Clinical Experience??

[khristich00]

What exactly can be considered as clinical experience?? Currently, I work at a retail pharmacy as a pharmacy intern with plently of patient contact and interaction. I'm just wondering if this will look good to a med school? I plan to shadow a family practice MD and orthopaedic surgeon over christmas break and this summer. Previously, I have volunteered at a hospital and the county board of developmental disabilties.

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[altaskier]

I think that all sounds like clinical. But try to make the actual volunteering you do with a doc more than a christmas break. I don't know how long you worked in a hospital, but anything goes. As for the pharmacy job, if I were you I'd say I worked there as a way to make money, not so much clinical. The reason I say this is that if you say you worked in a pharmacay and consider it clinical exposure, then the question might be raised, "why didn't you go to pharmacy school"? But if you say u worked in a pharmacy as a way to make money ( a source of income) then u'd get away with it.


hope this helps

 

[khristich00]

See, that's the thing, I started out in pharmacy school, but I changed my major last year(currently a junior), I do have a good answer to why I didn't want to go the rest of pharmacy school and I'm actually hoping that this gets brought up at an interview.

 

[altaskier]

well, what's your answer to why pharmacy over MD?

 

[khristich00]

Pharmacy, while a noble profession, just does not offer the same opportunites for patient care and patient intervention the medicine does. I would not feel as emotionally rewarded dispensing someone's med as I would actually taking an active role in diagnosing and prescribing. Basically, I think pharmacy would leave me unfulfilled and bitter after graduation. So many times at work, a patient has a question and a lot of the time the pharmacist will refer them to their Dr., this doesn't appeal to me, I want to answer their questions.

How's that sound??

There are also some other reasons that have to do with the evils of working in a retail pharmacy that don't really have anything to do with why I prefer medicine to pharmacy.