EMT and Scribe

[907914]

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Since every Pre-med on SDN who does not have clinical experience seems to do scribing and/or EMT to get that clinical experience, I was just curious: how do ADCOMs view those experiences as anything other than box checking? And does it really matter, since they are getting clinical experience anyway?


Edit: This is just a curiosity of mine. I am a non-trad and do not have the issue of lacking clinical experience. I just want to have better knowledge to help the freshmen and sophomore pre-meds in the process.

 

[Stoppingtheworld]

I can't really speak for ADCOMs, nor have I asked this when I have had the opportunity to interact with some members of various committees, but let me just say that scribing is such an abusive way to take over a pre-med's life. The people I know who scribe have miserable pay with long, exhausting hours. Some would argue "oh, you're just going to LOVE residency," but this is undergrad and there are companies that prey on pre-meds to scribe for them, which is flat out wrong.

I apologize that this reply may not be the best response to your thread but this is just a little bit of my insight.

 

[Tenk]

I can't really speak for ADCOMs, nor have I asked this when I have had the opportunity to interact with some members of various committees, but let me just say that scribing is such an abusive way to take over a pre-med's life. The people I know who scribe have miserable pay with long, exhausting hours. Some would argue "oh, you're just going to LOVE residency," but this is undergrad and there are companies that prey on pre-meds to scribe for them, which is flat out wrong.

I apologize that this reply may not be the best response to your thread but this is just a little bit of my insight.

You forgot the part where the attendings help the scribes get into medical school.

It’s a symbiotic relationship.

 

[the shretiology]

I’m not an adcom but here’s my take on it: it is what YOU make of it. If you work as an EMT and it looks like you’re checking boxes in your application (like weak essays or when asked to talk about it you say something superficial or even that you hated it) this is how it will come off.

Not to spark debate about scribing, I agree that it takes financial advantage of pre-health professionals seeking experience, but it really does help you see a lot somewhat through the a physician’s eyes. There is a lot to be learned from those that are where you want to be, and it can give you an informed perspective on the things you see. No one is forced to do it and, frankly, I am glad it exists.

Edit: In response to the above comment: The networking potential is awesome, especially coming from a background having no physicians in my family or professional/social network.

 

[907914]

You forgot the part where the attendings help the scribes get into medical school.

It’s a symbiotic relationship.

How do attendings help scribes get in to medical school?

 

[Pantsareamyth]

How do attendings help scribes get in to medical school?

I'm guessing Tenk's referring to a LOR from an attending and just general networking.

 

[diene_daily]

Can’t speak on EMT, but after scribing for the last couple years and being in management, I think it’s a lot on how much you take from it and are able to bring that across. During one of my interviews, I had an interviewer say “you see a lot of people scribing, but not a lot of Chief Scribes”. Scribing does have a high turnover rate and yes the pay is trash (even as a CS), but it can definitely be beneficial with physician networking and the clinical experience you gain (specifically in the ED) without having to do any extra certificationsI believe is amazing

 

[PapaGuava]

I wouldn't advise being a scribe while attending as an undergrad unless you can get a decent schedule because like everyone else has mentioned, the hours are usually not great. You can get a quite a bit of experience just from volunteering in certain hospitals along with shadowing hours.

 

[907914]

I wouldn't advise being a scribe while attending as an undergrad unless you can get a decent schedule because like everyone else has mentioned, the hours are usually not great. You can get a quite a bit of experience just from volunteering in certain hospitals along with shadowing hours.

This is what I thought and how I have leaned in advising other undergrads. I have told students to volunteer at the hospitals/clinics and to start scribing during their gap year (simply because it is one of the few jobs you can get post-graduation that will expect you to be gone in a year, work with you around your interviews, and set you up for more clinical exposure as a reaplicant if they don't get in the first go-round).

 

[SterlingMaloryArcher]

Scribing is so amazing and so terrible all at once - HIGHLY recommend it. 🙂

 

[PapaGuava]

This is what I thought and how I have leaned in advising other undergrads. I have told students to volunteer at the hospitals/clinics and to start scribing during their gap year (simply because it is one of the few jobs you can get post-graduation that will expect you to be gone in a year, work with you around your interviews, and set you up for more clinical exposure as a reaplicant if they don't get in the first go-round).

