Uh, I don't know... satisfaction? What are you hoping to achieve by slaving away like a dog for 70+ hours for the rest of your life? To each his own. Good luck to you.
Is patient exposure necessary during clinical volunteering?
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deleted407021
So you will be gaming for 30+ hours a week, just for yourself? You won't become a YouTuber or work for a dev company or anything? Why not go into the industry instead of medicine if gaming is the most important thing in your life?Uh, I don't know... satisfaction? What are you hoping to achieve by slaving away like a dog for 70+ hours for the rest of your life? To each his own. Good luck to you.
As for myself, I want to have the capacity to affect change, within and without the medical community. I want to be a leader within healthcare. I want to make the big decisions. My perspectives and opinions would be valuable to any other organization or field of study. I want to be influential. I want to help people not only overcome disease, but prevent it. I want my ideas to be respected and valued because of my expertise. I want to work with educated and passionate colleagues to solve problems. I want a white coat with my name on it.
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Have you ever been to the doctor? You're not still considering IM/FM if you expect to not touch patients, right?
Maybe you should actually ask the doctors in your family about these kinds of patient interactions. They probably haven't described them to you because they accidentally assumed that you weren't a total dunce and knew that most kinds of doctors have to touch patients.
I would think psych is your best bet since you've already made it clear that you don't want to put in the effort during your med school years to get into a competitive specialty.
Also, even though I responded, I'm only giving you a 2/10. Entertaining, but going too far to be believable. Even though I know there are people who really feel like this, I think people pushed the "what about when you have to interact with all those blue collar patients that are so beneath you" thing so much that it's not even an original idea. Plus you had no volunteering experience but now like 4 days later you've already had shifts volunteering in the ER? Did anyone else have such an easy time starting their clinical experience?
ETA: I'm sure there's a reason that the metric for a clinical experience is being able to smell patients.
Maybe you should actually ask the doctors in your family about these kinds of patient interactions. They probably haven't described them to you because they accidentally assumed that you weren't a total dunce and knew that most kinds of doctors have to touch patients.
I would think psych is your best bet since you've already made it clear that you don't want to put in the effort during your med school years to get into a competitive specialty.
Also, even though I responded, I'm only giving you a 2/10. Entertaining, but going too far to be believable. Even though I know there are people who really feel like this, I think people pushed the "what about when you have to interact with all those blue collar patients that are so beneath you" thing so much that it's not even an original idea. Plus you had no volunteering experience but now like 4 days later you've already had shifts volunteering in the ER? Did anyone else have such an easy time starting their clinical experience?
ETA: I'm sure there's a reason that the metric for a clinical experience is being able to smell patients.
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If you ever get to the point where you are an attending surgeon, then yes, you will be able to game 60 hours per week and still make >100k per year. But your opening post really makes me doubt that you will ever get there. If you can't even bring yourself to put up with clinical volunteering for eight hours, how do you expect to survive a three year/10,000 hour residency?
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Hey SDN!
Can we agree to just stop posting advice to rifle4802's posts? He doesn't want any of it and it just frustrates everyone involved.
Lets make tomorrow a troll-free day.
Can we agree to just stop posting advice to rifle4802's posts? He doesn't want any of it and it just frustrates everyone involved.
Lets make tomorrow a troll-free day.
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Goro just burned OP so bad that I can feel the heat emanating from my screen.
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Haha, I wonder if rifle has a blog.
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Those tasks are the entry fee you pay for your close-up view of the cases.
Also, you're an @$$.
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Nope. Troll-hunting is 8x worse than trolls. People stay in these threads despite the frustration because there is some level of satisfaction involved. At the very least, it gives us an opportunity to elucidate the reasoning behind those seldom-discussed aspects which everyone takes for granted - which is actually pretty useful!
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I gotta applaud you, my friend. This is what true troll success looks like.
I admire your noble reasons for wanting to pursue this career, but do you really believe half of what you wrote? "Have the capacity to affect change?"
"Be influential?" "White coat with your name on it?" Good stuff. You already provided me with a day's worth of entertainment, and I thank you for that.
