the time because the anesthesia made him so wonky.
I have an appointment with my school's premed advisor next week. If she's helpful, I'll get her assistance on setting up appropriate volunteer experience. If she's not, I'll start networking on my own. I've just registered this semester for Chemistry I, my first step in getting my prereqs. Whee.
I had little to no experience in medicine when I started my journey (starting with pre-med classes) at age 29. I felt intimidated when I started, and now that I'm in medical school I still feel intimidated every day. But that doesn't mean it's a bad experience…it's a great experience. You'll get through it. Enjoy!
Thanks mpp!
Hi there, Agent!
I, too, am a 25-year-old pre-med student with a family. Like you, I have absolutely, positively NO medical or research experience. Until last semester, I was a Journalism major. 
I’ve since switched to English and Biology.
I joined this board to gain some perspective on life as a pre-med/med student, but I’m finding it difficult to relate to most of the people here. I’m very much at a disadvantage in terms of experience, which the vast majority of those who post regularly seem to have heaps of. Perhaps we can keep each other posted on our progress!
Take care!
Dana
Maybe so, Dana, but you've got it all over 39-year-old me in terms of that whole-life-ahead-of-you stuff. It all balances out.
Guys the only way to get the inside look is to go out and either shadow a physician or volunteer in a hospital, or both. It is not that difficult and it is not a huge time commitment. I spend anywhere from 2-4 hours per week volunteering at the hospital and some weeks I cannot go and that is fine (of course this may vary depending on the hospital). I have shadowed twice and hopefully will get two more in before med school applications go out next June. If you start early in your pre-med path to do this, you will hae substantial exposure and you will not be jumping through your @$$ when application time comes. There is a lot of room to put down EC's on the AMCAS application, and yes, as non-trads we have other things to put down (boy/girl scouts, PTA, etc), but we also need to be able to talk to adcoms why we want to go into medicine and why we would be good candidates. This is done by seeing first hand what it entails. I know that many folks do get into medical school with zero clinical exposure but these cases are not the norm. A good way to make contact with a doc to shadow is pull out the Yellow Pages and make some phone calls, or better yet ask your physician. Of course if you already have prior healthcare exposure than you are good to go (nurses, emt, rt)
what efex said.
when you’re asked at interviews “why medicine?” you’ll need to give some good concrete examples of what has spurred you to make this pursuit. While it is possible to be inspired by something other than some experience, it’s probably easier to just allude to things you’ve seen and done!