I agree. You don't need to have clinical research experience in psychology in order to be competitive for clinical programs (although it does show focused forethought in career prep). What is essential is learning the principles behind clinical research from grant submission (i.e. the need in science for this novel research) to publication of the study data (sharing your results with others in the field for feedback & growth...hopefully leading to new & improved standards of care). Now, in 1-2 years time, that will be impossible unless your investigators run concurrent studies, but if you can really understand the global picture of clinical research and then be able to extrapolate to your own research interests in a realistic way...that is what will impress (plus any kind of peer-reviewed materials that you can get authorship on once you've managed to do some of the work).
Prior to graduate school, I did research on obese mice, people with spinal cord injuries & surgical wounds, people with possible cancer diagnoses plus tons of sub-studies...with only the cancer-related research in the field of biobehavioral medicine. So you can spin it in your favor and start grad school with a great understanding of the research that necessities our field...if you work towards making your experience applicable to your end-goal. Good luck!
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