Which brings me to the next reason it amuses me that so many of you so haughtily dismiss the possibility of me getting into medical school - my connections. My family is well-connected with medical school faculty and doctors all throughout the country. I never realized that anyone was supposed to have a "hard time" starting their clinical experience, but for me one simple phone call to a family friend had me started the very next week. What, please don't tell me you cold-called hundreds of hospitals, filled out application forms and spent months on waiting lists before you started yours. Or did you? If so, you have my sympathies. There are much easier ways to go about doing these things.
Monstrous 3.92 GPA so far, decent volunteering, some TAing and lots of shadowing so far... I'd say I'm on the right track.
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This has to be the least impressive thing I've seen someone on sdn brag about. Cool shadowing connects bro
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a) Like you, I'm not a pre-med, so I don't need clinical experience
b) My mom is a doctor...
ETA: c) You don't get to forgo hipaa training just cause you're someone's nephew.
d) You didn't comment on the part of the post that was actually addressed to you.
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So many lolz guys! This has been pretty well done, I'll give it a 6/10.
Also OP should realize that the whole icky factor really doesn't bother some of us. I worked as a CNA all through college, which means I cleaned up poop, pee, vomit, pus, pretty much anything that could come out of a human body. It's honestly not that big of a deal, and knowing that you did something to help give your patients some of their dignity back and make them feel more comfortable makes it worth while. I can't imagine calling them subhuman just because they were overweight or had bad hygiene, but then again I'm not a sociopath.
Also OP should realize that the whole icky factor really doesn't bother some of us. I worked as a CNA all through college, which means I cleaned up poop, pee, vomit, pus, pretty much anything that could come out of a human body. It's honestly not that big of a deal, and knowing that you did something to help give your patients some of their dignity back and make them feel more comfortable makes it worth while. I can't imagine calling them subhuman just because they were overweight or had bad hygiene, but then again I'm not a sociopath.
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Seriously, I believe there's about 3% chance that he's for real, and I'm still here posting. I prefer my trolls to be buyable, but all that really matters is that you're getting people to comment.
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OP, why don't you just use your parents' connections to help you get in so you can skip over all this stuff that us regular pre-meds do? I've seen it been done before...
also, I have never seen someone refer to their GPA as monstrous. But you know even with a GPA of 3.92, the acceptance rate isn't 100%. You need to work on the other stuff. Part of that will be writing your personal statement, your secondaries, and your interviews. Again, I suggest you actually try to connect with people so you have an idea of what it's like to interact with patients and can talk about it.
also, I have never seen someone refer to their GPA as monstrous. But you know even with a GPA of 3.92, the acceptance rate isn't 100%. You need to work on the other stuff. Part of that will be writing your personal statement, your secondaries, and your interviews. Again, I suggest you actually try to connect with people so you have an idea of what it's like to interact with patients and can talk about it.
How can you honestly believe what you just wrote? You are saying that unless you go into surgery, aka "the slave's specialty," you cannot make 100K+ working light hours. That is just so wrong. I don't know how you can possibly believe this. What's more stunning is you aren't the only one.
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Now you've taken it a bit too far.
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Oh boy
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Oh no! You got me!I admire your noble reasons for wanting to pursue this career, but do you really believe half of what you wrote? "Have the capacity to affect change?"
Good stuff. You already provided me with a day's worth of entertainment, and I thank you for that.
Also. Why can't you tell when someone is being facetious? I guess all that gaming dulls you ability to pick up cues.
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I'll be honest... I threw up in my mouth while reading this. You have my deepest condolences for having to do all of that. Good thing no one ever asks me to do those things, and if the time ever comes when someone does, I'll refuse them without a care in the world about what the consequences will be.
Then again, you mentioned you were a CNA at the time. If I'm not mistaken, those duties are part of a CNA's job description...
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I was an ER tech for 2 years and it was an experience like no other. even though i had to clean up my fair share of crap and urine and vomit and GI blood etc, it's all part of the experience, dummy. you've been there for 2 days and you're a volunteer. do you expect the head of the department to ask you to assist on a major trauma? i'm sure you're a troll but if by some chance you're real, i hope you're not pissing off the rest of the ER staff who's actually doing their job and taking care of patients.
I'd like to get back to the title of the thread. This thread has unfortunately brought out mainly the kind who don't mind, and dare I say actually enjoy, performing the wretched and filthy drudge work needed in any clinical environment. Most of you seem to have some higher-level certifications/qualifications (CNA, EMT, etc) and I am therefore led to believe that you are required to do these things as part of your job. And I'm also led to believe that you are likely exaggerating the level of patient contact needed to get into medical school, perhaps because you yourselves have had extensive patient contact during your clinical volunteering/work and have a different perspective on medically related community service than I do.