I took up scribing for a time during my gap year just for the extra clinical exposure and cash while applying to medical schools. The experience was exciting especially since I was in the emergency department of a trauma hospital, but I couldn't have imagined trying to fit that in my schedule while being an undergraduate student, or studying for the MCAT. A few co-workers of mine were struggling to keep up with their courses while they worked full time as a scribe. They believed it was one of the only major sources for clinical experience which is not the case at all. So I agree with you trying to not overly recommend scribe work to undergraduate students.

 

[mackie10]

I think it honestly really depends on where you scribe in regard to how stressful it is. Scribing at a private office is much easier than scribing in the ER of a trauma hospital. Yet there's a bit of a trade-off with this because you obviously won't be exposed to many diverse or high-level cases in a private office. Personally, I didn't take much of a liking to my experience scribing but it's different for everyone. I did it for a short period of time during my gap year rather than doing it during my undergrad. But many of the problems I experienced in this setting were specifically due to the scribe program being fairly new to the hospital: Not enough good working laptops for scribes to use, physicians not used to having scribes and treating them poorly (sometimes they're seen as being in the way), and poor communication between the chief scribes and the main scribe company. Also, some scribe companies have really high expectations for new workers and constantly pressure them to meet certain goals (often threatening to fire you during training shifts). It honestly just really varies from place to place though. I would only recommend scribing to someone who has enough time on their hands. Volunteering at a hospital is another option if you have less time available to you. You don't get paid but the commitment isn't as high as you still get a good experience.

 

[PapaGuava]

@mackie10 Oh don't remind me of the the laptop situations..the horror haha. You have a good point though, I tend to forget that there were private offices and other locations outside hospitals for scribe work so it could be a different experience.

 

[907914]

@mackie10 Oh don't remind me of the the laptop situations..the horror haha. You have a good point though, I tend to forget that there were private offices and other locations outside hospitals for scribe work so it could be a different experience.

Despite the slower pace, won't private offices tend to also require more hours (as they are looking for someone to directly partner with a physician full time)?

 

[mackie10]

@mackie10 Oh don't remind me of the the laptop situations..the horror haha. You have a good point though, I tend to forget that there were private offices and other locations outside hospitals for scribe work so it could be a different experience.

Not only did we have a limited number of laptops, but they all had a battery life of 15-20 mins tops if they weren't plugged into a wall sometimes we had to write on paper which we weren't technically allowed to do, but it's not like we had much of a choice lol. But yeah! Some folks work in private offices and it's a little different. They seem to have closer relationships with the physicians because there are less and you see them on a more frequent basis. We had like 20ish providers in our ER and that didn't count for the mid-levels we sometimes scribed for too. There were some providers I had a shift with every few months if I was being honest!

 

[mackie10]

Despite the slower pace, won't private offices tend to also require more hours (as they are looking for someone to directly partner with a physician full time)?

I think it really depends. Most scribes are employed through a scribing company and the scribing company is the one who has a contract with the provider. So the office is going to pay the scribing company for as many people as they feel their team needs (or can afford). Sometimes some offices might want a few scribes who can work many hours. Sometimes they're okay having multiple scribes who work part time. Though if you work for a scribing company (part-time or full-time), they generally want you to commit for 2 years (part time) and 1 year (full-time). I think the aspect that matters the most to them is time commitment because these scribing companies actually invest a lot in their workers (not that they're always good at other aspects of the investment but still) since the on-boarding process (legal stuff, EMR training, office/hospital orientation, etc.) can take a few weeks to even a couple months (took me almost 2 actually 😕).

 

[Tenk]

How do attendings help scribes get in to medical school?

Letters. Emails. Phone calls.

