Clinical exposure - how much is necessary?

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xnfs93hy

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Is it really necessary to get much clinical exposure beyond volunteering at my campus hospital and shadowing a number of physicians? I hold an EMT-B certificate, but decided that it wasn't for me when I actually started volunteering on my local volunteer squad; so, I'm going to refrain from putting that on my application. Who cares about a EMT cert. if you don't actually use it? I want to start getting heavily involved in basic science research, and feel like that is going to take up a lot of my time outside of classes now. Do medical schools expect more clinical experience than the typical shadowing and volunteering? I've actually learned a lot doing those two things. I'd like to get some more clinical exposure, but can't really think of anything else I'd be interested in doing that doesn't require some sort of training that I don't have the time for right now.

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No, I think you'll be fine as long as you keep up the hospital volunteering for a while. The purpose of clinical experience is two-fold: to show schools that you know what you're getting yourself into, and to show to yourself that you know what you're getting into. There's no minimum number of hours required, but I believe schools prefer to see clinical volunteering continued over a long-ish period of time. You could do a few hours a week (doable even with extensive time spent doing research) over a couple semesters. Shadowing can be done in random bursts, and is best to spread out over a couple different specialties. I think most applicants have about 40-60 hours of shadowing. The summer is usually a good time to do shadowing because you don't have class (or as much class).

I'm glad you're learning things from your clinical experiences, it's good to reflect as you go along so you can easily discuss it in your apps/interviews. And lastly, I think you're right in terms of not listing the EMT certification if you're not actually using it. Good luck!
 
Will do. I don't have as much shadowing experience as I do volunteer work. I volunteer in the Emergency Department and have learned a lot from the physicians there. I will definitely have something to talk about during interviews, besides bench research. My interests lie primarily in surgery. I'm also interested in psychiatry and neurology. I actually got to scrub in an witness a transplant surgery and am thinking of getting in touch with some transplant surgeons, because that surgery was a really great experience. Does it matter how many physicians you shadow and for how long you shadow them? For instance, can I shadow a general surgeon for 30 hours, if I wanted to and then shadow a psychiatrist for 40 hours? Or is it typical to just shadow for one day and that's that?
 
Will do. I don't have as much shadowing experience as I do volunteer work. I volunteer in the Emergency Department and have learned a lot from the physicians there. I will definitely have something to talk about during interviews, besides bench research. My interests lie primarily in surgery. I'm also interested in psychiatry and neurology. I actually got to scrub in an witness a transplant surgery and am thinking of getting in touch with some transplant surgeons, because that surgery was a really great experience. Does it matter how many physicians you shadow and for how long you shadow them? For instance, can I shadow a general surgeon for 30 hours, if I wanted to and then shadow a psychiatrist for 40 hours? Or is it typical to just shadow for one day and that's that?

I think as long as you shadow a few different kinds, anything is fine. I shadowed a bunch of different surgeons for 1-2 days, and then a pediatric neurologist for about two weeks, so it really varies by doctor/person.
 
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