Healthcare experience

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Hey everyone. For those of you who were accepted to medical schools, how did some of you gain your healthcare experience? Did some of you work in healthcare related fields or did you gain experience through other ways? Just curious. Thanks

Personally, I worked in a hospital for a while during college, in the emergency dept for a semester and neuro as a work study assistant for a while. I have friends that did medical consulting work with doctors, worked at free clinics/community centers, insurance providers, etc. There are a couple ways to get experience w healthcare and patients

I worked as a ptca for 2 summers during college and did little volunteering and shadowing. However, I would recommend more shadowing

My undergrad institution had a few programs where you put your department of interest down and they stick you in that wind of the hospital for 3hrs/wk a semester. The following semester you could do a formal shadowing program. You can informally do shadowing - just cold-call some docs. I also did SMEP (which I think has been renamed to SMDEP?). I volunteered at a psychiatric hospital thru a psych course. I also did some research work in the ER.

Basically, if there isn't a structured program at, near, or thru your school, just get your foot in the door somewhere and then go from there.

One of my friends who was pursuing medicine had worked in a hospital for a while to gain his practical experience.

In our place really sucks, you have to pay while on the job training. It is not good because your doing free service and your paying for your experience. Really hard when you noticed that corruption really exist on some hospital.