 

[Mike Bagwell]

Having done some EMS volunteering myself, I will say it is nice on its own. I mean driving an ambulance with lights and sirens on the opposite side of the road is thrilling but beyond that for the purpose of leveraging EMS work to becoming a doctor, I would say they are not related at all. As an EMT, you are packing the patient off and transporting them. If you think an EMT-B will gain so much knowledge from the semester course that they will be bringing people back from the dead, you are utterly mistaken. There were so many people in my class who had no idea what they were doing and they were still getting certified. I left EMS volunteering after about a year because I was working with way too many incompetent people and I the experience just was not as stimulating as I thought it would be. It had its moment but it was a fleeting one at that.

So with EMS work, do it IF YOU LIKE IT but don't think you're going to be getting some top-rate experience that will somehow make you a better doctor. Seeing and doing are too totally different things and that applies to any type of shadowing. With EMS work, there is a lot of seeing but the doing is done by those who you are handing the patient off too and you RARELY get to see that.

Scribing is the better of the two but its still an observatory activity with zero continuity. It's like sitting in the jump seat of a 747. You can hear the pilots talk about all the jargon but no way in hell would you let that jump seat passenger grab the controls based on how much jargon they know.

I've said this before and I will reiterate it again. Getting an acceptance letter is going to be based on paper data. Beyond that, you just have to demonstrate that you have some clinical exposure to the field of medicine and that you understand what you are getting into. You do not need activity after activity of clinically-related experience to impress an adcom. More clinical experience does not equate to any type of diagnosing capability or ability to treat. You haven't gone to medical school yet remember.

Pick one or two shadowing activities and do some GENUINE volunteer work to demonstrate empathy and commitment and I think you will have that part of your application covered. Adcoms are not stupid, they know getting good grades takes up a significant amount of your time.

In one of my older posts, I said our program values "commitment," "dedication," "passion," and "demonstrated excellence." Most people at this school have demonstrated all of those qualities with activities that are many times NOT clinically related.

 

[907914]

Letters. Emails. Phone calls.

Do 'connections' really have that great of a positive influence on admissions? If an applicant is already a good applicant, would a call from Dr. Cosmo's clinic really sway much? And conversely, if an applicant is not already a good candidate, how much will Dr. Wanda's email help?

 

[907914]

Having done some EMS volunteering myself, I will say it is nice on its own. I mean driving an ambulance with lights and sirens on the opposite side of the road is thrilling but beyond that for the purpose of leveraging EMS work to becoming a doctor, I would say they are not related at all. As an EMT, you are packing the patient off and transporting them. If you think an EMT-B will gain so much knowledge from the semester course that they will be bringing people back from the dead, you are utterly mistaken. There were so many people in my class who had no idea what they were doing and they were still getting certified. I left EMS volunteering after about a year because I was working with way too many incompetent people and I the experience just was not as stimulating as I thought it would be. It had its moment but it was a fleeting one at that.

So with EMS work, do it IF YOU LIKE IT but don't think you're going to be getting some top-rate experience that will somehow make you a better doctor. Seeing and doing are too totally different things and that applies to any type of shadowing. With EMS work, there is a lot of seeing but the doing is done by those who you are handing the patient off too and you RARELY get to see that.

Scribing is the better of the two but its still an observatory activity with zero continuity. It's like sitting in the jump seat of a 747. You can hear the pilots talk about all the jargon but no way in hell would you let that jump seat passenger grab the controls based on how much jargon they know.

I've said this before and I will reiterate it again. Getting an acceptance letter is going to be based on paper data. Beyond that, you just have to demonstrate that you have some clinical exposure to the field of medicine and that you understand what you are getting into. You do not need activity after activity of clinically-related experience to impress an adcom. More clinical experience does not equate to any type of diagnosing capability or ability to treat. You haven't gone to medical school yet remember.

Pick one or two shadowing activities and do some GENUINE volunteer work to demonstrate empathy and commitment and I think you will have that part of your application covered. Adcoms are not stupid, they know getting good grades takes up a significant amount of your time.

In one of my older posts, I said our program values "commitment," "dedication," "passion," and "demonstrated excellence." Most people at this school have demonstrated all of those qualities with activities that are many times NOT clinically related.

