Clinical Experience

[SilentSoldier]

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Hello everyone,

I just had a question about the whole clinical experience thing. Does it matter if the clinical experience is voluntary or paid? Right now I work as a medical scribe in an ER and I'm getting tons of experience being there in the ER but its now my primary source of income as well. Will I be frowned upon if I decide not to do some voluntary clinical experience. Especially since the last time I tried to do that I was stuck with the nurses filing papers instead of seeing and learning things about medicine. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I also wanted to ask it here since the What are my Chances forum tends to be very mean to people.

 

[devilpup]

Hello everyone,

I just had a question about the whole clinical experience thing. Does it matter if the clinical experience is voluntary or paid? Right now I work as a medical scribe in an ER and I'm getting tons of experience being there in the ER but its now my primary source of income as well. Will I be frowned upon if I decide not to do some voluntary clinical experience. Especially since the last time I tried to do that I was stuck with the nurses filing papers instead of seeing and learning things about medicine. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I also wanted to ask it here since the What are my Chances forum tends to be very mean to people.

It's great that you are working and obtaining clinical experience at the same time. What is most important is that you describe to adcoms how the clinical experience helped you in your decision to pursue a medical career. I would suggest talking with someone in the department to see if they can allow you to shadow some of the staff. This way the experience can become a bit more clinical rather than administrative.

Not every premed can say that they were employed in a clinical setting during undergrad and were still able to pull a >3.7 GPA... Good luck to 'ya.

 

[w8ting2exhale]

Hello everyone,

I just had a question about the whole clinical experience thing. Does it matter if the clinical experience is voluntary or paid? Right now I work as a medical scribe in an ER and I'm getting tons of experience being there in the ER but its now my primary source of income as well. Will I be frowned upon if I decide not to do some voluntary clinical experience. Especially since the last time I tried to do that I was stuck with the nurses filing papers instead of seeing and learning things about medicine. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I also wanted to ask it here since the What are my Chances forum tends to be very mean to people.

Clinical experience is clinical experience...be it volunteer or paid work. As long as its serving the right purpose in exposing you to the field/patient-doctor relationships, its good. If you're getting paid for it than its even better for you. There are plenty of things you can volunteer in.

 

[Anotherface]

If you can get your clinical experience and paid all at once, then do it. I wish I had could have gotten a job like that.

 

[redlight]

i'm just going to say you should have SOME SORT of significant volunteering. is it required? i think that is debatable.

even if it is BS for most applicants, adcom like to see signs of altruism, namely some kind of volunteering in something that interests you. clinical volunteering may be a plus, who knows? if you can spare some hours id volunteer at the hospital on the side. even if it is only 2hrs a week.

 

[TamarMD]

I work in a hospital as a PCT (CNA) and my advisor said that it counts as clinical experience. He also suggested that I volunteer some place other than the hospital so that I could be "well-rounded". So I volunteer at a DV shelter. See if you can volunteer somewhere in your community.

 

[SilentSoldier]

It's great that you are working and obtaining clinical experience at the same time. What is most important is that you describe to adcoms how the clinical experience helped you in your decision to pursue a medical career. I would suggest talking with someone in the department to see if they can allow you to shadow some of the staff. This way the experience can become a bit more clinical rather than administrative.

Not every premed can say that they were employed in a clinical setting during undergrad and were still able to pull a >3.7 GPA... Good luck to 'ya.

As soon as I get that > 3.7 GPA, I'll be happy to say that 😛. Its coming along nicely though.