Clinical Experience

[LWolf13]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hello forum!
I know this question has been asked a million times, but hear me out i have read other threads, and am still little unclear regarding my specific experience...

As you may be able to tell (from my post count) I'm a little new to this forum. I'm currently a psych major and also taking pre-med courses, ultimately my goal is to either be a psychologist or a psychiatrist preferably through the military’s HPSP scholarship program but as of right now I can't decide which one, which is why I’m taking premed courses. Nonetheless regarding the requirements for med school, I hear about 150 hours of some kind of clinical experience is required. Here’s the thing, I’m currently a CASAC-t (Certified Alcohol Substance Abuse Counselor trainee) which is considered a Qualified Health Professional (QHP), with over 350 hours of clinical experience in an inpatient/outpatient rehabilitation hospital. I have done one on one therapy, drug screen urinalysis, insurance related work like dealing with medicaid and managed care providers, group therapy, consults, evaluation/assessments, DSM-IV diagnoses, intake, etc--all through an unpaid internship, which sucked at times…I did however learn a lot
Which finally gets me to my question, does this count as clinical experience?
Thanks everyone!

 

[olemissbabydoc]

A) no time limit/requirement on clinical exp. for MD schools. DO schools have a requirement.

B) Per LizzyM, if you're close enough to smell patients, its clinical experience.

And from doing some time in psych myself, you can TOTALLY smell your patients

 

[Mobius1985]

I agree there is no set amount of clinical experience expected by MD school adcomms, but it does seem that about 150 hours is the average that people report. You have covered that expectation already with the internship. You still need to be involved in community service which an "internship" doesn't cover. And I'd suggest that to broaden your experience, you should have some contact with medically-ill people. Don't forget physician shadowing is a general expectation. I'm sure you are around psychiatrists a lot already, so I mean another 1-2 medical subspecialists for 8+ hours each.

 

[LizzyM]

^ good advice there. Since you mentioned HPSP, I'd suggest that you get some exposure to the mileau, as they say, by volunteering at a military hosptial (if that's convenient) or a VA Medical Center (they're more ubiquitous). From that you may get some opportunities to shadow docs in different specialties.

To succeed at med admissions you are going to need to convince the adcom that while you are most interested in psychiatry, that you are excited to learn about the body as well as the mind and you are open to the possibility that something other than psychiatry may catch your attention and cause you to change course.