Enough Clinical?

[jgauger]

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I have been shadowing for about 4 years, but all with one physician. I started doing some volunteering in the hospital over the summer and got about 30 hrs in before, as some of you know, students were banned from the hospital. I have more non-clinical volunteering including habitat for humanity. I'm going to be doing some assistant coaching at a high school this winter (~10 hr/week).

My concern is that I don't have very many clinical volunteering hours...does having a ton of shadowing hours help me here or should I find some other clinical volunteering opportunity? 😕

 

[apumic]

Honestly, once you get beyond ~100 hrs of shadowing, shadowing is pretty worthless. The idea is simply that you get idea of what physicians do. 40 hrs is typically sufficient and anything more than 100 is basically a waste of time.
That having been said, there are other ways of getting clinical experience. IMO, clinical experience has 2 primary purposes:
1) To develop an understand of what physicians do and, in doing so, to confirm (or reject) your desire to become a physician. (This is where shadowing shines, although alone it cannot fully do this as there is a lot missing from shadowing.)
2) To develop skills necessary for interacting with patients and other healthcare professionals as well as to show adcoms that you are, in fact, cut out for a career in healthcare (i.e., work well with others, enjoy being around patients, don't faint or scream at the sight of blood/urine/feces/deglovings, etc.) -- shadowing simply cannot do this.

The first goal requires both shadowing and other interactions with physicians (as a volunteer or even as a tech of some sort). The second goal requires actual clinical work in which you "are directly and at least in part responsible for the clinical outcomes of patients," which may be volunteering or other hospital/medical/healthcare job experience. IMO, the 2nd goal should make up at least half (100-200+) of your hours.

 

[jgauger]

I don't have like 400 hrs of shadowing, prob around 100 since high school. I did a mentorship in high school so I spent ~20 hrs/week for a semester at the clinic, but I know high school basically doesn't count. I know I "need" 100+ hrs volunteering.

What I'm wondering is if I necessarily need more "clinical" volunteering, or is it sufficient to have the shadowing and say 50 hrs clinical volunteering along with a ton (like 500 hrs or something) of non-clinical volunteering?

I know what the medical field is like, I can explain why I want to be a physician and how I know that, and I can discuss valuable patient interactions that I've had.

As far as volunteer work showing that I can handle the environment of a health care setting, I've experienced way more of that in the clinic shadowing than I would be able to at the Hospital (aka stocking shelves and delivering meals w/ a little interaction with patients when they aren't sleeping or on too much pain medication to communicate). The physician I shadowed was a little lenient with the rules as long as patients aloud it as far as what he let me do/help him do.

I also have a lot of experience dealing with ppl from employment. I've been employed steadily since I turned 14 in 3 different service/non-medical type jobs.

+ a few more meaningful ECs throughout the years.