Does this volunteer program fulfill my clinical ECU requirements?

[kinokoboy]

I'm thinking about doing this program starting in August

For those of you who don't want to click on the link:

Phase 1

Patient Access Ambassador (30 hours)
Central Transport Ambassador (30 hours)

Phase 2

Department Placement (80 hours)

Phase 3

Round with a Physician for one day and get a letter of recommendation

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[LostInPreMed]

I think what it comes down to is what you are doing while you are in these positions. The titles sound impressive, but don't really explain what you are doing or in what capacity its related to healthcare. Also, the term "ambassador" sounds a bit strong so it may draw the eye of those looking through apps. Although that may be a good thing, you also might be called out on it during your interview and if all you actually did was pass out blankets to people or get them cups off water, your may end up with a little egg on your face.

Bottom line, choose a volunteer opportunity, make the absolute most of it and suck every little bit out of it you can! Get to know your doc while shadowing so they can write you as personal of a letter as possible!

Have fun volunteering. Make the most of it.


Onwards!

 

[galaxyx]

I think what it comes down to is what you are doing while you are in these positions. The titles sound impressive, but don't really explain what you are doing or in what capacity its related to healthcare. Also, the term "ambassador" sounds a bit strong so it may draw the eye of those looking through apps. Although that may be a good thing, you also might be called out on it during your interview and if all you actually did was pass out blankets to people or get them cups off water, your may end up with a little egg on your face.

Bottom line, choose a volunteer opportunity, make the absolute most of it and suck every little bit out of it you can! Get to know your doc while shadowing so they can write you as personal of a letter as possible!

Have fun volunteering. Make the most of it.


Onwards!

Don't worry about this. "Ambassador" is a standard hospital volunteer position for somebody who is there to make the patient more comfortable. It's used in the hospital I volunteer at and I've seen it used elsewhere as well. I'm sure adcoms have a general sense and positive view of the ambassador role.

I also don't quite get why people put down the role of the volunteer who hands out blankets and gets water for patients. Patients need these things to make themselves more comfortable and are usually very appreciative of the effort. Sometimes they even just want someone to talk to. Nurses/techs don't have time to deal with these things that are more comfort than care, which is why its actually a valuable use of a volunteer. You're not volunteering for YOU and what YOU need/want, you're volunteering to help the patient/hospital with what they need.

I volunteer in a position that is basically patient transport, replacing stretchers, directing visitors, and responding to call buttons(blankets/water), and I've already been exposed to "frequent fliers", drug seekers, chronic illnesses, heart attacks, traumas, and psychiatric illnesses, just by being in the ED.

 

[Abider]

I'm thinking about doing this program starting in August

For those of you who don't want to click on the link:

Phase 1

Patient Access Ambassador (30 hours)
Central Transport Ambassador (30 hours)

Phase 2

Department Placement (80 hours)

Phase 3

Round with a Physician for one day and get a letter of recommendation

That's some pretty weak nonsense. Like a Disney ride through patient care.

That's not to say it won't suffice, but there'll be PA's and ICU nurses in your class.

I'm no adcom and am extremely biased in the clinical experience content of the app.

But in the very least every premed should be aware that what you mentioned is twiddly winks. Though quite possibly judged by scientists and admin people who might have forgotten if they ever knew the meaning of getting some good stank on you before you set foot in a hospital with your pristine white coat.

 

[galaxyx]

That's some pretty weak nonsense. Like a Disney ride through patient care.

That's not to say it won't suffice, but there'll be PA's and ICU nurses in your class.

I'm no adcom and am extremely biased in the clinical experience content of the app.

But in the very least every premed should be aware that what you mentioned is twiddly winks. Though quite possibly judged by scientists and admin people who might have forgotten if they ever knew the meaning of getting some good stank on you before you set foot in a hospital with your pristine white coat.

Some of you may be shocked, but if you are volunteering in a role that places you close enough to smell the patient (no need to touch them), that is a clinical experience. I'd count patient escort service under that umbrella.

LizzyM is an adcom. Decide for yourself.

 

[Abider]

LizzyM is an adcom. Decide for yourself.

Yeah. That's kind of why I said that. What you're forgetting in your rush to discount my sentiment is this:

One should always ask oneself what is the meaning of what I'm doing and how could I make it mean something to someone else. Unless you're a star recruit these details matter.

So that fine it "counts as an experience". But what does that even mean. A person who has deep experience as a patient or as a family caretaker has a more powerful door to the communication of meaning. If they then checked off a box as the OP then great.

But to Lizzy and her flock my guantlet still lies untouchedO. It's superficial nonsense. Whether you point to an authority like supercillious premed attorney or not.


What do suppose that letter from the OP's doc is going to sound like. Now put that next to a letter from an officer about a combat medic. You dig yet?

My docs wrote their hearts out for my dumb @ss and here I am. Come prove it and then you can talk some **** like me.

 

[galaxyx]

Yeah. That's kind of why I said that. What you're forgetting in your rush to discount my sentiment is this:

One should always ask oneself what is the meaning of what I'm doing and how could I make it mean something to someone else. Unless you're a star recruit these details matter.
.

What I was trying to point out in one of my previous posts is that even if you are just doing basic stuff, you are being helpful, and you can get meaningful experiences if you are attuned to what is going on around you. Maybe you aren't introspective enough to have a meaningful experience and learn about the healthcare system by holding the hand of and having a conversation with a patient forced to go to the ED for pain management of her COPD because she has no other options, but I am.

I think your comment that PA's and ICU nurses will be in your class is irrelevant. Adcoms aren't expecting a premed to have the experience of a PA or an ICU nurse. In fact, the general consensus is that already having a medically related professional degree puts you at a disadvantage in the admissions process, not an advantage.

