High school: The time for tests, friends, prom…and pre-med? Though you might associate it with your future college days, you don’t have to wait until you leave home and live on campus to start exploring the pre-med track. Internships with a pre-med focus are a great way to get started.
Pre-med internships for high school students offer an early glimpse into your studies and, ultimately, your medical career. Bonus points if you do your internship abroad!
Going abroad during high school can enhance your resume, give you insight into your future, and challenge you in the best possible way. Add in the professional, hands-on experience you’ll get from a pre-med internship and you have a prescription for learning you’ll draw on in the classroom and beyond.
12 reasons to intern abroad pre-med during high school
The experience you gain will be invaluable!
A pre-med internship in high school offers more than just a way to build your resume for college and medical school (though it’s great for that, too!). When you intern abroad, you have the chance to learn about yourself and grow as a person, all while you make a real difference in a community through your contribution to health care initiatives. Pre-med internships for high school students let you:
1. Get an introduction to a career in medicine
If you’re looking for opportunities to explore pre-med for high school students, internships are an ideal entry point. Internships give you a firsthand understanding of what a career in medicine is really like so you can decide if pre-med is the path you want to pursue. You can also explore different career paths within health care that you haven’t considered.
2. Gain insight into the world of health care
Pre-med internships for high school students provide a window into the medical world you can’t get from books or even classes. Yes, you’ll expand your understanding of science and medicine, but you’ll also learn how it feels to work in a clinical setting. If you’re shadowing practitioners, you’ll see what goes into the day-to-day of working in a hospital or another clinical space.
3. Pick up non-medical knowledge
Skills like intercultural competence will be useful for the rest of your life.
Pre-med programs for high school students develop skills that go beyond the scientific and medical knowledge you gain, giving you all-around knowledge you can use in all sorts of places. If you’re interning abroad, you build intercultural understanding. You may even learn another language.
Though they’re not textbook science, these skills allow you to interact with diverse communities with empathy and confidence. They’re skills that will serve you well as you complete college requirements and embark on your future career.
4. Develop transferable skills
Internship opportunities for pre-med high school students don’t just hone academic skills. These opportunities are also a chance for you to build soft skills that will help you in the classroom, in medical settings, and in other areas of your life.
By gaining on-the-job experience, you’ll develop critical thinking and communication skills, learn about teamwork and professionalism, and prepare yourself for the world beyond high school—whatever career you ultimately choose.
5. Stand out on college and medical school applications
A pre-med internship in high school becomes a great line on your resume when you apply to college, medical school, and other internship and research opportunities. You’ll demonstrate a passion and curiosity for medicine with an experience that not everyone can claim. You’ll also show that you have abilities essential to success in academic and clinical settings thanks to those academic and soft skills you’ve honed through your internship.
6. Get a taste of living and working away from home
Test out your independence before heading to college!
College life comes at you fast with all those changes that come with living away from home. Traveling for an internship in high school can be a great way to get a feel for what it’s like to live on your own while keeping up with responsibilities. The transition to college won’t feel as daunting if you’ve done it all before.
7. Gain hands-on experience
Even if you’re not working directly with patients yourself, a pre-med internship means invaluable real-world experience. You’ll see how things really work in a medical setting before you even kick off your pre-med college classes.
Whether that means shadowing doctors and nurses, helping with outreach tasks for the community, or anything else your internship might include, the hands-on tasks you complete will give you a broader picture about what a career in health care is like and complement what you eventually learn in the classroom.
8. Travel and see a new place
Signing up for an internship often comes with the added perk of exploring a new place. You’ll see more of the world out there, and you’ll learn in different ways than you would by just cracking open a textbook. When you go somewhere new-to-you for an internship, you get to see why travel enriches your life and infuses your work with the perspectives you take in along the way.
9. Build your network
You never know who you might meet who can change your life.
Internships offer the chance to build a network, and that’s certainly the case with pre-med programs for high school students. You’ll get to form professional relationships with people you can turn to for references for college and other program applications. You can even start creating an international network if you do your pre-med internship abroad!
10. Show commitment to a future in medicine
If you want to set yourself apart on college and, later, medical school applications (and we know you do!), showing an ongoing commitment to the medical field goes a long way. Internship opportunities for pre-med high school students offer the chance to start making a difference as a high schooler. You’re not only dedicated to hitting the books and learning all you can in your pre-med classes—you’re also seeking out real-world experience and contributing to health care as soon as you can.
11. Learn about yourself
Internships are all about learning: about potential career fields, about professional life, and about yourself.
By expanding your knowledge and seeing firsthand what working in the medical field is like, you get to think about your future and decide you’re on the right path with a pre-med track. No matter the career you end up pursuing, your experiences will help you grow as a person as you navigate new and sometimes challenging situations while you learn.
12. Make a difference
You’ll have a tangible affect on the community you’re working in.
You don’t need to wait until you’re an undergraduate pre-med student to go for an internship. Pre-med internships for high school students let you contribute to meaningful initiatives now, putting your skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm to good use. Why wait to see how your compassionate care can change people’s lives for the better?
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3 pre-med internships for high school students to consider
Internships in pre-med for high school students can change the trajectory of your education. From hands-on learning to the opportunity to make a difference in the real world, internship programs offer so much. Here are three programs that let you see more of the world while getting a head start on your pre-med goals:
1. Pre-Med/Health Fellowships | IMA
- Why? Gain experience working in a busy international hospital on a program that collaborates with local, community-led initiatives to make a difference for populations that need it most. A combination of clinical work, hospital rounds, community outreach, and lectures means your intensive experience will prepare you for the next steps in your education and career. When you’re not shadowing a medical professional and learning as much as you can, you can immerse yourself in the host culture through adventure programming.
- Where? Kenya and Peru
- Read International Medical Aid (IMA) reviews
2. Costa Rica: Healthcare Education & Medical Outreach
- Why? This program, designed for high school students, lets you work alongside medical professionals helping to provide underprivileged and medically underserved families with access to medical care. Earn community service hours while you gain firsthand experience in real clinical settings. You’ll also have a chance to experience the adventurous side of Costa Rica (ziplining in the rainforest and hiking to waterfalls, anyone?).
- Where? Costa Rica
- Read Travel For Teens reviews
3. Medical Internship with Projects Abroad
- Why? High schoolers can look forward to a safe time abroad focused on experiential education during summer break they won’t forget about. With opportunities to shadow medical professionals in busy clinical settings, learn skills like measuring blood pressure and blood sugar levels, and participate in outreach to serve communities in need, this program is more than just an entry on your resume. It’s a way to make a difference and show your commitment to working in medicine.
- Where? Multiple options, including Argentina, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, and more
- Read Projects Abroad reviews
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It’s never too early to start thinking about your pre-med track!
Learning essential skills while you help out in health care? That’s just what the doctor ordered. Getting a head start and diving into pre-med experiences now can enhance your learning and set you up for future success. We’ll bet you look back on your pre-med internship for inspiration long after you start your medical career.
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This article was written with help from International Medical Aid, who also provided all photos seen above. IMA is a not-for-profit organization that offers medical programs for students in places like East Africa, South America, and the Caribbean through an ethics-based approach to care. They offer summer, fall, and winter programs.
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