Clinical Experience Advice

[laxgirl98]

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Hello all! I am looking for some advice regarding clinical experience for my medical school application. Last summer I took an EMT course through my local community college and received an A in both my lecture and clinical components of the class. I also passed my state and national certification exams. Unfortunately, there has not been an opportunity around me yet to put the certification to use. I was hoping to get a job as a patient care technician, but every hospital (over 11 of them) in my area require either an EMT-I or Paramedic certification. I don't want to spend the money or time going back to community college to complete the additional courses. Private transport companies in my area are also seeking EMT-I or Paramedic level workers now as well. I just have my EMT-B. I would prefer to get paid for the job because I do enjoy my other volunteer commitments and I need to find a paid job.

With all that being said, one of the top hospitals in my area has applications open for Anesthesiology Technicians. I have shadowed a few anesthesiologists and I'm pretty certain it is what I want to specialize in. I meet all of the requirements for the job so I was considering applying for the job and to see how the interview goes. Would this be adequate clinical experience for medical school applications? I researched some old threads about this and people were split 50/50. A family friend of mine used to work as anesthesiology tech at this same program and he told me he was able to handle/restock drugs, prep, and turnover ORs, etc. He also said that he did assist anesthesiologists or CRNAs in some procedures and he performed CPR during a few codes.

Do you all think this would be a good addition to my application? I'm looking for some feedback because I definitely need to catch up on my clinical experience. I'm not really interested in scribing and although a position as an EMT-B may open up within the next few weeks, I'm not a huge fan of the transport system and I enjoyed my in-hospital rotations for the class more than my ride-along sessions. Any advice is appreciated and thank you all in advance!

 

[Moko]

Clinical experiences should ideally give you the opportunity to interact with and provide comfort to patients. These types of experiences allow you to demonstrate compassion, empathy, and some insight into being around the sick and suffering. The anesthesiology tech position does not appear to give you many opportunities to interact with awake patients. I would opt for EMT in this case.

Also, working as ancillary staff at a "top hospital" means nothing for admissions.

 

[laxgirl98]

Clinical experiences should ideally give you the opportunity to interact with and provide comfort to patients. These types of experiences allow you to demonstrate compassion, empathy, and some insight into being around the sick and suffering. The anesthesiology tech position does not appear to give you many opportunities to interact with awake patients. I would opt for EMT in this case.

Also, working as ancillary staff at a "top hospital" means nothing for admissions.

I meant top as in the volume of patients received throughout the year. I figured if the position was there at an over 500+ bed hospital, the volume of patients may be better as opposed to taking a tech job at a smaller hospital around the area. Assisting in codes and procedures would still count as patient contact though, right? I think working as an EMT is great, but I really do need a paid job right now and none are open in the area that currently pay.

 

[PA_dud3]

From the advice of the wise LizzyM, its not really about how many patients you interact with in a day. My job as a Telemetry Tech is not one where I will see or interact with a patient every day, but I am close enough to them and see them enough to where it is considered clinical. I supplement this by working as a scribe at a Nephrologist's office.

 

[laxgirl98]

From the advice of the wise LizzyM, its not really about how many patients you interact with in a day. My job as a Telemetry Tech is not one where I will see or interact with a patient every day, but I am close enough to them and see them enough to where it is considered clinical. I supplement this by working as a scribe at a Nephrologist's office.

Do you enjoy both your telemetry tech job and scribing? I considered scribing as well, I just wasn't sure if it was better than a job as a tech.

 

[PA_dud3]

Do you enjoy both your telemetry tech job and scribing? I considered scribing as well, I just wasn't sure if it was better than a job as a tech.

I absolutely love scribing, partly because it is with a Nephrologist whom I would consider a mentor of mine, and partly because Nephrology is such an interesting field (for me atleast). I have no doubt I would enjoy it if I scribed in the ED or something else, though. It really is a job made for pre-meds.

 

[Moko]

I meant top as in the volume of patients received throughout the year. I figured if the position was there at an over 500+ bed hospital, the volume of patients may be better as opposed to taking a tech job at a smaller hospital around the area. Assisting in codes and procedures would still count as patient contact though, right? I think working as an EMT is great, but I really do need a paid job right now and none are open in the area that currently pay.

Sorry, my misunderstanding. I would suspect the patient volume per tech is similar regardless of the hospital size, as the larger hospitals will also have more ancillary staff, etc. Being an anesthiology tech IS a clinical experience -- don't get me wrong -- but this job doesn't seem to give you the opportunity to interact with awake patients, which is one of the purposes of 'requiring' clinical experiences.

Ultimately though, any paid clinical (or non-clinical) experience will be looked upon favorably for a myriad of reasons, as long as you also have sufficient interactions with awake patients in other parts of your application. We understand that most people do not have unlimited financial support from their parents, and that folks need to feed themselves and pay the bills.

When I recommended taking EMT over the tech position, I was under the impression that both were paying jobs. If only the tech position is paying, it would be reasonable to take it while spending some time volunteering with other patient populations for the opportunity to interact with awake patients.