Clinical Experience Check - Is this sufficient?

[HopefulApplicant667]

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[Moko]

Hi all. I am currently volunteering as a domestic violence advocate in an emergency room, as well as a therapy dog handler in the in-patient psychiatric wing of a hospital. I have a prior career of significant nonprofit work as well as significant nonclinical volunteering. I have/will have 70-100h of shadowing both inpatient and outpatient, surgeons as well as primary care providers

I am starting to worry about my clinical experience after speaking to my postbacc advisor. She recommended, essentially, being a certified medical assistant or emergency room volunteer to get more serious clinical experience. My issue is that when I used to volunteer in the ER ~15 years ago, premeds did very little. At two different hospitals, I sat on my phone in the nursing station for hours and occasionally did the rounds with the snack/juice cart. It's challenging to get meaningful clinical experience when you have no serious clinical training. My current two volunteer activities are 1) in the hospital, 2) meaningful and tangibly impactful, 3) involve direct patient contact, but "felt nonclinical for some reason" to my postbacc advisor. I get what she means, but I also don't have the time/timeline to become an MA or EMT - I'm a postbacc, so my timeline is pretty compressed.

To be clear, I would love to volunteer more clinically, it's just that there aren't too many meaningful options when I have ~1.5 years to finish my portfolio.

Are shadowing/psychiatry patient therapy dog handling/ER domestic violence victim advocacy sufficient clinical experiences, or should I bite the bullet and become an ER volunteer (at the expense of some of my current volunteering) to clearly check the clinical box? I am also personally interested in volunteering with hospice patients, but I'm worried that also would not scratch the itch that my application seems to be lacking. Thank you.

Both of these are excellent clinical experiences in my book. Just my thoughts.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

You have shadowing, and you interact with patients. If you can reflect well on how all of the experiences shape your purpose to be a physician, you'll be okay. Perhaps you haven't communicated the value of these experiences well enough with your advisor to explain your vision.

 

[eigen]

To be clear, I would love to volunteer more clinically, it's just that there aren't too many meaningful options when I have ~1.5 years to finish my portfolio.

I agree that these seem like valuable positions, but I would hope they’re also related to what you want to do. You mention shadowing surgery, but your volunteering seems like what I’d expect from someone who wanted to go into mental health. You may have a clear narrative that makes this clear, this is just an observation.

One other thing I want to highlight is your timeline comment. I worry a bit about applicants who are rushing and can’t do things because of that. Again, not saying you are, just wanted to highlight that you should apply when you’re ready, not on some particular timeline.

 

[HopefulApplicant667]

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[polymerization]

From the perspective of an applicant, I'm looking a little into your future...mostly because I've been there and I understand how you might feel.

At some point, you're going to actually have to sit down and prepare an application. As you put together your personal statement, activity descriptions, and secondaries, you will be asked in a million different ways how you know you want to be a doctor and ways that you've tested that hunch.

And for what it's worth, they really only want to hear one answer: "I worked in a patient-facing role doing physician-adjacent work where I worked alongside/deeply yearned for the responsibility of a physician to serve my fellow human and reinforce the health of entire communities, especially those most vulnerable." Obviously you would never phrase it that explicitly, but that's really the core of what they're reading for.

Even past the application, once you approach interview season, you will again be confronted with—potentially—several minutes worth of follow up questions about your involvement with patients and your duties and what you took away from those experiences.

They are looking to be reassured that you understand what a physician does, how the medical team works, what it's like to actually perform the rather unglamorous (and, to most, initially revolting) work of patient care. They want to know that you have some appreciation for social justice, the psychology of illness, and a current of empathy that undergirds those reflections.

The brutal truth of it all is that the admissions landscape is hypercompetitive, expensive to participate in (both in upfront and opportunity cost), and pretty ruthless. I can totally understand the impulse to throw your hands up at some point and say "I'm giving you the application that was possible for me, not necessarily the one you want—and that needs to be enough." The issue is that you won't necessarily receive feedback, and even if you did, it would never come down to "you should've done 50 more hours doing X." It's about providing evidence and compelling reasoning behind your desire to do clinical work, which you can only obtain doing clinical work.

I'm not knocking your experiences or judging especially considering the opportunity simply hasn't been available, but I am saying that I am finding it hard to imagine how you can stretch them narrative-wise to make the claims you need to make in your application, and to that extent I agree with your advisor.

 

[LizzyM]

Sometimes, advisors are misinformed. It wouldn't be the first time. Just sayin'.

 

[eigen]

Re:shadowing surgeons, I just wanted to get a well-rounded sense of the breadth in the scope of being a physician, but I can avoid shadowing more surgery if you think that admissions officers would look negatively on that. Thanks for the help.

No, I think it's fine: like I said, those were just observations for you to consider, not "you're doing this wrong" statements. It seems like you have clear interests and your activities are well chosen to align with those.