Well, I think you know very well that your experience is unusual for a premed. Some cities, 500k+ or not, simply don't have the locations for premeds to take on that level of involvement. Perhaps there is some hospital somewhere where you can but one could hardly expect premeds to know where to look (or have the time to look for that matter). Be grateful for what you've found but understand that every hospital is different.
I'd also like to point out that clinical experience does not have to be clinical volunteering. Many applicants get their volunteer experience completely separate from their clinical experience. I do a mixture of both but I do very very little clinical volunteering because in the local hospitals we don't do much so it feels like a waste of my life.
Honestly, I'd have to say that sounds like a bit of a cop-out. No, great experiences aren't easy to get, but to blame that on where you live rings false to me unless you live in a small community. Obviously, the majority of the country lives in medium to large urban centers (~60% in 200k+ communities as of 2000 w/ a consistently increasing trend over the past century) and most major universities are not far from a large metropolitan area.
That having been said, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon when it comes to people having great opportunities just sort of "fall from the sky." Namely, it seems that some people seem to get great opportunities more often than others (within a given geographic location, school, classroom, etc.). I suspect that just as some are "accident prone" others are "opportunity prone" (i.e., they tend to "get lucky"). Now, maybe I'm just a bit deterministic or something, but it seems to me that the chance of some people getting a lot of opportunities and others none (or very few) is more likely systematic than random. I would encourage premeds to look for good experiences and not just accept the first that comes their way. Being as residential services are not particularly well-funded in any state (even CA struggles w/ paying for life-long care), finding a residential program (psych, geriatric, disabled adults, etc.) that would be willing to accept a volunteer should not be difficult.
Furthermore, a quick Google search reveals that many states have some sort of medical administration program for residential staff to get trained (typically in just a few days) to administer meds (via a limited number of routes) under the supervision of licensed medical personnel (i.e., with specific, written physician's orders and proper documentation checked by medical personnel). Becoming trained as a medical administration staff member and working at a residential facility for a population you're interested in (peds, geri, adults, psych) would be a
great way to gain valuable clinical experience and with the industry average turnover rate being 8 months, you're pretty unlikely
not to find a job opening!
The key, I think, is to look where others haven't. I recall someone mentioning not being able to find positions in Michigan, so here are some listings I just found (I didn't look beyond basic descriptions so some may be better than others):
House Parent,
www.baptistchildrenshome.org
Wraparound Coordinator
Program Manager
Case Management
You might also try school or camp "nurse" positions (often they only require an EMT-B or CNA). You have to be creative sometimes.
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