I hear that a lot from one of my former running start students in his Junior year now. Been an EMS volunteer for like 5 years and says he has only felt competent the last year and a half...But then again, he has stories to share of performing extended CPR in route (rural area >30 min from hospital) and making independent medications decisions in absence of radio communication from the ER. So, like you said, it is what you make of it.

Do you know of any easy-in non-military roles that can be recommended to undergrads for other-than-observatory roles? All I can think of is MA...But that is going to be either do the cert before college or after, which in that case you should be taking 2 gap years. The rest are going to be handing books and blankets to patients as a volunteer....

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Having done some EMS volunteering myself, I will say it is nice on its own. I mean driving an ambulance with lights and sirens on the opposite side of the road is thrilling but beyond that for the purpose of leveraging EMS work to becoming a doctor, I would say they are not related at all. As an EMT, you are packing the patient off and transporting them. If you think an EMT-B will gain so much knowledge from the semester course that they will be bringing people back from the dead, you are utterly mistaken. There were so many people in my class who had no idea what they were doing and they were still getting certified. I left EMS volunteering after about a year because I was working with way too many incompetent people and I the experience just was not as stimulating as I thought it would be. It had its moment but it was a fleeting one at that.

So with EMS work, do it IF YOU LIKE IT but don't think you're going to be getting some top-rate experience that will somehow make you a better doctor. Seeing and doing are too totally different things and that applies to any type of shadowing. With EMS work, there is a lot of seeing but the doing is done by those who you are handing the patient off too and you RARELY get to see that.

Scribing is the better of the two but its still an observatory activity with zero continuity. It's like sitting in the jump seat of a 747. You can hear the pilots talk about all the jargon but no way in hell would you let that jump seat passenger grab the controls based on how much jargon they know.

I've said this before and I will reiterate it again. Getting an acceptance letter is going to be based on paper data. Beyond that, you just have to demonstrate that you have some clinical exposure to the field of medicine and that you understand what you are getting into. You do not need activity after activity of clinically-related experience to impress an adcom. More clinical experience does not equate to any type of diagnosing capability or ability to treat. You haven't gone to medical school yet remember.

Pick one or two shadowing activities and do some GENUINE volunteer work to demonstrate empathy and commitment and I think you will have that part of your application covered. Adcoms are not stupid, they know getting good grades takes up a significant amount of your time.

In one of my older posts, I said our program values "commitment," "dedication," "passion," and "demonstrated excellence." Most people at this school have demonstrated all of those qualities with activities that are many times NOT clinically related.

This depends a lot on your setting and area too. For what it lacks in seeing how a hospital operates, how doctors work etc it makes up in teaching you how to approach situations, think critically and be the first person a sick person sees. For what its worth there are no other jobs that an average student could get where even if for a bit he is the sole provider for the patient. Scribing is better imo but EMS is an experience like no other and I wouldn't replace it for anything else.

 

[Tenk]

Do 'connections' really have that great of a positive influence on admissions? If an applicant is already a good applicant, would a call from Dr. Cosmo's clinic really sway much? And conversely, if an applicant is not already a good candidate, how much will Dr. Wanda's email help?

Most applicants all look the same on paper and during interviews. When you have one of your own alumni going to bat for someone and saying they have a great work ethic, never have any problems and work great as a team you better believe it helps. Adcoms have a hard task of building classes that won’t have problems down the line while candidates try to mask any short comings with smoke and mirrors. Having someone you can trust saying a person isn’t a flake or problem maker goes a long way. It won’t turn a 3.0 gpa into an acceptance but it sure as hell will help you against similar applicants.

 

[Mike Bagwell]

Do 'connections' really have that great of a positive influence on admissions? If an applicant is already a good applicant, would a call from Dr. Cosmo's clinic really sway much? And conversely, if an applicant is not already a good candidate, how much will Dr. Wanda's email help?

I have a relative who got into a single DO program with one phone call. Stellar MCAT but lower cumulative GPA.

Yeah, connections are a real thing. Same goes for residency and almost every other step of this process.

