Call me ignorant...

[premedhopeful4]

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I'm a freshman and anticipate graduating in 4 years and attending either med school or PA school. I have my hopes set on Emory University.

I know that clinical experience hours are recommended/required for this but I was just wondering...when the heck are you supposed to do them!? On the Emory website it says "[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]2,000 hours of direct patient care experience prior to matriculation.". I am volunteering at the hospital this semester, but that's only for 45 hours total... When is it recommended to complete all the required hours?

Ideally, I would like to avoid having a large gap between undergrad and med school...I know it can obviously be done I'm just looking for suggestions on how you have, or intend to gain experience in a clinical setting.

Thank you!🙂

 

[UpQuark]

I'm a freshman and anticipate graduating in 4 years and attending either med school or PA school. I have my hopes set on Emory University.

I know that clinical experience hours are recommended/required for this but I was just wondering...when the heck are you supposed to do them!? On the Emory website it says "[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]2,000 hours of direct patient care experience prior to matriculation.". I am volunteering at the hospital this semester, but that's only for 45 hours total... When is it recommended to complete all the required hours?

Ideally, I would like to avoid having a large gap between undergrad and med school...I know it can obviously be done I'm just looking for suggestions on how you have, or intend to gain experience in a clinical setting.

Thank you!🙂

HAHA, not sure how they'd expect 2,000 hours😱... lol, I guess I'm not applying there.

To be honest, there isn't a set amount of hours you need. It's the experiences that you gain from such activities is what matters. Average clinical hours is ~100 hours (I believe?)

Website says (not sure where you saw the 2000):

CLINICAL EXPOSURE TO PATIENTS

A strong application file will include exposure to patients and physicians in a clinical setting. Examples would include volunteering at a local hospital, clinical volunteer work abroad, or shadowing a physician. The Admissions Committee is most interested in applicants who have face-to-face experience with the patient-doctor relationship.

 

[Nymphicus]

Regarding Emory,

I believe that those (the 2,000 hours) are for the PA program. PA programs often have a high expectation for number of clinical experience hours.

For the medical school, all I found was the following...

[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]CLINICAL EXPOSURE TO PATIENTS.

[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] A strong application file will include exposure to patients and physicians in a clinical setting. Examples would include volunteering at a local hospital, clinical volunteer work abroad, or shadowing a physician. The Admissions Committee is most interested in applicants who have face-to-face experience with the patient-doctor relationship..
​

http://med.emory.edu/admissions/howtoapplyrequirements.cfm

Also, if I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes set on just Emory, unless you have some other confounding factors.


Good luck

::EDIT::

lol, somebody beat me to it

 

[hopki099]

I'm a freshman and anticipate graduating in 4 years and attending either med school or PA school. I have my hopes set on Emory University.

I know that clinical experience hours are recommended/required for this but I was just wondering...when the heck are you supposed to do them!? On the Emory website it says "[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]2,000 hours of direct patient care experience prior to matriculation.". I am volunteering at the hospital this semester, but that's only for 45 hours total... When is it recommended to complete all the required hours?

Ideally, I would like to avoid having a large gap between undergrad and med school...I know it can obviously be done I'm just looking for suggestions on how you have, or intend to gain experience in a clinical setting.

Thank you!🙂

From my understanding, a lot of PA programs require or favor heavy clinical experience. I would expect many people to gain this many hours by working, not volunteering, as a CNA in a nursing home, in a group home for the developmentally disabled, or something to that effect. Hopefully someone else would be able to confirm or refute this.

I've thought about applying to PA schools, but honestly I think my shot at MD schools is much better due to my heavy research/weaker clinical background.

 

[the duck]

From my understanding, a lot of PA programs require or favor heavy clinical experience. I would expect many people to gain this many hours by working, not volunteering, as a CNA in a nursing home, in a group home for the developmentally disabled, or something to that effect. Hopefully someone else would be able to confirm or refute this.

I've thought about applying to PA schools, but honestly I think my shot at MD schools is much better due to my heavy research/weaker clinical background.

Yeah, I think the 2k clinical hours is refering to PA programs. As the person above me said, PA programs are kinda designed for people who have worked in healthcare before. You really only get that sort of hours through holding a full, or part time job for a period of time. Those sorts of hours help with medical school, but are by no means required.

 

[Forthegood]

Get a summer job. 2000 hours is about 50 weeks of full-time work. If you work fulltime in the summer it is easy to do. I had more than 2k coming in. And, it has been VERY useful.

On the other hand, they don't actually want you to have that much, they want you to have as much as possible. But I do encourage you to try to get a summer job in a clinical setting, full time. It will help you know if you really like medicine, even if you decide not to do that particular area.

 

[HumbleMD]

2,000 hours ... good god. I'd decide whether you want to med v. PA school before embarking on that adventure.

Have you given serious thought to the decision? If you like working with patients directly or first-assisting in the OR all the time, like making lots of money right off the bat, and only want to do 2 years of school, go PA. The only big drawback I see about PA as a career is you aren't the healthcare team leader and aren't teaching much (mostly resident-level work). Also, there is little career and salary advancement (but is win-win on opportunity costs).

If you like academics, teaching, research, leading the healthcare team and medicine in general, and want to leave the option of changing careers into administrative, government, business or industry work, then go MD. Also if you are a prestige junky (guilty as charged here). The larger drawbacks are expense, time for training, hours, and much less patient contact than one realizes.

 

[Barcu]

2,000 hours is definitely for the PA program.

Most people who go PA are older and have worked in healthcare for a while as a medical assistant, CNA, etc.

Figure out which one you want to do first because the timelines for the two paths are quite different. As well, some of the PA prereqs are different (though you will have to look up those specifically, I do not know exactly how). It would be very unlikely for the chance to simultaneously apply to both programs and then choose the one you would rather do.

 

[familyaerospace]

As others said 2000 hours is probably for the PA program. Many people are able to do it by working every summer in health care full time. Or doing a part time job for four years. Yes, I've seen people with that many hours. I have about 500 (volunteering + shadowing) in just over a year so it can be done.

For the MD program, someone from Emory was talking along the lines of a full time week equivalent for shadowing hours is what they are recommending. So that would be 40-60. Not required, just strongly recommended. That's what I've heard pretty consistently. Plus all the usual volunteering, etc.

 

[PreMedder]

you're ignorant, OP