But how about the average volunteer with no prior experience? There are plenty of you out there I know, and I'd say we make up the vast majority of clinical volunteers applying to medical school. Most volunteers do not have any CNA, ER tech, or EMT background. I'm sure you guys spend the majority of your time making photocopies, folding towels, running errands, and fluffing pillows like I prefer to do. Am I right?
But how about the average volunteer with no prior experience? There are plenty of you out there I know, and I'd say we make up the vast majority of clinical volunteers applying to medical school. Most volunteers do not have any CNA, ER tech, or EMT background. I'm sure you guys spend the majority of your time making photocopies, folding towels, running errands, and fluffing pillows like I prefer to do. Am I right?
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I have no other training, but I spend 100% of my clinical volunteering interacting with patients. I was always asked about interactions with patients, but
Why don't you just ask the adcoms since they're the ones that actually evaluate applications.
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No, I get to play with kids and perform hearing tests on newborn babies (literally 4hrs old) while they sleep.
No, I am not. My only question was whether or not an experience in a clinical setting involving minimal patient contact can still qualify as clinical volunteering. Why? Because clinical volunteering is pretty much a requirement for admission into medical school. Not my fault that overly sensitive posters are derailing my thread and calling me a troll because they don't agree with me.
Sounds cool.
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You are going to need some sort of patient contact during your volunteering. Doesn't have to be 100%, but you have to be able to speak about your interaction with patients during your application cycle. If you are in a position that is basically an unpaid secretary, you are going to run into some problems.
I'm allowed to shadow the doctors and ask them questions about the cases. That's should be enough patient exposure.
But lifting overweight and unkempt ones, wiping off drool from their mouths, cleaning up their piss/feces, etc. Don't think that's necessary at all and I'd venture to say that the majority of pre-med volunteers (>95%) who get into medical school have never done that sort of work ever in their lives. Like I said, other professionals get paid to do that for a living.
Good day.
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Okay, so you made a thread to answer a question that you already made up your mind on?
Shadowing doctors is just that...it's shadowing, not clinical volunteering. You don't have to clean drool off of patients or wipe up feces to get patient exposure. As an example, I volunteered at a outpatient surgery center as a pre-med. Prepped patients and gave them instructions before surgery. No bodily fluids found their way onto me.
Edit: terp beat me to it
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You are only allowed to do so because you are theoretically volunteering to help.
Call it shadowing if it's shadowing, only call it clinical volunteering if you actually help in a clinical setting instead of sneering at how lowly all of these better-trained, better-educated, better-humans are who are doing their jobs.
That's all well and good, but that sort of "patient contact" (if you even want to call it that) is easy. I don't volunteer at a surgery center and therefore cannot "prep" patients or give them instructions (which is just talking to them).
The only kind of patient contact I've been asked to participate in involves actually making physical contact with them (lifting, pushing beds, etc). Sounds like you lucked out finding a surgery center to volunteer at where they let you give patients instructions. What sort of qualifications do you have that they would let you do this?
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I went through two non-productive volunteer gigs before I found one that was any good. You may need to do the same.
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then use your connections to find a different volunteering position and go somewhere new
Come on... you can't seriously believe that the majority of medical school matriculants had a significant amount of meaningful patient contact when they were pre-meds. Sure, they probably logged hundreds and hundreds of hours "volunteering," but I suspect that a good amount of that "volunteering" time was spent running vials down to the pharmacy, warming blankets, putting stickers on get-well cards, etc. At least that's what I see most volunteers doing, and that's what it makes sense for most volunteers to do. Untrained and unqualified volunteers getting too heavily involved with patients is actually a hazard more than anything.
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Seriously, it's pretty clear OP doesn't want to be a physician. Why don't you work as a game tester or something else that doesn't involve being around the general population.
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I already told you mine...ever explained to a brand-new, first-time mother that her 4hr old infant needs a repeat hearing test because they failed? Or, the next day, that they're still failing and they should go see an Audiologist to make sure everything checks out? Tried doing it in Spanish when you only have book fluency, not conversational? Had a parent thank you because their kid was really freaked out about the surgery they were having that day, and they were so stressed and they had to do paperwork, so they couldn't help them, but then you distracted them by letting them demolish your block skyscrapers with model cars and gave mom 20min to just focus on logistics without having to keep the kid from freaking out when she was on the verge of losing it herself? You can have plenty of meaningful experiences without medical training.
