Confused? Hospital Volunteer center says they don't offer clinical experience?

[alphamine]

Hi,

So I applied to be a volunteer at a hospital, and they say on the website that we can choose whether we'd volunteer in the ER, radiology, medical/surgical, etc. They contacted me saying that they don't offer clinical experience (since, on my application, I wrote that down for one of my reasons for volunteering). They said that volunteers wheel patients to other departments and after discharge, or deliver flowers. But they said I will be contacted again for an interview appointment.

I'm a little confused. Should I not volunteer at this hospital then, because they say they don't offer clinical experience?

Please could someone explain what is meant by this? I don't want to go ahead and volunteer here if the medical schools won't acknowledge this hospital as clinical experience.

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[Nave]

There definition of "clinical experience" and SDN's definition of "clinical experience" may differ. The general consensus on here is that if you can smell a patient, touch a patient, etc it's clinical experience. I would interview and address your questions/concerns to who ever is interviewing you.

 

[Just Call Me Doc]

This is just a complete guess, but I imagine that the hospital is defining "clinical experience" as activities such as taking vitals, starting IV's, drawing blood, etc... (I can picture some lawyer at the hospital sweating over the use of the term "clinical experience" for volunteers) As @Nave said (and passed by @LizzyM) if you can smell the patients then you're good for clinical experience for medical school application.

 

[Mad Jack]

The above posters are correct. You will interact with patients and family, but you will not have interactions in which you have an impact upon their clinical course.

 

[alphamine]

Okay, thank you all. So, is this a good volunteer job for med school, then? Wheeling patients between departments as well as outside after discharge?

 

[songl4a]

.

 

[lifetothefullest]

Okay, thank you all. So, is this a good volunteer job for med school, then? Wheeling patients between departments as well as outside after discharge?

I wouldn't view it as a "good job for med school." Rather, I'd view it as sort of a learning experience and exposure to something new, something related to healthcare. Otherwise you're not going to like doing it. Especially since what many hospital volunteers do is clean beds, change sheets, talk to patients, etc. If you want something more hands-on, I'd suggest you look at doing an EMT course and riding as a volunteer EMT. Then you would be taking vitals, doing field assessments and treatments within a narrow scope of practice, etc.

 

[LizzyM]

Here's what I wrote about hospital experiences more than a few years ago and repeated 3 years ago,
"Would you believe that a volunteer wheeled me out of the hospital about a month ago? I asked & he said he was "pre-pharmacy" (I didn't really believe him.). Here's what I think you can practice when transporting patients:

Attention to detail. The volunteer didn't pay much attention to my limb that was injured and managed to run into things that caused me some big time hurt. If you can't operate a wheelchair, should we trust you with other medical equipment?

Small talk. Patients are often bored to tears. If you can make some small talk about the weather or whatever (the patient hasn't been outside in awhile and might like to know what its like outside).

A willing spirit. There is a lot of scut in the hospital. Someone needs to do it. A cheerful spirit of service goes a long way in making a patients hospital stay a pleasant one."

 

[Goro]

Pre-meds, print these words in gold on your foreheads!!!!

Here's what I wrote about hospital experiences more than a few years ago and repeated 3 years ago,
"Would you believe that a volunteer wheeled me out of the hospital about a month ago? I asked & he said he was "pre-pharmacy" (I didn't really believe him.). Here's what I think you can practice when transporting patients:

Attention to detail. The volunteer didn't pay much attention to my limb that was injured and managed to run into things that caused me some big time hurt. If you can't operate a wheelchair, should we trust you with other medical equipment?

Small talk. Patients are often bored to tears. If you can make some small talk about the weather or whatever (the patient hasn't been outside in awhile and might like to know what its like outside).

A willing spirit. There is a lot of scut in the hospital. Someone needs to do it. A cheerful spirit of service goes a long way in making a patients hospital stay a pleasant one."

 

[alphamine]

I wouldn't view it as a "good job for med school." Rather, I'd view it as sort of a learning experience and exposure to something new, something related to healthcare. Otherwise you're not going to like doing it.

