Direct patient care preferred for clinical experience? Different adcoms, different views

[senzen]

Hi everyone!

So this is something I've been wondering about for awhile…does anyone know if actually playing a role in patient care is preferred? (Examples: Phlebotomist, EMT, Paramedic, Medical Assistant, etc.) Something along the lines of actual hands on patient care.

At my hospital, for example, we are only allowed to speak and give food to patients (we have a strict no hands on policy).

I've been to info sessions with different admissions committee representatives from different MD/DO schools and some will say that any experience in a clinical setting will suffice but I've had some say that they prefer things like CNA, EMT, etc. At first I was really concerned because I didn't have anything at the time, so they told me if I had shadowing that would be okay since I would be there to listen to patient histories, diagnoses, etc. (something along those lines).

Recently I was able to join a free clinic that lets me take vitals but that's truly the extent of it.


It seems like different admissions committees have different views on this.

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[Goro]

As our wonderful LizzyM points out, if you can smell the patients, it's a clinical experience.

Hands on or off is irrelevant. We just want to know that you want to be around sick people.

Hi everyone!

So this is something I've been wondering about for awhile…does anyone know if actually playing a role in patient care is preferred? (Examples: Phlebotomist, EMT, Paramedic, Medical Assistant, etc.) Something along the lines of actual hands on patient care.

At my hospital, for example, we are only allowed to speak and give food to patients (we have a strict no hands on policy).

I've been to info sessions with different admissions committee representatives from different MD/DO schools and some will say that any experience in a clinical setting will suffice but I've had some say that they prefer things like CNA, EMT, etc. At first I was really concerned because I didn't have anything at the time, so they told me if I had shadowing that would be okay since I would be there to listen to patient histories, diagnoses, etc. (something along those lines).

Recently I was able to join a free clinic that lets me take vitals but that's truly the extent of it.


It seems like different admissions committees have different views on this.

 

[songl4a]

.

 

[palatopharyngeus]

As our wonderful LizzyM points out, if you can smell the patients, it's a clinical experience.

Hands on or off is irrelevant. We just want to know that you want to be around sick people.

and if the adcom insists that you should have touched the patients, you should proceed to back out of the room quietly

 

[Doug Underhill]

I have a patient at my clinic that is particularly malodorous and I think of LizzyM every time.

 

[mcatjelly]

I have a patient at my clinic that is particularly malodorous and I think of LizzyM every time.

Yesterday I had to physically restrain an acutely psychotic patient's upper legs as my coworkers put him into mechanical restraints, which meant I was face to face with a leaking colostomy bag for a good 15 minutes. I smelled the patient, all right.

 

[musicalfeet]

Yesterday I had to physically restrain an acutely psychotic patient's upper legs as my coworkers put him into mechanical restraints, which meant I was face to face with a leaking colostomy bag for a good 15 minutes. I smelled the patient, all right.

Or the poor homeless guy in the ER that everyone can smell in the hallway...

I'm totally going to hell for making that comment T_T

 

[senzen]

As our wonderful LizzyM points out, if you can smell the patients, it's a clinical experience.

Hands on or off is irrelevant. We just want to know that you want to be around sick people.

Goro I know I know!! I'm just curious about the schools that actually do insist on having some direct patient care.

But from what it seems like the vast majority of schools are okay with LizzyM's definition of clinical experience. So I guess that's a good thing.

For whatever reason, I randomly ended up on the UoU Medical School's website and saw what they wrote on "patient exposure." http://medicine.utah.edu/admissions/criteria/index.php#patient

But again, it doesn't seem too common. I think.

 

[NickNaylor]

Goro I know I know!! I'm just curious about the schools that actually do insist on having some direct patient care.

But from what it seems like the vast majority of schools are okay with LizzyM's definition of clinical experience. So I guess that's a good thing.

For whatever reason, I randomly ended up on the UoU Medical School's website and saw what they wrote on "patient exposure." http://medicine.utah.edu/admissions/criteria/index.php#patient

But again, it doesn't seem too common. I think.

Very few people are going to care all that much about the particulars of your clinical experience as long as 1) you have some and 2) you can speak intelligently about working with patients and being a physician. The latter two things are usually gained in the course of some degree of clinical exposure.

 

[caffeinemia]

I want to hear a phlebotomist write about how it felt to stick themselves for the first time. That would be some material to talk about!

 

[medic86]

I want to hear a phlebotomist write about how it felt to stick themselves for the first time. That would be some material to talk about!

Haha. There were some good stories pertaining to why we weren't allowed to take needles back to the barracks to practice IVs when I was in AIT.

Let's just say that it involved needles, alcohol, and penis.

 

[NeuResurgens]

I have a patient at my clinic that is particularly malodorous and I think of LizzyM every time.

Oh yes. For my work in the PACU, every post-surgery breath I get a whiff of reminds me of LizzyM.