Clinical volunteering needed?

[chicandtoughness]

Hey folks. For those of us career changing from another healthcare career (physical therapy, nursing, the like), is clinical volunteering necessary? I'm a mental health clinician but I work in a psychiatric hospital - my job for the past 2 years has been clinical! Is this enough? Or should I still rack up a significant amount of clinical volunteering in something more "medical"?

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[futuremdforme]

I would do something more "medical" to show that you're up for the dirty parts of medicine as well as the broad training, even if you're interested in psychiatry.

 

[Stellaartwa]

On the one hand, I like to think that adcoms understand that us non-trads are busy with our full-time jobs, families, etc. but on the other hand, I think we need to check all the same boxes as the trads and then some.

As far as clinical exposure, you're definitely good. The volunteer bit is meant to show that you're interested in serving your community. Will you have non-clinical volunteering? I think it would be a mistake to apply with no/minimal recent volunteering. Could you get 50-100 hours of either clinical or non-clinical before you apply?

 

[chicandtoughness]

Could you get 50-100 hours of either clinical or non-clinical before you apply?

I have 200+ non-clinical volunteering (been doing it since college and never stopped). For that reason, I'm not worried about showing that I'm dedicated to giving back to my community. I just would hate for adcoms to see that most of my clinical experience is in psych only and then question whether I'm too "close minded" for med school. I definitely plan on writing in my statement that I am *not* just doing this to get into psychiatry and have interests in medicine broadly.

 

[Stellaartwa]

In that case, I don't think it's a big deal.