Clinical hours?

[sixersfan]

How important are clinical hours in an application? I have none and I want to know if I need to get them while I still have time. Thank you! @Faha @Goro

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[Doctor Dream]

Not an adcom but I know enough about the application process to say it'll tank your app if you don't have any. How do you know you want to dedicate years of your life and tons of money to this path without any first-hand experience? It's a rhetorical question from me, but med schools will want an answer.

 

[candbgirl]

You need about 150 hours of clinical experience. Do you have any shadowing? Shadowing is different from clinical e perience? How about nonclinical experiences? Hopefully you have the last two in sufficient numbers so you can focus on the clinical. Without. clinical experience your application will have a great, big, gaping hole. And that would be very bad. How did you get this far without someone telling you about your need for clinical experience.

 

[sixersfan]

I just switched to being pre-med. I have around 20 hours of shadowing hours and will have much more this summer and I will also have lots of volunteer hours this summer. What are some good examples of ways to get clinical experience? My pre-med advisor never really emphasized them all that much. Is shadowing not considered clinical experience?

 

[sixersfan]

I have also found on several threads on SDN that shadowing can be clinical experience but clinical experience isn't necessarily shadowing which makes sense. I've just always been under the impression that they were the same thing? @candbgirl

 

[gyngyn]

50 hours of primary care shadowing is plenty.
More than that doesn't help.

 

[sixersfan]

50 hours of primary care shadowing is plenty.
More than that doesn't help.

Thank you! @gyngyn So are clinical hours and shadowing the same thing? or should i seek out clinical hours as their own thing?

 

[ciestar]

Clinical hours and shadowing hours are very separate.
~50 shadowing hours are sufficient.

~150 clinical hours is probably a good start.

 

[candbgirl]

Shadowing is more of a passive thing while clinical experience is active. You interact with patients and families. Shadowing involves observing how a doc goes through the day.

 

[TurKFebruarY]

There is no correct amount of clinical exp hours. I've interviewed candidates who have 50 and those with 500. What makes them important is what they took away from that experience and how that influenced their choice and perspective of becoming a physician. In the end, as gyngyn alluded to, more doesn't necessarily mean better.

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