Clinical vs NOT!

[eldoctor]

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Hello,

I read somewhere that reading to children in the waiting room of a hospital is considered clinical experience. Is this true??? Technically the kids are not patients, their parents are...

Is volunteering in a free clinic as an interpreter/translator a more "legit" clinical experience?

Thanks for your help!

 

[MossPoh]

You guys analyze this stuff way too much. I really don't consider it clinical, but it isn't bad. I think the best clinical exposure is simply through shadowing. The rest of it just shows some humanity and your interest in the health fields.

 

[Law2Doc]

Hello,

I read somewhere that reading to children in the waiting room of a hospital is considered clinical experience. Is this true??? Technically the kids are not patients, their parents are...

Is volunteering in a free clinic as an interpreter/translator a more "legit" clinical experience?

Thanks for your help!

I think you need to take a step back and realize that the "requirement" for clinical experience/exposure is only partly for adcom purposes, but to a much much greater extent is important to make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. As such, people suggest that good clinical experience should be one where, as LizzyM likes to say, "you are close enough to smell the patients", or as an interviewer I had suggested, a good clinical experience is one where there is a substantial chance of being thrown up upon. You have to get in there on the front lines with the patients, and decide if you are the type who will thrive working with patients, because medicine is a very interpersonal service industry, and if you don't like working with the sick and injured on a daily basis, you aren't going to like medicine. So do the clinical experience that helps you make an informed decision as to whether this is a career path you will enjoy. I'd say reading to kids is nice, but not going to help you make your decision. Being an interpreter and actually talking to sick, scared patients is going to get you a lot farther toward your goal of deciding whether you like interacting with patients, and you will get to see doctor- patient interactions much better. And definitely do some shadowing on top of this, because you need more interaction with the doctor component. So again, worry less about what adcoms "want" and worry more on what kind of exposure will let you make an informed decision. In most cases they dovetail very nicely and you will realize that adcoms only want you to have done the kind of research you ought to be doing on this kind of important decision. It's not about making them happy so much as not screwing yourself over career-wise and taking an easy path to a bad decision. Hope that helps.

 

[Mobius1985]

Reading to healthy children is a good community service. Volunteering in a free clinic and having patient contact is clinical experience and community service.