Summer is when a lot of pre-health students try to go out and get real-world experience. To do this, two options come up again and again: pre med summer internships and service trips abroad. They’re often framed as competitors, but they both offer very different, very valuable things. Here’s an honest look at what each one gives you, and why some students end up doing both.

What Pre Med Summer Internships Offer

Summer internships for pre-health students usually fall into a few categories: research in a lab or clinic, clinical roles like medical scribing or patient care assistance, and public health work with health departments or nonprofits.

Their biggest strength is time. Most run several weeks to a full summer, which gives you room to build real skills, take on responsibility, and get to know mentors who can speak to your work. Some are paid. The trade-off is competition: many have application deadlines in the winter or early spring, so plan ahead.

What Volunteering Abroad Offers

Service trips are usually shorter. A MEDLIFE Service Learning Trip lasts about one to two weeks, and is not structured to help you learn clinical skills, rather than to shadow and learn.

What a SLT offers instead is perspective. You directly witness how health care works in communities with limited access, learn from local doctors, nurses, and community leaders, and work on development projects the community chose for themselves based on their most immediate needs. Many students come back thinking differently about why access to care is so uneven, including in their own country.

How They Compare

Time. Internships take most of a summer. A service trip takes about one to two weeks.

What you build. Internships build skills and sustained experience. Service trips build understanding of health systems, culture, and the social factors that shape health.

Your role. In an internship, you may take on real responsibilities with training. On a service trip, licensed local professionals provide the care, and you’re there to learn.

Cost. Some internships pay, others don’t. Service trips cost money, though fundraising and scholarships can help cover much of it.

You Don’t Have To Choose

Because a service trip is so short, it fits alongside most other summer plans. One MEDLIFE chapter president spent her summer at a research internship and has also gone on two Service Learning Trips. Another shadows a dentist at home while leading her chapter’s trips abroad. Each experience gave them something the other couldn’t.

How To Decide

Ask yourself a few questions:

• What do I need right now? If you want hands-on skills or research experience, an internship is the better fit. If you want to understand health care beyond the clinic, a trip offers something different.
• What can I afford? Compare stipends, trip costs, and fundraising options honestly.
• How much time do I have? A week is easier to fit in than ten.

Whatever you choose, the fact that you are seeking out real-world medical exposure and experience is more than a lot of students can say.

To learn how you can join a MEDLIFE service learning trip in Latin America or Africa, fill out the form below or download our brochure today!