Clinical experience after human-based research?

[TapDancingDoom]

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I graduated with a PhD in neuroscience a few months ago. After dabbling in medical writing and teaching (which I love!), I'm thinking of finally going to medical school. I have a lot of questions, some of which I've gotten answered via the FAQs, but not all.

My entire PhD was based around human subjects (well, we called them participants) research. I did all the recruiting, testing, data analysis, etc. of my participants. Some of these were ostensibly normal, but interesting, people while others were patients with PD. My testing was all neuropsych and visual perception; I never had to diagnose or cure anyone. (I also completed my dissertation and I'm working on publishing papers).

How would this be viewed in the realm of clinical experience? On the one hand, I certainly interacted with patients a lot more than someone who spent most of their time running errands for doctors. On the other hand, a research lab in an office building is different from a hospital. The last time I spent significant time in a hospital, I was working IT for it. 🙂

 

[GoodmanBrown]

I'm a pre-med myself, so I can't comment with huge authority, but I think it would be useful to do some sort of clinical volunteering. I have lots of friends who got EMT-B cert. and now volunteer with a rescue squad. I personally do hospice volunteering and go see a patient every other week for an afternoon to give his wife a short respite. I think that kind of stuff will show your altruistic side and also give more patient hours.

 

[Scottish Chap]

I graduated with a PhD in neuroscience a few months ago. After dabbling in medical writing and teaching (which I love!), I'm thinking of finally going to medical school. I have a lot of questions, some of which I've gotten answered via the FAQs, but not all.

My entire PhD was based around human subjects (well, we called them participants) research. I did all the recruiting, testing, data analysis, etc. of my participants. Some of these were ostensibly normal, but interesting, people while others were patients with PD. My testing was all neuropsych and visual perception; I never had to diagnose or cure anyone. (I also completed my dissertation and I'm working on publishing papers).

How would this be viewed in the realm of clinical experience? On the one hand, I certainly interacted with patients a lot more than someone who spent most of their time running errands for doctors. On the other hand, a research lab in an office building is different from a hospital. The last time I spent significant time in a hospital, I was working IT for it. 🙂

This is an interesting question. When I applied to medical school five years ago (wow, it's been that long!), I had completed a clinical fellowship (chemical pathology). I carried the pager and shared the call schedule with pathology residents for clinical biochemistry, TDM and toxicology, and I interacted with doctors and nurses all the time. Based on this, I had a very good idea what I was getting into, so I felt that shadowing was a total waste of time (working 60+ hours per week, taking classes at night and studying for the MCAT meant time was scarce). Other than a token six month stint volunteering in a psychiatric hospital in another country ten years before applying to medical school, I never did any formal shadowing. Nobody said anything at the interviews.

Now, I have to tell you, I may have been lucky. In retrospect, I probably should have spent a little more time shadowing general physicians and seeing how they interact with patients. Based on your own experience, you might get away with not doing anything else. If you have the time, I'd do something--to be safe.

Good luck!

 

[Newmanium]

Doing a 6-month stint at your local hospital sure doesn't hurt your chances, and probably bulletproofs your application. Nobody on here can really know for certain whether you *need* this or not, you're obviously a special case with some impressive qualifications.

If you can spare the 4 hours a week, it's a pretty painless, even fun, way to polish the app.