 

[WannaB Ortho Bro]

Having done some EMS volunteering myself, I will say it is nice on its own. I mean driving an ambulance with lights and sirens on the opposite side of the road is thrilling but beyond that for the purpose of leveraging EMS work to becoming a doctor, I would say they are not related at all. As an EMT, you are packing the patient off and transporting them. If you think an EMT-B will gain so much knowledge from the semester course that they will be bringing people back from the dead, you are utterly mistaken. There were so many people in my class who had no idea what they were doing and they were still getting certified. I left EMS volunteering after about a year because I was working with way too many incompetent people and I the experience just was not as stimulating as I thought it would be. It had its moment but it was a fleeting one at that.

So with EMS work, do it IF YOU LIKE IT but don't think you're going to be getting some top-rate experience that will somehow make you a better doctor. Seeing and doing are too totally different things and that applies to any type of shadowing. With EMS work, there is a lot of seeing but the doing is done by those who you are handing the patient off too and you RARELY get to see that.

Scribing is the better of the two but its still an observatory activity with zero continuity. It's like sitting in the jump seat of a 747. You can hear the pilots talk about all the jargon but no way in hell would you let that jump seat passenger grab the controls based on how much jargon they know.

I've said this before and I will reiterate it again. Getting an acceptance letter is going to be based on paper data. Beyond that, you just have to demonstrate that you have some clinical exposure to the field of medicine and that you understand what you are getting into. You do not need activity after activity of clinically-related experience to impress an adcom. More clinical experience does not equate to any type of diagnosing capability or ability to treat. You haven't gone to medical school yet remember.

Pick one or two shadowing activities and do some GENUINE volunteer work to demonstrate empathy and commitment and I think you will have that part of your application covered. Adcoms are not stupid, they know getting good grades takes up a significant amount of your time.

In one of my older posts, I said our program values "commitment," "dedication," "passion," and "demonstrated excellence." Most people at this school have demonstrated all of those qualities with activities that are many times NOT clinically related.

I would also like to add that pre-hospital work as an EMT is not the only option. I have worked for two years in a large emergency department, and I would argue that I get some of the benefits that the scribes do as far as physician connections and observations, as well as the plentiful hands on experience. Overall, I think that there are so many benefits to both of these options as long as you work hard and keep and open mind.

 

[907914]

I have a relative who got into a single DO program with one phone call. Stellar MCAT but lower cumulative GPA.

Yeah, connections are a real thing. Same goes for residency and almost every other step of this process.

I am pretty sure LCME accreditation requires there be no 3rd party/outside influence on admissions decisions though, right? Maybe it is different DO vs MD.

 

[lalalallala]

I am pretty sure LCME accreditation requires there be no 3rd party/outside influence on admissions decisions though, right? Maybe it is different DO vs MD.

lol I think this is the difference between official and unofficial reports. I don't think LCME is really aware (nor are SDN pre-meds) of what goes on. You can't ban ADCOM members from speaking on the phone with other people for example - if the person on the phone has a lot of influence and says so and so should get in then maybe they will - LCME wouldn't see that

 

[DrFortiusNatando]

Back to the OP original question, would recommend doing the EMS route and work either or both EMS and tech in ED with the EMS certification. You get to be more of your own contractor in these jobs and therefore can do them as second jobs on nights and weekends. Most facilities even allow the techs to work in a casual manner, which means people can continue working a bit during preclerkship years.

Scribe jobs are now a dime a dozen, as more and more places hire scribes to help with unruly EMRs. Many hospitals just use the huge scribe services like Scribe America etc. I have no reason to hate on that firm or any of the others - our hospital does not use them in my specialty - but some SDN did not have nice things to say about working for some of these big companies.

During interviews, those who have worked as EMT's or ED techs often have a lot more interesting discussions with me than those who do scribing. But there are certainly lots of people in both camps who have gone on to get great experiences from both of these types of jobs.

 

[Mike Bagwell]

I am pretty sure LCME accreditation requires there be no 3rd party/outside influence on admissions decisions though, right? Maybe it is different DO vs MD.

I think you have a lot to learn regarding how the world operates.