EMT or shadowing a doctor

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

evoviiigsr

Full Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
288
Reaction score
0
All else aside, what would improve my chances of med school acceptance. The only clinical experience that I have is a 1 month hospital internship. I'm thinking being an EMT shows dedication and care for people. As for shadowing, do you think 40 hours with 4 different kinds of doctors (total of 160) is suffice? Feels like it is for me.

Members don't see this ad.
 
All else aside, what would improve my chances of med school acceptance. The only clinical experience that I have is a 1 month hospital internship. I'm thinking being an EMT shows dedication and care for people. As for shadowing, do you think 40 hours with 4 different kinds of doctors (total of 160) is suffice? Feels like it is for me.

interesting question...im curious to see how others respond.
but id like to comment that i simply took the EMT certification course, not the national registry...thereby not making me eligible for work as an EMT.
But what you might think about, is getting nationally registered as an EMT and then working in a hopsital...like in the emergency room or something. My EMT instructor told me that EMT-Bs can get jobs like that.
 
All else aside, what would improve my chances of med school acceptance. The only clinical experience that I have is a 1 month hospital internship. I'm thinking being an EMT shows dedication and care for people. As for shadowing, do you think 40 hours with 4 different kinds of doctors (total of 160) is suffice? Feels like it is for me.

My view is that shadowing the doctors, especially if you can present a total of 160 hours, will give you a better application and better perspective on medicine than EMT.

I was an EMT for 5 months. It's an awesome experience with plenty of patient contanct, but my perspective was restricited to the basic life support and ambulance transport. In my opintion, the scope of practice for EMT is set up such that it doesn't confirm someone's aspirations to become a physician as well as shadowing doctors.

If I were you, I would go with shadowing. Meeting the doctors will give you a great opportunity to ask questions and learn more specifically about a career as a physician.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
just based on what i know (not a lot), i think being an EMT would be more beneficial because you could talk about what you learned from patient care. maybe throw in one 40-hr shadowing session if you have the time.
 
A combination of the two might be the best path to follow.. and if you plan to become an EMT, I would highly suggest working in an ER like mentioned before. I worked on an ambulance doing 911 calls + regular transports for 9 months before finding a job in an ER. I think I learned more and received more exposure in 1 or 2 months there than I ever did on the ambulance. Plus, it's much more relevant. That being said, you ARE working and that means you don't get to follow the doctors around.
 
A combination of the two might be the best path to follow.. and if you plan to become an EMT, I would highly suggest working in an ER like mentioned before. I worked on an ambulance doing 911 calls + regular transports for 9 months before finding a job in an ER. I think I learned more and received more exposure in 1 or 2 months there than I ever did on the ambulance. Plus, it's much more relevant. That being said, you ARE working and that means you don't get to follow the doctors around.

I agree that doing both would be most beneficial. Being an EMT would allow you to have direct patient contact and you would have a role in patient care. I haven't been an EMT so I'm not sure what their responsibilities are, but I think you would learn important skills like intubation and starting peripheral lines. It would still be good to shadow a doctor in your spare time.
 
DO BOTH! Seriously, you don't have to shadow for 160 hours. It will become so redundant after a while. Personally, I shadowed a few docs for 4-8 hours at a time totaling under 80 hours. Though shadowing is great experience, being an EMT is great clinical exposure as well as fulfilling as you are taking charge of people's lives. Also, a previous poster mentioned being able to work in an ED with ambulance experience, and this is true. After having some first response experience, I was hired by the local ED as a technician.

Being an EMT and shadowing a physician are two wholly different but complementary experiences. I'd honestly try to cut down on shadowing hours and try to get emt-b certified. Besides, I don't think many physicians would openly suggest shadowing 40 hours. Most are very busy with their daily work schedules that shadowers are a great burden on them (though they may not admit it).
 
