Does this counts as clinical experience?

[Conflicted_premed]

Hello, I am currently pre med and I have struggled with finding clinical experience because where I live is REALLY hard to find this kind of opportunities and with COVID still around is way harder. I found this volunteer opportunity and I was wondering if it would count as clinical experience. It is about a program directed to help homless persons; volunteers prepare medications, meals, suplements and safe syringes to provide to the homeless persons on the streets. In addition to these, volunteers talk with this persons and registers their data to help them in a future or to help them find a place.

Other opportunity I found was '7 cups' that is a website where you connect with people, help them emotionally by listening their struggles and interacting with them.

If this options does not count as clinical, do you have other recommendations?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[deleted1037524]

I'll let more experienced folks weigh in but the first is tentatively non-clinical while the second is definitely non-clinical. However, if you want to help people out they seem like great activities that could be valuable experiences for you as a person! Schools understand the pressure to find clinical experience in COVID-affected areas, so maybe try to shadow some more if you can't find any clinical work and need to apply.

Maybe look for COVID-specific help like in testing or vaccination sites? Hospitals and free clinics are opening to volunteers as more people become vaccinated and restrictions are lowered. When are you looking to apply? If it is not this cycle, you have enough time to find clinical experience. Paid work is also an option (look to get EMT certified, for example) if you have the time and resources for it.

 

[LizzyM]

The activities you describe are an excellent way to help people who aren't able to do for themselves given their circumstances. However, the people are not patients and therefore I can't define these as clinical experiences.

With things opening up, it should be easier to find opportunities to work or volunteer in places where patients are present and you are able to be face-to-face with them. Hospital emergency departments are very popular volunteer sites as are pediatric hospital units (to play with patients who are confined to bed and/or those able to go to a playroom or an outpatient waiting room. Hospitals and clinics have other patient -facing opportunities for volunteers and those should be opening up soon. Get vaccinated if you haven't already!

In terms of employment, scribe is a popular entry level position for pre-meds. Office assistant in an outpatient office is another. Some people take the time to be trained in phlebotomy or as a patient care technician (previously known as a nurses aide or orderly) or an EMT-B.

 

[Goro]

Hello, I am currently pre med and I have struggled with finding clinical experience because where I live is REALLY hard to find this kind of opportunities and with COVID still around is way harder. I found this volunteer opportunity and I was wondering if it would count as clinical experience. It is about a program directed to help homless persons; volunteers prepare medications, meals, suplements and safe syringes to provide to the homeless persons on the streets. In addition to these, volunteers talk with this persons and registers their data to help them in a future or to help them find a place.

Other opportunity I found was '7 cups' that is a website where you connect with people, help them emotionally by listening their struggles and interacting with them.

If this options does not count as clinical, do you have other recommendations?

Wonderful NONclinical ECs!

Not all volunteering needs to be in a hospital. Think hospice, Planned Parenthood, nursing homes, rehab facilities, crisis hotlines, camps for sick children, or clinics.

Some types of volunteer activities are more appealing than others. Volunteering in a nice suburban hospital is all very well and good and all, but doesn't show that you're willing to dig in and get your hands dirty in the same way that working with the developmentally disabled (or homeless, the dying, or Alzheimers or mentally ill or elderly or ESL or domestic, rural impoverished) does. The uncomfortable situations are the ones that really demonstrate your altruism and get you 'brownie points'. Plus, they frankly teach you more -- they develop your compassion and humanity in ways comfortable situations can't.