I must have chosen the wrong words, as you seem to have misunderstood. I absolutely want to learn from this experience. What I meant was, if I spend the next two years doing this as my only clinical experience (or what I am now considering to be clinical experience), will the hours go to waste? I understand that you have to learn from these experiences, and I'm okay with cleaning up beds and vomit and blood, because I want to be a doctor. I don't mind it. It's what doctors deal with every day. I probably won't be doing that at this hospital, according to the volunteer center, but it is something I would be willing to do as a learning experience.

I am not going to do this simply to look good. However, I am also not going to do this if the hours I am planning to do will not be acknowledged by medical schools and I will therefore be rejected due to an inability to show what is considered, by them, to be 'clinical' experience. I can learn something from every volunteer activity I do, as I have in the past, but the whole point of this question was to determine whether this learning experience will be recognized as 'clinical' by medical schools.

I am not planning on doing 300+ hours (which is more than what has been considered enough by users on this forum) for resume inflation. I sincerely want to have exposure to medicine, and I was wondering whether or not this is what I should be looking for. If I could, I would volunteer at every organization out there, and consequently learn from each one, but let's not forget that my purpose here is also to prepare and increase my chances for medical school.

 

[LizzyM]

Adcoms will count this as the experience of being around sick and/or injured people who are seeking health care services. They will count it as time spent learning about the hospital environment, the team approach to tasks, and how to deal with staff, patients and families in this environment. Adcoms know that without training you can't do anything "hands on" but you need some exposure to the environment and to be sure it is right for you before anyone will invest the resources to train you in medicine or another health care field.

 

[blah12346497]

Sorry to steal the moment of focus OP, but would working in a clinic enrolling and counseling patients into the Affordable Care Act / Medicaid be classified into clinical experience? The job requires frequent contact with patients. If volunteering is considered clinical experience wouldn't this be also?

 

[Goro]

The purpose of clinical volunteering is to show us that you understand what you're getting into and that you really want to be around those annoying sick people and their families for the next 30-40 years. it's to not learn how to take BPs or do pelvic exams. That's what med school is for.

Capeesh?


What I meant was, if I spend the next two years doing this as my only clinical experience (or what I am now considering to be clinical experience), will the hours go to waste? I understand that you have to learn from these experiences, and I'm okay with cleaning up beds and vomit and blood, because I want to be a doctor. I don't mind it. It's what doctors deal with every day. I probably won't be doing that at this hospital, according to the volunteer center, but it is something I would be willing to do as a learning experience.

 

[alphamine]

The purpose of clinical volunteering is to show us that you understand what you're getting into and that you really want to be around those annoying sick people and their families for the next 30-40 years. it's to not learn how to take BPs or do pelvic exams. That's what med school is for.

Capeesh?

Yep, capisce.

Thank you.

Sorry to steal the moment of focus OP, but would working in a clinic enrolling and counseling patients into the Affordable Care Act / Medicaid be classified into clinical experience? The job requires frequent contact with patients. If volunteering is considered clinical experience wouldn't this be also?

Not all volunteering is clinical. For example, volunteering to clean up the beaches is not clinical. As for your circumstance, I'm not too sure. It seems like more of an office experience than it is 'clinical', since the main focus is insurance. You're in contact with patients, but not really 'smelling' them. I could be wrong, though. Just a pre-med who got her limited knowledge from SDN lol

 

[blah12346497]

I work with the doctors to enroll their patients into plans that they meet their health needs and plans that the doctor accepts. I am definitely "smelling them" unless smelling here as some other meaning I am unaware of. I'm just not sure where to classify this job when the next app cycle opens up :\

 

[NeuResurgens]

In all honestly it sounds like a clinical experience. They must define "clinical" as providing patient care. That's not what medical schools require. What they are about are whether you worked in a clinical environment. See LizzyM's ever famous quote regarding what counts as a clinical experience: if you can smell patients, it's clinical.

 

[NonTradJp]

It's useful experience that you can make the most out of. I enjoyed talking to the patients to find out their story of what happened and compare it with what the doctors and nurses describe. It gives you the sense of what is important in the care of patients medically and what is important to the patients individually. Also be proactive in talking to the staff. You can do a lot more than what is stated if you take advantage of the situation.

When I volunteered many of the other volunteers felt like they could not see much or do much. However, because I was willing to come in on the busy Friday evenings till Saturdays mornings I got to see a lot of interesting traumas and got interesting answers to my naive questions. I was not really left doing scut work though I did all that was needed. The big plus was seeing a great deal of of patient interaction.