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capybaracarbonara said:
Would conducting clinical research count as research experience or clinical experience? I'm wondering for things like enrolling patients into clinical trials
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I'd go with Research, though some applicants in similar situations have marked their clinical research as Clinical Employment (usually to hide the fact that they otherwise don't have any significant clinical exposure). Just my thoughts.
 
Research but you can mention that X% of your hours are clinical and then go into more detail with regard to how you interacted with patients.
 
I would classify this as a research experience. If you worked directly with patients, you should definitely mention that in the description!
 
Part of the problem here is that it is neither fish nor fowl. Usually, you have little to no ability to develop and answer a research question -- clinical research is usually dictated by the sponsor (a pharmaceutical company or a cooperative group). Sometimes medical students get to design and conduct a small study, sometime survey research of patients, but prior to med school, this would be very rare.

People who are research subjects (sometimes called research participants) are not always patients, although sometimes they can be both at the same time when clinical care visits and clinical research visits happen at the same time. If you are doing blood draws, recording vital signs, instructing individuals who are ill on the collection of urine samples and so forth, I might give you the benefit of the doubt. If you are directing healthy individuals who are participating in phase I clinical trials, then it is a slightly different situation.

See what I mean about it being neither fish nor fowl. If you have other clinical experiences and other research experiences, this is the cherry on top but all cherry and no cake and no icing is a tricky situation to be in.
 
Moko said:
I'd go with Research, though some applicants in similar situations have marked their clinical research as Clinical Employment (usually to hide the fact that they otherwise don't have any significant clinical exposure). Just my thoughts.
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LizzyM said:
Part of the problem here is that it is neither fish nor fowl. Usually, you have little to no ability to develop and answer a research question -- clinical research is usually dictated by the sponsor (a pharmaceutical company or a cooperative group). Sometimes medical students get to design and conduct a small study, sometime survey research of patients, but prior to med school, this would be very rare.

People who are research subjects (sometimes called research participants) are not always patients, although sometimes they can be both at the same time when clinical care visits and clinical research visits happen at the same time. If you are doing blood draws, recording vital signs, instructing individuals who are ill on the collection of urine samples and so forth, I might give you the benefit of the doubt. If you are directing healthy individuals who are participating in phase I clinical trials, then it is a slightly different situation.

See what I mean about it being neither fish nor fowl. If you have other clinical experiences and other research experiences, this is the cherry on top but all cherry and no cake and no icing is a tricky situation to be in.
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If I’m at around 160 hospital volunteering hours and will reach around 1000 research hours by the time I apply, would conducting clinical research be worthwhile? I’m currently pursuing some opportunities that would also allow for shadowing along with the clinical research, but I was wondering if this clinical research could supplement my relatively low clinical hours
 
capybaracarbonara said:
1000 research hours
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Wet lab? how much responsibility did you have? Did you do study design? did you do any data analysis? Did you present or publish your findings? Was your involvement limited to tech level assignments (preparing reagents, dishwashing, data entry)?
 
LizzyM said:
Wet lab? how much responsibility did you have? Did you do study design? did you do any data analysis? Did you present or publish your findings? Was your involvement limited to tech level assignments (preparing reagents, dishwashing, data entry)?
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1000 hours are projected right now, but I will likely have all responsibilities listed except study design.
 
capybaracarbonara said:
1000 hours are projected right now, but I will likely have all responsibilities listed except study design.
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Wet lab? If so, doing clinical research with patients in addition is good. I might not agree with the hyper-focus on wet lab experience for pre-meds, but the bias toward applicants with such experience is real and so I ask.
 
LizzyM said:
Wet lab? If so, doing clinical research with patients in addition is good. I might not agree with the hyper-focus on wet lab experience for pre-meds, but the bias toward applicants with such experience is real and so I ask.
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Yes! Sorry I forgot to clarify. It’ll be about 1000 hours in wet lab research. Would adding clinical research to this be enough, or should I add more hospital volunteering?
 
capybaracarbonara said:
Yes! Sorry I forgot to clarify. It’ll be about 1000 hours in wet lab research. Would adding clinical research to this be enough, or should I add more hospital volunteering?
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Can you post a WAMC of your own? You apparently posted on behalf of a friend so I don't know what is actually true about you to comment.
 
Just to chime in, I'd really need more information about your specific role and interaction with research participants to know whether this experience is closer to clinical experience or research experience.

If, for example, you are a research coordinator enrolling cancer patients onto an interventional clinical trial and you have to explain in detail the risks and benefits of participation, then I would count this as either research or clinical. On the other hand, if you are signing up people to answer a survey about their behaviors or eating habits, then I would not count that as clinical exposure but it might be research. The details matter.
 
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