Clinical experience only months before applying?

[nutellaluver]

So I've been reading and hearing that doing/starting a category of activities just a few months before you plan to apply looks like checking the box and can harm your application.

Do you think that would apply to clinical experience too, considering COVID? My mom is immunocompromised, which is why I didn't feel safe going and getting clinical experience (shadowing + clinical volunteering) until now. And even now, I'm only getting clinical experience by not going home at all (just so I don't accidentally expose my mom though she's now vaccinated).

So, by the time I apply, it will be about 5 months of getting experience (250+ hours). Will this look bad? It's going to only be clinical experience that I start months before applying.. everything else (research, nonclinical volunteering, etc) has been ongoing since my freshman year. I really don't want to have to take a gap year for personal reasons, but if this will reflect poorly I guess I won't have a choice.

For context, COVID started in my freshman year, which is why all the clinical experiences I planned to start during my late freshman year ended up not happening till now. I wanted to start in fall 2021 of my junior year, but no clinical volunteering opportunities opened up until late semester only for the start to be spring semester. I have some virtual shadowing. I am also planning on doing this clinical experience until May of 2023 (when I graduate).

Any insight will be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your help!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Goro]

Has the risk of looking like you're box checking.

 

[Catalystik]

So I've been reading and hearing that doing/starting a category of activities just a few months before you plan to apply looks like checking the box and can harm your application.

Do you think that would apply to clinical experience too, considering COVID? My mom is immunocompromised, which is why I didn't feel safe going and getting clinical experience (shadowing + clinical volunteering) until now. And even now, I'm only getting clinical experience by not going home at all (just so I don't accidentally expose my mom though she's now vaccinated).

So, by the time I apply, it will be about 5 months of getting experience (250+ hours). Will this look bad? It's going to only be clinical experience that I start months before applying.. everything else (research, nonclinical volunteering, etc) has been ongoing since my freshman year. I really don't want to have to take a gap year for personal reasons, but if this will reflect poorly I guess I won't have a choice.

For context, COVID started in my freshman year, which is why all the clinical experiences I planned to start during my late freshman year ended up not happening till now. I wanted to start in fall 2021 of my junior year, but no clinical volunteering opportunities opened up until late semester only for the start to be spring semester. I have some virtual shadowing. I am also planning on doing this clinical experience until May of 2023 (when I graduate).

Any insight will be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your help!

It will be more difficult to convince adcomms that you’ve thoroughly tested medicine as a career. Future hours won’t impress anyone.

 

[Blueprint Med School]

It won't look amazing, but I think it'd be better than nothing.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

 

[candbgirl]

It will look a little off because you carried on other activities during the pandemic. Especially the nonclinical volunteering.

 

[KnightDoc]

It is what it is. The pandemic still isn't over, but you're doing it because you feel like you have to in order to meet a deadline for yourself of applying this year. Even worse, you will have no gap years, unlike around 3/4 of all applicants not coming through a BS/MD program.

Bottom line -- it won't be impossible to succeed, but it will look like exactly what it is, and that won't help your application. You'll already be at a disadvantage applying with no gap years, and this isn't going to make it any better.

I'm also not sure why you think clinical opportunities have not been available until now. While shadowing has been very hit or miss, clinics, hospitals, etc. have had an acute need for help, and started opening up opportunities for both volunteers and paid positions even before vaccines became widely available, which was around this time last year. Telling someone at a med school that there was no clinical opportunity for an applicant, anywhere, versus at your preferred location engaged in your preferred activity, from March 2020 until Spring 2022 is just not going to ring true, even if it is.

 

[nutellaluver]

It will look a little off because you carried on other activities during the pandemic. Especially the nonclinical volunteering.

My nonclinical volunteering & research also became remote until Fall 2021! Which is why I was able to carry it on. When I returned to in person classes in fall is when they went back to in person (and I stopped going home at that point).

 

[nutellaluver]

It is what it is. The pandemic still isn't over, but you're doing it because you feel like you have to in order to meet a deadline for yourself of applying this year. Even worse, you will have no gap years, unlike around 3/4 of all applicants not coming through a BS/MD program.

Bottom line -- it won't be impossible to succeed, but it will look like exactly what it is, and that won't help your application. You'll already be at a disadvantage applying with no gap years, and this isn't going to make it any better.

I'm also not sure why you think clinical opportunities have not been available until now. While shadowing has been very hit or miss, clinics, hospitals, etc. have had an acute need for help, and started opening up opportunities for both volunteers and paid positions even before vaccines became widely available, which was around this time last year. Telling someone at a med school that there was no clinical opportunity for an applicant, anywhere, versus at your preferred location engaged in your preferred activity, from March 2020 until Spring 2022 is just not going to ring true, even if it is.

Makes sense! Thanks for the insight. And where I’m from, clinical volunteering only slowly opened up during Fall 2021… by the time I applied, got accepted, and went through training, it was the holidays— so they made my start date in January. It is what it is though, I’ll evaluate how this may impact my admissions!

 

[nutellaluver]

It won't look amazing, but I think it'd be better than nothing.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

Thank you for the insight!

 

[nutellaluver]

It will be more difficult to convince adcomms that you’ve thoroughly tested medicine as a career. Future hours won’t impress anyone.

Makes sense! Thank you for your insight! Also, I did have some experiences in late high school, but my college was in a completely different place (so I didn’t continue the clinical work from high school). So, I’m assuming I can’t list these high school experiences right, even though they allowed me to test if the field was right for me, correct?

 

[nutellaluver]

Has the risk of looking like you're box checking.

Thank you for your insight!

 

[KnightDoc]

Makes sense! Thanks for the insight. And where I’m from, clinical volunteering only slowly opened up during Fall 2021… by the time I applied, got accepted, and went through training, it was the holidays— so they made my start date in January. It is what it is though, I’ll evaluate how this may impact my admissions!

I totally get the desire to push through, but carefully consider the value of playing the game and doing the gap year.

I was in a similar situation -- was planning on applying May 2020 when the pandemic came out of nowhere that March. Glaring holes in my ECs, with no visibility into when I'd be able to address them, the realization that most other people did not have that problem, plus my MCAT being repeatedly rescheduled that spring into the summer, ultimately forced me to face the unavoidable and push my application back.

In hindsight, not doing that would have been fatal. This cycle, I've had several IIs, but no As yet. I'm pretty sure I'd be a reapplicant now if I pushed through last year. That really is something you want to avoid if you can.

 

[Catalystik]

Makes sense! Thank you for your insight! Also, I did have some experiences in late high school, but my college was in a completely different place (so I didn’t continue the clinical work from high school). So, I’m assuming I can’t list these high school experiences right, even though they allowed me to test if the field was right for me, correct?

Did you continue the HS clinical work after HS graduation? Then you can list it. If not, you can still mention it as part of your “pathway to medicine“ in your personal statement.