Starting IVs and intubation is a possibility, though it really depends where you work. At the hospital I work at, intubation is left to the respiratory techs or doctors, and IVs are started by the nurses.. unless you happen to be a phlebotomist, but that's a whole extra class and more time and money.

Do be aware that it could potentially be tough to get into an ED. Most of the EDs where I live say they require 1 year of ambulance experience or 6 months of prior ED experience (of course, it's easier to get 1 year of ambulance experience than it is to get 6 months of ED).

It is possible though - the place where I work seems to be more concerned with finding hard working people who have career goals in mind (future nurses, paramedics, doctors, etc.. rather than those content with being an EMT). But that's also part of the reason that I have to commute 20 miles to work everyday (which, in Los Angeles County, is a hell of a commute).. and work nights. The competition to get into an ED may vary depending on where you live, and the scope of practice allowed in that ED.

This is not meant to scare you in the least.. I'm just trying to give you an idea of what path to follow (by all means, apply to ERs right away.. you may get lucky) if you're planning on working as an EMT. As someone else mentioned, if you're just planning on getting a cert and not working.. then you might not even bother. The strength of being an EMT is not in the knowledge you get from the class (which is relatively limited in most areas), but the patient contact you gain from working.
 
All else aside, what would improve my chances of med school acceptance. The only clinical experience that I have is a 1 month hospital internship. I'm thinking being an EMT shows dedication and care for people. As for shadowing, do you think 40 hours with 4 different kinds of doctors (total of 160) is suffice? Feels like it is for me.

Your shadowing is great and sufficient (probably more than sufficient). You definitely need more clinical experience. I'm not sure EMS is the way to do it.


Getting involves in EMS takes a while (the prelim courses, the EMT course, the paperwork at your local volunteer department). And once you get going, it will drain a lot of time. Then, after you get into medical school, I nearly promise you will never use your EMT-B cert. again. Mine expired.

To get clinical experience--and to get it fast--just volunteer at your local free clinic. No need to put all the time and energy into EMS when free clinic volunteering will get you the same results.

Having said all this, if you are remotely interested in EM, the EMS is a great idea, but get your clinical hours in a free clinic first. Then, or concurrently, work on your EMS.

The bottom line: EMS is getting more and more common. It doesn't carry the weight it used to.
 
RT's intubate at your hospital? God help us... :D

lol.. most of them seem pretty well versed in what they're doing, though there are a couple new ones that I can tell are still learning. It's really not all too different from paramedics intubating in the field.
 
I would suggest against being an EMT. Basically, you have to have time to take the courses and study for the certification test. Granted, the class information is pretty basic stuff, you still have to have time to be profecient at the skills and have time for the limited clinical hours required. On top of that, once you get your license you have to actually work somewhere for it to be worthwhile to put on your application. An interviewer will be able to tell that you never used your EMT license when they ask questions about your experience. Also, if you do work as an EMT you will need to put in more than a couple months to get any real experience. Plus, if you start volunteering or working some place you will be depended on to actually show up and work. It is not something that if you don't feel like doing that day you can blow off. EMS is a lifelong profession that pre-hospital providers take very serious. It is not some hobby that people take lightly. Even people who only volunteer take great pride in providing a service to their community. So, if you have the interest and time to be a valuable member of a group of individuals that provide an important service to their community, than by all means take work as an EMT. If you are looking for some way to make your application look good, don't bother. Besides, EMT is actually a pretty common experience that gets put on a lot of applications.

Now, to address other information in this post. As an EMT in the field you will not get any experience intubating or starting IV's. EMT's are basically limited to non-invasive procedures like taking vitals, inserting oral/nasal airways, and splinting/bandaging. You may assist an EMT-I or paramedic in more advanced procedures, but you will pretty much just be watching over their shoulders and driving the ambulance.
 
Ookluh said:
lol.. most of them seem pretty well versed in what they're doing, though there are a couple new ones that I can tell are still learning. It's really not all too different from paramedics intubating in the field.