I am assuming that you had significant healthcare experience prior to your matriculation to medical school and want to make yourself feel better about your path to medicine by putting down those that take a more traditional path.

 

[Abider]

What I was trying to point out in one of my previous posts is that even if you are just doing basic stuff, you are being helpful, and you can get meaningful experiences if you are attuned to what is going on around you. Maybe you aren't introspective enough to have a meaningful experience and learn about the healthcare system by holding the hand of and having a conversation with a patient forced to go to the ED for pain management of her COPD because she has no other options, but I am.

I think your comment that PA's and ICU nurses will be in your class is irrelevant. Adcoms aren't expecting a premed to have the experience of a PA or an ICU nurse. In fact, the general consensus is that already having a medically related professional degree puts you at a disadvantage in the admissions process, not an advantage.

I am assuming that you had significant healthcare experience prior to your matriculation to medical school and want to make yourself feel better about your path to medicine by putting down those that take a more traditional path.

I grind my axe against a pervasive inherent arrogance in medicine. There is no better humbling than takes place in hands on care of the ill or having needed that care. People take lousy shortcuts and medicine is full of people that are lousy to work with and even lousier to work for.

I don't like it when cushy nontrads take a soft route and remain ignorant of all those they will direct and in their well coached ambitiousness the dignity of their patients too.

If I'm not talking to you then I'm not talking to you. But also to the uninvolved the clinical setting can be box with a check or a tapestry of self expression.

 

[Abider]

Also...I realize people's circumstances may limit them from gaining good clinical experience and to them my message is not you suck! But that this is not your strong suit and to that effect I gave the equivalent of what is the same and in my opinion better than getting published in the big journals ie combat medic, PA, nurse and the like. My biases declared but the realistic depiction still withstanding.

For some reason it easier to talk in these terms with research chops while their clinical counterparts are stuck in the realm of fingerpainting where complete tools get awards.

 

[galaxyx]

I grind my axe against a pervasive inherent arrogance in medicine.

Perhaps you should check your own arrogance. The OP asked if that program was considered clinical experience and you decided it's not good enough because it's not the depth of clinical experience of a SELECT few, which you happen to be a part of.

There is no better humbling than takes place in hands on care of the ill or having needed that care. People take lousy shortcuts and medicine is full of people that are lousy to work with and even lousier to work for.

While this may be true, your perception that participating in a program that it designed to give on a broad overview of the hospital with both patient and doctor interaction is a short cut is short sighted and once again smacks of that arrogance you bemoan.
The short cut is when you log into the volunteer system and then sit in the break room reading a book for four hours (and yes, I've seen this happen).

I don't like it when cushy nontrads take a soft route and remain ignorant of all those they will direct and in their well coached ambitiousness the dignity of their patients too.

We can't all be martyrs.

 

[Abider]

Perhaps you should check your own arrogance. The OP asked if that program was considered clinical experience and you decided it's not good enough because it's not the depth of clinical experience of a SELECT few, which you happen to be a part of.


While this may be true, your perception that participating in a program that it designed to give on a broad overview of the hospital with both patient and doctor interaction is a short cut is short sighted and once again smacks of that arrogance you bemoan.
The short cut is when you log into the volunteer system and then sit in the break room reading a book for four hours (and yes, I've seen this happen).


We can't all be martyrs.

No.. But we don't all have to getting something for nothing. As is par for the course we're talking about. And again it isn't clinical experience. It's a staged event. Cleaning moaning bed-ridden elderly is clinical experience, short on brains, but long on guts. The type of work you do when nobody cares and when there's no dog and pony show set up for your passing convenience is what counts. That's the test. And it's opportunity abounds in every godforsaken corner of the Republic.

If that's arrogance, I'm a godd@mn ego-maniac.

 

[galaxyx]

No.. But we don't all have to getting something for nothing. As is par for the course we're talking about. And again it isn't clinical experience. It's a staged event. Cleaning moaning bed-ridden elderly is clinical experience, short on brains, but long on guts. The type of work you do when nobody cares and when there's no dog and pony show set up for your passing convenience is what counts. That's the test. And it's opportunity abounds in every godforsaken corner of the Republic.

If that's arrogance, I'm a godd@mn ego-maniac.

Thinking that working as a CNA in a nursing home makes you better than everyone else is arrogance.

And, while most of what you say is true, it's not particularly helpful to the OP. The OP is not in a sea of CNA's, PA's, Nurses and Army Medics. The OP is in a sea of 22 year olds with little to no life experience.

You say it isn't clinical experience, but the OP is asking for the purposes of medical school admissions, not for the purposes of who is more of a selfless badass.

 

[Abider]

Thinking that working as a CNA in a nursing home makes you better than everyone else is arrogance.

And, while most of what you say is true, it's not particularly helpful to the OP. The OP is not in a sea of CNA's, PA's, Nurses and Army Medics. The OP is in a sea of 22 year olds with little to no life experience.

You say it isn't clinical experience, but the OP is asking for the purposes of medical school admissions, not for the purposes of who is more of a selfless badass.

It's not about being a bad@ss. It's about being a stand up dude. It's about being there in the pit. When things are as real as real can get. What do you then say with your your mind and soul to patient in front you.


All but that. Everything but that. Is the endless court ceremony. Will it suffice to please the king? Yes. And I have said it was so.

But it is not real. And I will not capitulate and say it is. If the young man's feelings are hurt maybe it will give him pause to think beyond the endless auditioning that indelibly sinks into our minds so deeply that we forget how to be when there is longer a score.

A significant portion of my class cheats. Honor is not something we're trained to think about. Even in ethics it becomes what's the buzz words of grade success?

All the more important one has it before entering. If he is 22 let him learn something off stage for a change. There is enough time for all this.

My time for trying to penetrate your tone-deaf-to-me ear has run short.