Do you know anyone who was accepted into medical school with very few hours working with patients? What are the chances of someone who is a well rounded applicant but has very little clinical experience?
Anyone get into medical school without any clinical experience?
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Is it possible? I'm sure that, somewhere, somehow, it has been done. For the vast majority of applicants is it likely to happen? Doubtful.
You have to convince admissions committee members that you know what you are getting into (or at least have some idea of what to expect). How can you do that without seeing what a doctor does on a daily basis? How can you have any degree of certainty that you want to take care of patients for the rest of your life if you've never interacted with one?
Can you get into medical school without any clinical experience? Possibly. Should you attempt to apply to medical school without clinical experience? Absolutely not.
You have to convince admissions committee members that you know what you are getting into (or at least have some idea of what to expect). How can you do that without seeing what a doctor does on a daily basis? How can you have any degree of certainty that you want to take care of patients for the rest of your life if you've never interacted with one?
Can you get into medical school without any clinical experience? Possibly. Should you attempt to apply to medical school without clinical experience? Absolutely not.
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I mean I only know few people who didn't have clinical experience get into medical school of my friends. They did have stellar activities and had relatives that are within the profession so may have helped in that respect.
I strongly advice you to get some clinical experience.
I strongly advice you to get some clinical experience.
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Go on the re-applicant thread. You'll see at least once every 2 weeks or so someone post on there with a 3.85/35 type profile talking about how they didn't get into medical school and asking what went wrong. The culprits almost always in some major way are either a) horrendous list of schools chosen b) sorely lacking clinical exposure c) poorous interviewing abilities. So yes, nobody is above not needing clinical exposure for medical school. You'll always find exceptions, but really how hard is it to volunteer in a hospital for 3-4 hours a week for a year?
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How does someone know they want to be a doctor without any clinical experience?
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Clearly, watching TV. Especially House, Scrubs, maybe Star Trek.
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You can get creative if you don't have a lot of time to get exposure.
There are medical missions abroad type stuff, usually a bit spendy.
If you have disabled/handicapped relatives you've helped care for, gone to their appts, stayed with in hospital, lived with, that won't susbtitute for being on the clinical side of shadowing a doc but shows you are familiar with illness. You can.title it "family caregiving" if that was the case, but still need to round that out with other stuff.
Elderly caregiving jobs on craigslist are very easy to find, suck, pay like crap usually, but you won't need credentials. Memory care. It's direct contact caring for often ill people so even if you're just wiping their butts or grocery shopping or bathing help, etc, it counts towards your app favorably. A doctor can't shy away from the old, decrepid, delirious, crotchedy, slow, frustrating, or body fluids and smells they may have clinging to them.
You should really shadow a doc though. It's hard if you feel you don't have an "in" so you can contact your school's med advisor, pre-med club, or even your PCP to see if they know a colleague that might. Contact local med school, even if far away they may have someone in your area that is like an asst prof.
If you want to cold-call/email someone, you can try psychiatrists, theu don't get much interest from students, they love to yak given how much they have to be quiet and listen, and you'll learn a lot that will make you seem psychologically/socioeconomically saavy. Plus it shows patience (you don't get a lot of immediate cure), listening skills, all can help. I'm not saying this should be the first thing you go for, but I know people aren't knocking down their door to shadow.
You could shadow an NP. I grew up in a crap town where that was the only provider for miles and miles. Didn't shadow them but imagine that would get some sort of clinical hours to my name.
Be sure you have written a personal statement and put together a resume and transcripts to give any doc or organizer something to justify why you're worth taking under the wing to help into medical career.
Hospital volunteering, I did, but was really ****ty because I wasn't paired with a doc, for HiPpa and ass-covering it was just making beds and directing people around the hospital, so very lame duties.
I just remember how hard it was to get an "in" without knowing the right people or having any special certs.
I took my own advice for a lot of the above and got in on the first try, but my app was great otherwise, and it was years ago, for whatever that's worth.
There are medical missions abroad type stuff, usually a bit spendy.
If you have disabled/handicapped relatives you've helped care for, gone to their appts, stayed with in hospital, lived with, that won't susbtitute for being on the clinical side of shadowing a doc but shows you are familiar with illness. You can.title it "family caregiving" if that was the case, but still need to round that out with other stuff.
Elderly caregiving jobs on craigslist are very easy to find, suck, pay like crap usually, but you won't need credentials. Memory care. It's direct contact caring for often ill people so even if you're just wiping their butts or grocery shopping or bathing help, etc, it counts towards your app favorably. A doctor can't shy away from the old, decrepid, delirious, crotchedy, slow, frustrating, or body fluids and smells they may have clinging to them.
You should really shadow a doc though. It's hard if you feel you don't have an "in" so you can contact your school's med advisor, pre-med club, or even your PCP to see if they know a colleague that might. Contact local med school, even if far away they may have someone in your area that is like an asst prof.
If you want to cold-call/email someone, you can try psychiatrists, theu don't get much interest from students, they love to yak given how much they have to be quiet and listen, and you'll learn a lot that will make you seem psychologically/socioeconomically saavy. Plus it shows patience (you don't get a lot of immediate cure), listening skills, all can help. I'm not saying this should be the first thing you go for, but I know people aren't knocking down their door to shadow.
You could shadow an NP. I grew up in a crap town where that was the only provider for miles and miles. Didn't shadow them but imagine that would get some sort of clinical hours to my name.