Except that paramedics in the field intubate because there is no one on the street better trained to establish and manage an airway. In the hospital, the physician is right there. Most nurses "know how" to intubate, but it's not in their scope of practice.
 
lol.. most of them seem pretty well versed in what they're doing, though there are a couple new ones that I can tell are still learning. It's really not all too different from paramedics intubating in the field.

How come whenever I read the word versed, I read it as versed(midazolam)?
 
All else aside, what would improve my chances of med school acceptance. The only clinical experience that I have is a 1 month hospital internship. I'm thinking being an EMT shows dedication and care for people. As for shadowing, do you think 40 hours with 4 different kinds of doctors (total of 160) is suffice? Feels like it is for me.

I think its important to do a bit of both. shadowing is looked at by adcoms because they feel that it lets you see what the job is like however it doesn't really give you a feel of what the job is alike if you go there for 2-4 hours a day or even a week. It will only really allow you to experience the fatigue and crazy hours if you are shadowing them full time even on their on call schedule where you are up for 30 hours straight. Yet adcoms prefer to see some of that done.

EMT-B, Phlebotomy, being an imaging or radiology assistant, CNA, PCT, etc. will give you hands on experience and actually allow you to get in there and do things and learn some clinical skills, and learn more about medicine and the inner workings of the hospital and beauracracy in medicine. Shadowing doesn't really teach you all that.

I'd do some shadowing but I'd try to get a job or volunteering position in a hospital where you are actually being useful to the hospital or clinic and doing something. Some adcoms, USF COM adcom people and LizzyM, once told me that a LOR from an MD you shadowed isn't worth as much as one from someone you've worked with closely either by doing research or working or volunteering in a clinical setting because the majority of the time when you shadow you don't get in there and learn to do stuff you just observe. Sometimes, some doctors let you do basic things when shadowing however. So it all depends.
 
All else aside, what would improve my chances of med school acceptance. The only clinical experience that I have is a 1 month hospital internship. I'm thinking being an EMT shows dedication and care for people. As for shadowing, do you think 40 hours with 4 different kinds of doctors (total of 160) is suffice? Feels like it is for me.

Oh one more thing, don't et the ceritifcation just to say you have it. Only get certification in something like phlebotomy, EMT, PCT, CNA, etc. if you are going to use it and work in the capacity those certifications allow you to work.

If you get it and use it then you will not regret it. But if you get it and don't use it then you will have wasted a bunch of time.
 
To get things straight from an EMT standpoint...I have worked for the past 2 1/2 years in a large, innercity 911 system and have shadowed different types of docs. EMT's scope of care differs largely by state. As an EMT-B, I could intubate and push 6 different meds (2 patient assisted) and now as a EMT-I, I can do IVs, IOs, and give D50 and D5W in addition to some different things due to medical director per view. EMS has afforded me a great education on how to handle situations and not get overwhelmed. I have gotten the chance to meet many physician, nurses, RTs, PAs...

All this comes with a caveat, don't just do the EMT thing if you cannot get clinical hours in before interviewing, it just won't be worth it. No clinical experience will correlate into you wasting your time, because when you become a med student, either you won't have enough time to use the EMT skills and then you will quickly pass the emt skill base.
 
as one of the previous posters has already stated, it is a long adventure to become an EMT and actually put it to use. If you are already a part of an EMS crew, and will be immediately put to work, then it may be a good idea.
Conversely, if you have ever shadowed a physician before, you will know how dreadfully boring it can become. So you should base your decision on your situation.
 
Conversely, if you have ever shadowed a physician before, you will know how dreadfully boring it can become. So you should base your decision on your situation.

im SO glad someone else made that observation!
i spent a LOT of my time determined to become motivated on learning which drugs are used for which ailments during my shadowing.
I didnt get to see much action. just a bunch of walking into rooms and looking at vitals and then prescribing some med id never heard of....
i guess thats what i get for going into the ICU.
 
Top