Does volunteer EMS work count as clinical experience?

[akmedic]

I've got 2400 volunteer hours working EMS for a volunteer fire department here. Will they count as clinical hours, or does that have to be in a hospital? If not, will they count towards anything?

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[500miles]

First of all that's awesome! You have a lot of hours in a very interesting and important line of volunteering work! Are you working with/touching patients regularly or are you in the fire station 90% of the time? I feel like this is not the classical definetition of clinical hours but if you regularly help patients, maybe you can talk about it in that sense. I dont have a lot of experience with this though so someone e might answer this better than me.

 

[Papabless21]

I was a a volunteer EMT at my school for 3 years and worked 2000+ hours. This most certainly counts as clinical experience! Now, I would definitely caution you not to try to include this into your "volunteer" hours if you're going to claim it is part of your clinical work. as well. It's either one or the other.

 

[akmedic]

Thank you! I've been almost full time volunteering for the past year and a half, and racked up quite a bit of hours without really realizing. I'm trying to get accurate numbers soon, but I would guess I have somewhere around 250-300 patient contacts in that time.

 

[akmedic]

I was a a volunteer EMT at my school for 3 years and worked 2000+ hours. This most certainly counts as clinical experience! Now, I would definitely caution you not to try to include this into your "volunteer" hours if you're going to claim it is part of your clinical work. as well. It's either one or the other.

Understood, makes sense. Thanks!

 

[nosoddy]

It really depends on who you get as an interviewer and how they interpret it. I run 911 at the career ALS level in a fairly busy system (8-15 transports per unit per 24 on a normal day) and still had mixed results. Try not to double dip and really push to appear trainable outside of EMS.

I used my volly (BLS in the past) and fire suppression time as “volunteer” hours and my ALS career as “clinical”.

Be careful; lots of folks take BLS (NREMT or EMT-B depending on where you’re at) over a summer for the “clinical experience” checkbox. I was asked at two interviews whether I was provider in charge and what call volume I had - felt like vetting. No one asked specifics regarding number of intubations, field arrests, etc outside of the standard “describe a difficult call and how it made you a more proficient provider” question.

 

[akmedic]

Ah ok. Yeah being just a basic probably doesn't help. I've been really struggling with the decision to either go right into my biology degree or to go to paramedic school this year, and wait to start biology degree until next year. I would only be able to work as a paramedic for max 4 years though, so im not sure if its worth it to wait another year before starting, Id be another year behind.

 

[Countdown117]

I've got 2400 volunteer hours working EMS for a volunteer fire department here. Will they count as clinical hours, or does that have to be in a hospital? If not, will they count towards anything?

Yes, this is easily considered clinical volunteering!

 

[nosoddy]

Ah ok. Yeah being just a basic probably doesn't help. I've been really struggling with the decision to either go right into my biology degree or to go to paramedic school this year, and wait to start biology degree until next year. I would only be able to work as a paramedic for max 4 years though, so im not sure if its worth it to wait another year before starting, Id be another year behind.

I love being a paramedic; my job pays well enough and I enjoy the work. I would not have decided to pursue medicine had I not completed the program and built a rapport with physicians.

With that being said - time is money. If I had known what I do now, I would not recommend the two-ish (depending on degree or certificate) years moving from B to P unless you have a strong desire to work in EMS or are willing to do the programs simultaneously. Working is another story - I was fortunate to be hired Kelly Relief, so I was able to attend classes around 24 hour shifts...it sucks. My weaker MCAT has been carried by a more non-traditional background, but I would be more competitive (i.e. not waiting on waitlist MD while paying DO deposits) had I completed the more traditional rite-of-passage premed stuff and had studied more diligently in lieu of beer drinking post-shift.

TL;DR - You already have the drive for higher medicine I lacked, so it is tough to recommend going ALS.

 

[akmedic]

@nosoddy I get where you are coming from, makes sense. I think you just made my decision, going right into pre-med this year.

@gonnif would you recommend using the time as volunteer experience, and getting some in hospital hours then?

 

[LizzyM]

If you've never seen an application, you may not know how the tags in the experience section work. Each item gets one tag even though in some cases there could be more than one way to tag a thing.
Volunteer, clinical
Volunteer, non-clinical
Employment, military
Employment, non-military
(I can't remember if there is an employmnet, clinical tag)
Leadership
Teaching/Tutoring
Shadowing
Research
Presentation
Publication
Artistic Endeavor
Hobbies and advocations
Athletics
Honors and awards
etc.

You aren't expected to use all the tags and as you can see, some things, such as paid teaching or volunteer tutoring could carry one tag or another. It is up to you to label the experiences in the way that best shows the depth and breadth of your experiences. And this is "experience" not "extra-curricular" experience so even if you get a grade or do something like shadowing or volunteering for class credit, it can be listed as an experience.

 

[Catalystik]

Employment, military
Employment, non-military
(I can't remember if there is an employmnet, clinical tag)

They were renamed to:

Military Service
Paid Employment - Medical/Clinical
Paid Employment - Not Medical/Clinical