Be sure you have written a personal statement and put together a resume and transcripts to give any doc or organizer something to justify why you're worth taking under the wing to help into medical career.
Hospital volunteering, I did, but was really ****ty because I wasn't paired with a doc, for HiPpa and ass-covering it was just making beds and directing people around the hospital, so very lame duties.
I just remember how hard it was to get an "in" without knowing the right people or having any special certs.
I took my own advice for a lot of the above and got in on the first try, but my app was great otherwise, and it was years ago, for whatever that's worth.
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Purposefully didn't list ER or Grey's Anatomy, those shows are crap if you ask me and I never watched them.
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Go get clinical experience.
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You will find many in Canadian schools.
Any is very unlikely, but you can get away with a lot less than most on SDN would make you think.
If you look at MSAR, usually only 80-90% of matriculants at most schools have volunteer healthcare experience. Similar numbers for shadowing. I think the caveat is that if you're missing one you better have the other.
I have seen quite a few medical students get away with just 50-100 hours total. I think the lowest I've seen is 1 day of shadowing but this person also had thousands of hours of non-healthcare volunteer work.
Stats are probably a big part in it too. I mean if you're rocking a perfect 84 LizzyM, I'm sure A LOT of schools would accept you just to raise their averages -- which is a big deal for many new schools.
If you look at MSAR, usually only 80-90% of matriculants at most schools have volunteer healthcare experience. Similar numbers for shadowing. I think the caveat is that if you're missing one you better have the other.
I have seen quite a few medical students get away with just 50-100 hours total. I think the lowest I've seen is 1 day of shadowing but this person also had thousands of hours of non-healthcare volunteer work.
Stats are probably a big part in it too. I mean if you're rocking a perfect 84 LizzyM, I'm sure A LOT of schools would accept you just to raise their averages -- which is a big deal for many new schools.
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Grey's Anatomy
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Do I know anyone?
Nope.. Not a single person..
It's not as intense as SDN would make you think, or I would make you think though..
Most people who went to med school that I know had about 400 clinical, were in school clubs, and did some shadowing as well as 200-300 general volunteering work..
Personally I enjoy volunteering, love doing it.. So I expect to have over 2000 hours of clinical, and at least 1,000 non-clinical. (That's far more than what is necessary!)
Nope.. Not a single person..
It's not as intense as SDN would make you think, or I would make you think though..
Most people who went to med school that I know had about 400 clinical, were in school clubs, and did some shadowing as well as 200-300 general volunteering work..
Personally I enjoy volunteering, love doing it.. So I expect to have over 2000 hours of clinical, and at least 1,000 non-clinical. (That's far more than what is necessary!)
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I agree with posters above that you don't need clinical experience per se, but something that says "I've worked with ill people" which is covered by my post pretty well
that could be shadowing, volunteer healthcare, caring for elderly, caring for ill family members
I look at it as "have you IRL spent time watching/giving customer service to people ill in some way (that could be just old-age limitations, druggies, socioeconomically challenged, mental health, chronic pain, disabled physically/mentally) and/or body ick gross factors
for example, having waitressing experience shows customer service skills
you need to show leadership skills (could be non-clinical)
and lastly, they want some assurance you're not going to be in the group of the handful of students that drop out of gross anatomy, because, well, it's gross
so body function exposure or the ick factor as I call it is the 3rd essential
TL
R:
activities for pre-meds need to demonstrate the following 3 essentials qualities of physician:
1) customer service (dealing with bitchy people to resolve probelms)
2) leadership (responsibility for people and directing activities)
3) tolerance of grossness (people dying, barf, blood, poop, pee, pus, mangled flesh, saggy people)
that could be shadowing, volunteer healthcare, caring for elderly, caring for ill family members
I look at it as "have you IRL spent time watching/giving customer service to people ill in some way (that could be just old-age limitations, druggies, socioeconomically challenged, mental health, chronic pain, disabled physically/mentally) and/or body ick gross factors
for example, having waitressing experience shows customer service skills
you need to show leadership skills (could be non-clinical)
and lastly, they want some assurance you're not going to be in the group of the handful of students that drop out of gross anatomy, because, well, it's gross
so body function exposure or the ick factor as I call it is the 3rd essential
TL
R:activities for pre-meds need to demonstrate the following 3 essentials qualities of physician:
1) customer service (dealing with bitchy people to resolve probelms)
2) leadership (responsibility for people and directing activities)
3) tolerance of grossness (people dying, barf, blood, poop, pee, pus, mangled flesh, saggy people)
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Not at my school. My student interviewers alone tend to eat alive candidates like these.
If you don't have clinical experience, you're not well rounded. How else can you show us that you know what you're getting into????
If you don't have clinical experience, you're not well rounded. How else can you show us that you know what you're getting into????
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It boggles my f*ing mind.
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Who has friends who have jobs they hate, or don't work in the fields they're educated in, because they didn't sufficiently understand the industry beforehand?
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According to the numbers per MSAR, a small amount (10-20%) of matriculants had no clinical experience. In practice, I don't think this should be taken at face value because Paid Medical Employment is a separate category and some of those matriculants who had no "clinical experience" per MSAR may have been clinically employed.
Does anyone get in? Probably. There's usually an exception to every rule. Is it likely? No way. Not even close. Medical school admissions is an insanely competitive game, and "recommendations" might are effectively "requirements".
Does anyone get in? Probably. There's usually an exception to every rule. Is it likely? No way. Not even close. Medical school admissions is an insanely competitive game, and "recommendations" might are effectively "requirements".
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