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Keeping in mind that the average applicant has 1.5 years of clinical experience (gained at 3 hours per week during the school year), if you complete those 300 hours over 6 months, then I'd say it's not enough. If it takes you a year, you'd probably be fine. Adcomms like to see longevity in gaining medical experience so they are assured you've thoughtfully considered medicine over a period of time. It's not just about the total hours accumulated.By the time I apply to medical school, I will have completed 300 hours of clinical experience at a hospital. It's part of a care extender program, so I will be rotating in all of the departments and interacting with different health professionals. However, as a nontraditional applicant, this is the only clinical experience I will have - is this enough? I have been involved in other activities, but they are not related to the field of medicine (AmeriCorps, student government).
Keeping in mind that the average applicant has 1.5 years of clinical experience (gained at 3 hours per week during the school year), if you complete those 300 hours over 6 months, then I'd say it's not enough. If it takes you a year, you'd probably be fine. Adcomms like to see longevity in gaining medical experience so they are assured you've thoughtfully considered medicine over a period of time. It's not just about the total hours accumulated.
If the experience doesn't allow for formal shadowing time, you'll need to arrange that separately. Even if it does, you'll still want to shadow an office-based primary care doc for a broader experience.
Shadowing does not need to be an experience with longevity. It could be obtained quickly by getting a large number of hours over school breaks. About 50 hours is the average listed. To appeal to the greatest number of schools, you'll need both types of experiences. So if you only had the two options, I'd pick 150 hours of each, but you could probably stick with the 300 hours of clinical experience and then get sufficient shadowing hours during down time from school if that appeals to you more.This volunteer commitment is a year long, but it's the only thing I will have completed before I apply. I am thinking about shadowing a physician, but due to time constraints, I have to pick one or the other. The downside is that I wouldn't be able to spend as much time in the clinical setting if I chose to shadow a physician. Would it be better for me to do 300 hours of clinical experience at a hospital or shadow a physician for half that time (~150)? What's most important to me is that I get as much exposure as possible so I know that this is what I really want to do.