Can I list this as clinical experience

[bravofleet4]

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I'm starting to have grave doubts about whether or not my volunteer experiences count as clinical experience and if I have wasted my time or not. I'll try to be give you enough detail for you guys to decide.

1. Starting in February, I started volunteering at a nursing home for Alzheimer's patients for 2 hours a week. Our job is primarily to keep them stimulated, so they don't sleep all day or just sit around. Mostly volunteers like me take them out for walks when they feel up to it and sit down and have conversations with them. That's as far as our responsibilities go though. You do learn a lot about Alzheimers though as you can witness its effects and different stages. I realize it's more the role a of public health or social worker.

2. Since July last year, I started volunteering at a non-profit medical clinic for 4 hours a week. Most of the time I just sit in the back pulling charts in the back room for doctors and photocopying documents. Occasionally I'll call doctors asking if they are willing to do charity work on behalf of one of our patients. The only chance for patient interaction is taking vitals which I've gotten training for but they require you to go through a practice run in Spanish which I have no experience in and don't think I have time to start learning until summer. Occasionally I will help pack groceries for their social services department or help with fundraising activities. The most significant lesson I've learned is just the amount of need out there and the difficulty in finding care without insurance as well as how clinics work hand in hand with the local community.

Anyway that's pretty much my clinical experience. I'm supposed to start volunteering soon at a hospital but I don't think I will get much done before the application window opens.

 

[BlueElmo]

If you can smell patients, it's clinical experience. According to LizzyM.

 

[kingofthehill]

The first one surely counts as clinical experience. It sounds kinda cool.

If you interacted w/ the patients in the second, then that counts also. If not, it would be considered shadowing if you worked with doctors, or it would be simply employment if neither.

 

[fMRI]

Well, what do you *expect* to be a clinical experience? You have absolutely *no* medical knowledge yet (taking vitals isn't really medicine). It would be absolutely crazy to expect that somebody is letting you do anything medical. That is not what "clinical experience" supposed to be. The two things you do **are** clinical. Keep doing them, enjoy what you do and grow with them. You are exposed to a clinical setting, you work with vulnerable people (medically, psychologically and sociologically) on a regular basis. That's as good as it can be. Show some stamina, the power to stick with it -- this is what an applicant to medicine needs.

Showing that you did a laundry list of things, but everything for a short time, isn't as impressive, honestly. If you can talk about regularly spending time with, for example, an Alz. patient, and maybe later talking about slowly losing the connection you established, seeing the decline and feeling somewhat helpless not being able to do more shows that you have the capacity to grow in that context. That you are ready and open to human experience in a clinical context. As I already said, taking vitals isn't a "better" clinical experience (anybody can learn to do that really quickly). Enjoy your volunteer work at the hospital and decide to stick -- long-term -- with the 1 or 2 projects you enjoy most. Doing an occasional stint experiencing something else is cool, but show *stamina* in your "core" commitments.

Enjoy them! 😀

 

[DendWrite]

I agree...I would definitely list this as clinical experience. I work in a hospital and have a similar experience as yours volunteering in the non-profit clinic. Clinical experience is great, but don't feel like just because something isn't necessarily clinical experience that it's not valuable. I think that working in the clinic gives you a lot of insight into the healthcare system and gives you a good idea of what you are getting into. Sure, pulling charts and making copies kind of sucks sometimes, but you are still getting exposure...you can still learn, ask questions, see how things work. I think it's good...it's no substitute for some shadowing or actual patient interaction, but as a supplement to the rest of your application, it can only help.

 

[lrkoehle]

If you can smell patients, it's clinical experience. According to LizzyM.

I observed an autopsy, so I definitely smelled the (dead) patient. Is that clinical?

 

[Stratego]

There's no question that in working with the Alzheimer's patients you are part of a therapeutic team that includes nurses and doctors (even if they aren't always present) and takes place in a clinical setting. It is a clinical experience.

Your volunteer position in the clinic sounds like it has not yet included personal interactions with ill people. If you start taking vital signs, it becomes a clinical experience. From what you wrote, it is a community service experience, and that's important for your application too. Additionally, if you are calling physicians to get them to volunteer their services, that strikes me as leadership. When you describe the experience on your application, be sure to include all the things you do, just as you did for us. It sounds like a great experience on many levels.

Strictly speaking, it does sound like you are light in clinical experience if you plan to apply this season. I think it will be important for you to start that hospital experience you mentioned and continue it thoughout the application year, including mentions of all your various involvements in update letters you write to your schools.

 

[BlueElmo]

I observed an autopsy, so I definitely smelled the (dead) patient. Is that clinical?

well dead persons isn't a patient, technically.