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Great troll thread
On topic of this thread, I've had a lot of experiences in the hospital where the only thing you can really do is take a step back and kind of chuckle to yourself at the situation. So. Much. Poop. One time there was a doctor's order to stand a patient up with chux under her because it was the only way that she would pee without being straight cathed. Another time I got my patient off of the commode and into her chair where she promptly had another BM right as I sat her down... and then continued having a BM as I brought her back to the commode.
For anyone truly worried about these kind of experiences or what kind of patients you might see on the wards, just realize that these are all just bodily fluids and for the most part they come out of all of us (one way or another.) You get used to it fairly quickly.
On topic of this thread, I've had a lot of experiences in the hospital where the only thing you can really do is take a step back and kind of chuckle to yourself at the situation. So. Much. Poop. One time there was a doctor's order to stand a patient up with chux under her because it was the only way that she would pee without being straight cathed. Another time I got my patient off of the commode and into her chair where she promptly had another BM right as I sat her down... and then continued having a BM as I brought her back to the commode.
For anyone truly worried about these kind of experiences or what kind of patients you might see on the wards, just realize that these are all just bodily fluids and for the most part they come out of all of us (one way or another.) You get used to it fairly quickly.
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I really hope OP is a troll. But I'll still bite.
I am sure you can find a clinical experience where you don't actually have to touch patients or interact with them. However, why would you want to become a physician if you cannot view every patient as a human being worthy of your care, regardless of their 'ickiness'? The obvious disdain and contempt that you hold for patients that you will one day (maybe if you become a doctor) have to deal with is disgusting. These are human beings you're dealing with. Not 'vile creatures'. They deserve a certain degree of respect that you obviously cannot give them. I'm not saying you have to like getting thrown up or pooped on, but give people enough respect not to belittle them and scorn them like you have. You may one day be in their position, through no fault of your own. I hope you don't encounter someone such as yourself if you're ever in a position where you can't control your bodily functions.
If you are indeed serious OP, I think you really need to reconsider if you're cut out for medicine if you view people this way.
I am sure you can find a clinical experience where you don't actually have to touch patients or interact with them. However, why would you want to become a physician if you cannot view every patient as a human being worthy of your care, regardless of their 'ickiness'? The obvious disdain and contempt that you hold for patients that you will one day (maybe if you become a doctor) have to deal with is disgusting. These are human beings you're dealing with. Not 'vile creatures'. They deserve a certain degree of respect that you obviously cannot give them. I'm not saying you have to like getting thrown up or pooped on, but give people enough respect not to belittle them and scorn them like you have. You may one day be in their position, through no fault of your own. I hope you don't encounter someone such as yourself if you're ever in a position where you can't control your bodily functions.
If you are indeed serious OP, I think you really need to reconsider if you're cut out for medicine if you view people this way.
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A sensei I study under was a SCAD trained game designer but quit because he said, "the industry was full of losers". Good suggestion!
In the space of two days, I was able to get two individuals, each suffering agonizing and debilitating tooth pain, in to see an oral surgeon, who treated them for free. That's meaningful. I can do a lot more at a small clinic than at a hospital. I've never had to clean up bodily fluids. All I do is solve people's problems all day. It's great. Perhaps you are just frustrated with your venue?
That's great and all and I'm glad you enjoy what you do, but it's not necessary at all. The truth is that volunteers aren't really expected to do much. Me personally? I show up half an hour late, use a full hour for a free lunch and leave early all the time. I'm supposed to be there from 8 - 12, but in reality I'm probably only there for like 2 hours max. One of my cousins is at a top 20 md school now and his experiences with volunteering were strikingly similar to mine - minimal patient interaction, very little enthusiasm about it, more of a box-checking thing than anything, etc. I'm honestly fine with my venue because I don't really do anything and I still get a free meal during the 4 hours.
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deleted407021
I'm sorry you can't care about anything, or anyone. If you are a legitimate person who really feels this way, I'm sorry for you. Brains like your make being a psychology major interesting though, so thanks, I guess.
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