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Basically, I have a ton of hours shadowing and a lot of hours in non-clinical volunteering (homeless shelter). Do I also need clinical volunteering?
Do I need clinical experience beyond shadowing?
- Thread starter numbersloth
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You want enough clinical exposure to demonstrate that healthcare is a field you can work in. Some clinical and non-clinical volunteering is recommended.
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Yes. According to the MSAR about 90% or more of accepted applicants at every MD school have clinical volunteering.
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Of course
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Yes, clinical volunteering is a good idea. While a lot of people on SDN do entry-level clinical jobs, I'm very much against them. They require a significant commitment and will not set your application apart. If anything, it can negatively impact your grades and MCAT, which will destroy your application. Plus you aren't missing out on anything, since medical school starts you at the beginning and you will have the rest of your life to experience these "moments" as a physician. Plus the money you earn is pocket change compared to future earnings as a physician, and also won't cover tuition for an SMP if you manage to screw yourself over with the commitment.
Clinical volunteering is the best bang for the buck. You pay for the convenience of only having to commit a few hours once a week, where you usually have the choice to do as little or as much as you want to do. Plus you will check the boxes for volunteering and clinical experience at the same time. Speaking of doing as little as you want, if you aren't expected to do much at your site, you can study during your shift (as long as you still do what you're asked). You'd be amazed with what you can do and get out of hospital volunteering if you treat it simply as a checkbox item.
Clinical volunteering is the best bang for the buck. You pay for the convenience of only having to commit a few hours once a week, where you usually have the choice to do as little or as much as you want to do. Plus you will check the boxes for volunteering and clinical experience at the same time. Speaking of doing as little as you want, if you aren't expected to do much at your site, you can study during your shift (as long as you still do what you're asked). You'd be amazed with what you can do and get out of hospital volunteering if you treat it simply as a checkbox item.
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Yes.
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If you have been employed in clinical services, you don't need volunteer clinical on top of it but if you have nothing but shadowing, volunteering is the more time efficient way to get something on your application that shows that you've figuratively, if not literally, gotten your hands dirty in a clinical setting and know the environment and are still gung-ho.
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This is terrible advice. The point of volunteering isn't to study, it's to gain experiences and insights that 1) reinforce your want to be a doctor and help people and more importantly 2) to be passionate about them during your interviews. You're really telling people to go to their volunteering gig and study? That's exactly how you have good stats, multiple II, and then don't get in anywhere. Enthusiasm goes a long way.
Also those "entry level jobs" are wonderful jobs that serve a purpose. I assume you're mostly referring to scribing, but it's not like shadowing where it's only for the student. Scribes provide a very real service and the reason why they're there is because they're useful, make things more efficient, and create a better patient-physician interaction. The fact that it's paid low isn't a reflection on the value, it's a reflection of the supply of premeds. These kinds of jobs do indeed make an applicant stand out. Just because SDN is overrun with 4.0s, 520s, and scribes/what not, the general applicant is still lacking in all these areas. If you have good stats, a clinical job, and volunteer, I'd find it very hard pressed to NOT find an acceptance somewhere.
Moral of your story should be this: If something takes away from your GPA/MCAT, then yes drop it. However, if you can balance both, it will by far make you a better applicant. And if you want to get a medical school acceptance, it's hard work and it's worth it.
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Well yeah, the point of volunteering is to help people and the organization. But, the pre-med process has turned it into a check-box item. Pre-meds are often treated like crap because of the terrible reputation they have. In that case, people can make it the experience into whatever they want. Yes, it would be good if people put forth as much effort as possible. That's what people should strive for. But this isn't the case with a lot of pre-med volunteers, so I'm just putting it out there that these experiences can often allow them to use them as study time. It's not ideal in the real world, but it works pretty well for a good portion of pre-meds. This is especially helpful when pre-meds feel swamped with academics.
Otherwise, with ~90% of pre-meds entering medical school having volunteered, you would think that this group would be viewed as something righteous, and should be up for a collective Nobel Peace Prize.
I'm not saying these entry-level clinical jobs are worthless. There's a place for everyone on the totem pole, from janitor all the way to the hospital CEO. But what I'm saying is that they aren't required for getting into medical school. As @LizzyM says, if you can smell the patient, it's clinical experience. The whole point of it is to see the clinical environment, and not to learn any skills. I've said it many times that there are people who put way too much on their plate, and end up paying dearly for it. Remember, we are here to become physicians. We aren't here to become professional scribes, EMTs, phlebotomists, CNAs, etc... I'm a third year medical student and have seen EMTs picking patients up from the hospital. I still can't tell you what they do on a daily basis, and it doesn't really matter since I'm becoming a doctor, not an EMT. I agree with you that things can only make you look better, but this is assuming you have good grades which brings me too...
I totally agree with this, within reason of course. Aside from research publications, once you become a medical student, no one will care about the volunteer work or entry-level clinical jobs you had. Some people might spend all of their college time devoted toward pre-med and be fine with it. Yet some may look back in a few years and say, "Why did I waste the best years of my life doing all that crap?" Either way, these people will be in medical school so it is what it is.
