A Guide for Medical Internships for Undergraduates

If you know that you want to pursue a career in the medical field, then you definitely want to check out all the available medical internships for undergraduates. There are so many advantages to taking on a medical internship. Just like any other career field, actual experience as a medical intern and experiencing real life situations can help you decide if a medical career is really for you and also give you the experience that you may need to get a job in your field when you graduate.

There are several ways that you can go about applying for a medical internship program when you are an undergraduate. There are internship opportunities that are available from the college that you attend. If you are interested in this type of internship program, then you will need to either speak to your college counselor or the head of the science or medical department. Some colleges will partner with certain hospitals or medical facilities for internship programs or the internship may be a research program in which you work with professors at your college.

There are also medical internships for undergraduates that are offered by different hospitals and it doesn’t matter what college you attend. Most of the time these internship programs are much more competitive since you will have undergrads from all over applying to be the medical intern. Most hospitals will different programs for different departments and aspects of medicine. Be sure that you apply for the internship program in which you have the most interest in pursuing to gain the real life experience and to see if that is indeed the area of medicine that you want to pursue. For more information on applying for medical internships for hospitals you can check out the hospital’s website or call their human resource department to get specifics.

There are several different types of medical internships for undergraduates so expectations for the different programs are going to be different. Some internship opportunities may have you hands on helping doctors with patients, while others may have you studying case files and doing research for laboratories or doctors. Some of the basic duties that a medical intern may experience are performing first aid duties, prepping patient for doctors, stocking medical equipment, advising patients on the medicines that they are to take, sitting in on surgeries, shadowing doctors, and collecting lab work samples. Most medical internships are unpaid, but the experience that you can get from them is priceless.

If you are interested in medical internships for undergraduates here are some places to start:

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital offers 4 different medical internships for undergraduates. They are: Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology Training Programs, Child Life Internship Program, Developmental Biology Summer Student Program, Social Work Internship. These are a great option for any undergraduate who is interested in working with children in any aspect.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also offers several different types of internship opportunities as well as research programs for undergraduates. They have internships that deal with biomedical from a research perspective in which students get to work side-by-side with well-known scientists.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a great place to look for undergraduate medical internships. They are a non-profit organization that does medical research and helps to educate others. They offer a variety of different internships in the United States and Puerto Rico. Visit their website at http://www.hhmi.org/grants/reports/scienceopp/main to look at all the available opportunities that they have for undergraduates.

If you are truly serious about a career in the medical field, then an undergraduate internship is the best way to gain an advantage over your peers and get some real life hands-on experience.

Sources:
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/ed/clinical/Internships/default.htm
http://www.hhmi.org/
http://www.training.nih.gov/student/