Clinical experience: mental health tech enough?

[TheNietzsche]

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I have been working as a Mental Health Tech role for the last few months with the goal of getting patient exposure and clinical experience. I help deescalate crisis, monitor and support patients, and assist with ADLs as needed. I work very closely with the patients and, since I am interested in psych, find this experience to be rewarding. I'll likely have 500 hours paid experience doing this when all is said and done.

I am wondering if this is enough though? Should I pursue a second opportunity in a non-psych facility? Psych is a main interest of mine and I don't intend on hiding that in the application, though I would like to emphasize my broad interests (psych/neuro/EM/etc).

Any thoughts are helpful.

 

[bananafish94]

I suspect that 500 hours of clinical experience should suffice in demonstrating that you have a passion for working with patients. That being said, it can never heard to have some diversity of experience.

 

[confidentandgood]

I believe having some non-clinical exposure won't hurt.

 

[TheNietzsche]

Thanks for the responses!

That seems like an inconsistent sentence.

Yeah, I suppose I didn't phrase it as well as I could have. Psych is one of my primary interests, perhaps my main interest, within medicine. But it isn't my only interest, and I guess I'm just trying to determine if I should stick with the MHT role since I find it quote fulfilling, or seek to diversify my clinical experience.

Also, does it matter than the 500 hours would be in the span of about 5 months? Does longer duration look better than more hours and shorter duration? (Or am I just being neurotic?)

Thanks.

 

[TheNietzsche]

Thank you very much for your advice!

As Nietzsche said "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

👍

 

[mcatjelly]

So I applied with 2,000 hours of FT work as a psych tech which comprised about 95% of my clinical experience. I also had like 20 hours of primary care shadowing and a few hundred hours working with EMR at a primary care office. I was recently accepted off 2 WLs. Maybe the shadowing and EMR job was enough to diversify my experiences, I don't know, but I didn't encounter any explicit obstacles because of my lack of breadth. I do very much recommend at least shadowing in other fields, though.

 

[star-lily]

If you guys don't mind my asking, how did you come across these kinds of experiences? I'm also pretty interested in psych.

 

[mcatjelly]

If you guys don't mind my asking, how did you come across these kinds of experiences? I'm also pretty interested in psych.

It depends on the state. Most of the hospitals in my area require a bachelor's degree in a social science or the equivalent in experience, but I know in other states you just need a diploma. Use Google to find your state psych hospitals and private hospitals (the latter generally have stricter requirements), and then see if your area general hospitals have psych floors. You could also check out residential facilities or group homes (many of my patients are discharged to the latter).

 

[LizzyM]

I might suggest finding an Emergency Medicine doc to shadow with the specific goal of seeing how patients with mental health issues present & are dealt with the in ED. The same could be said for shadowing someone in family medicine or internal medicine. Plenty of emotional issues and mental illness that are handled in those settings. This would also give you a broader picture of what you'll spend most of your time doing as an M3. (illnesses and injuries related to the body rather than the mind). Shadowing a neurologist would be interesting, too, to compare neurological and psychiatric conditions.