Does this count as clinical?

[GandalfWhite]

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I am sorry if this comes off as a dumb question, but would people consider working as an ABA Behavioral interventionist for clinical experience?

 

[treadlightlyplease]

Good question, someone please answer. Also, what amount of clinical experience/volunteer hours are needed? Non clinical volunteer hours (community service)? How about shadowing? Also if i shadow a physician at a private clinic, does that count has clinical experience/volunteering?

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

I am sorry if this comes off as a dumb question, but would people consider working as an ABA Behavioral interventionist for clinical experience?

Hmm that is a tough cookie. I suppose it could be depending on the setting... inpatient vs outpatient. Also I am aware that a lot of jobs like this (especially the higher that you go) can become more or less social working type jobs. I would say that the answer is, if you can say it was clinical without feeling like you were lying then yea put it as clinical. Usually they say that "if you are close enough to smell patients its clinical." Now its getting into semantics because I know a lot of counselors dont call the people they work to help "patients" they call then "clients" but all the same. If you are working with people to overcome mental health issues, I could see it as such. I think it will depend on how you swing it.

 

[Awesome Sauceome]

Good question, someone please answer. Also, what amount of clinical experience/volunteer hours are needed? Non clinical volunteer hours (community service)? How about shadowing? Also if i shadow a physician at a private clinic, does that count has clinical experience/volunteering?

This is one of the greatest non-answers I have seen haha....

Anywho, there is no requirement for any of those things. Some people go in with a mix of all of those experiences, some go with just a ton in one area which was sufficient enough to carry them through. Generally speaking the idea of these experiences is to show that A) You know what the job and lifestyle of a physician entails... and B) You have some altruistic traits by taking your time to help/serve others. Both of these things will likely come up in interviews and secondaries.

So a lot of people go with minimal true "clinical." A lot of normal students never got the chance to really get those good experiences. But others can have thousands of hours working as an EMT, Scribe, CNA, Tech, medical assistant, Nurse, etc. So this varies greatly and can help you stand out.

Volunteer, people will throw out all sorts of numbers, but I have heard 100 hours is a minimum that you want to hit. Not only because you need to have some sort of volunteering usually just to check a box, but because on many secondaries they have you write essays describing your favorite or most important volunteering and such. So to show some level of commitment to a task so that you can have something to convincingly write about is what they are looking for.

Clinical vs non-clinical volunteering is a grey area. If you are a very traditional student who never had a clinical job before then clinical volunteering is probably what you want. It will kill two birds with one stone - volunteering and clinical experience. Otherwise do non-clinical and find something that you enjoy. I for instance am a pretty avid cook, so I became a cook at a couple homeless shelters. It was a pretty sweet deal and I really enjoyed my time there. I think it showed well in my writing on my secondaries.

Shadowing you want 50-100 hours total in a couple different specialties - preferably DOs if you can (so you can get a DO LOR). Again, if you were a nurse for 10 years and worked side by side with docs all day, you dont necessarily need shadowing you know?...

Shadowing a physician anywhere counts as shadowing. A lot of people do not see shadowing as clinical experience and definitely not volunteering. The only way it is clinical experience is if you get in a very sweet deal with the physician you are shadowing and he lets you check in patients and take histories and stuff. Otherwise, its just shadowing... Do not put in shadowing as volunteering to fill the void by lack of volunteering that you did. In that case take an extra year and boost up your application.

So again, there is no right or wrong way to do it. You build your application the way that you want to.

 

[treadlightlyplease]

This is one of the greatest non-answers I have seen haha....

Anywho, there is no requirement for any of those things. Some people go in with a mix of all of those experiences, some go with just a ton in one area which was sufficient enough to carry them through. Generally speaking the idea of these experiences is to show that A) You know what the job and lifestyle of a physician entails... and B) You have some altruistic traits by taking your time to help/serve others. Both of these things will likely come up in interviews and secondaries.

So a lot of people go with minimal true "clinical." A lot of normal students never got the chance to really get those good experiences. But others can have thousands of hours working as an EMT, Scribe, CNA, Tech, medical assistant, Nurse, etc. So this varies greatly and can help you stand out.

Volunteer, people will throw out all sorts of numbers, but I have heard 100 hours is a minimum that you want to hit. Not only because you need to have some sort of volunteering usually just to check a box, but because on many secondaries they have you write essays describing your favorite or most important volunteering and such. So to show some level of commitment to a task so that you can have something to convincingly write about is what they are looking for.

Clinical vs non-clinical volunteering is a grey area. If you are a very traditional student who never had a clinical job before then clinical volunteering is probably what you want. It will kill two birds with one stone - volunteering and clinical experience. Otherwise do non-clinical and find something that you enjoy. I for instance am a pretty avid cook, so I became a cook at a couple homeless shelters. It was a pretty sweet deal and I really enjoyed my time there. I think it showed well in my writing on my secondaries.

Shadowing you want 50-100 hours total in a couple different specialties - preferably DOs if you can (so you can get a DO LOR). Again, if you were a nurse for 10 years and worked side by side with docs all day, you dont necessarily need shadowing you know?...

Shadowing a physician anywhere counts as shadowing. A lot of people do not see shadowing as clinical experience and definitely not volunteering. The only way it is clinical experience is if you get in a very sweet deal with the physician you are shadowing and he lets you check in patients and take histories and stuff. Otherwise, its just shadowing... Do not put in shadowing as volunteering to fill the void by lack of volunteering that you did. In that case take an extra year and boost up your application.

So again, there is no right or wrong way to do it. You build your application the way that you want to.

Thanks a bunch!! So in essence, 100 hours of shadowing and a 100 hours of clinical/non clinical volunteering should be sufficient?

 

[CUNYguy]

Thanks a bunch!! So in essence, 100 hours of shadowing and a 100 hours of clinical/non clinical volunteering should be sufficient?

Some individuals aren't as lucky to get 100 hours of shadowing due to conflict of time/commitment with school, work, and other things, but if you have 50 hours, from the literature, it's a solid number. Of course, more is better.

Likewise for volunteering. Some programs actually allow you to volunteer and if you get x-amount of hours, you can cash it in for y-amount of shadowing hours. See if you can find a program like that in a hospital.


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[Dreamstoo]

Some individuals aren't as lucky to get 100 hours of shadowing due to conflict of time/commitment with school, work, and other things, but if you have 50 hours, from the literature, it's a solid number. Of course, more is better.

Likewise for volunteering. Some programs actually allow you to volunteer and if you get x-amount of hours, you can cash it in for y-amount of shadowing hours. See if you can find a program like that in a hospital.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN Mobile

Yeah 40-50 hours is sufficient for shadowing what I have heard from an adcom.

 

[GandalfWhite]

Hmm that is a tough cookie. I suppose it could be depending on the setting... inpatient vs outpatient. Also I am aware that a lot of jobs like this (especially the higher that you go) can become more or less social working type jobs. I would say that the answer is, if you can say it was clinical without feeling like you were lying then yea put it as clinical. Usually they say that "if you are close enough to smell patients its clinical." Now its getting into semantics because I know a lot of counselors dont call the people they work to help "patients" they call then "clients" but all the same. If you are working with people to overcome mental health issues, I could see it as such. I think it will depend on how you swing it.

Yeah so I work with kiddos one on one at home or at an office. I usually take data on whether or not a kiddo can independently perform tasks that they are working on (i.e., can they independently go to the bathroom, take turns while playing a game, or follow tasks given to them). I honestly didn't even consider this as clinical work because I was not in a hospital setting. Thank you