Gap Year Advice

[Colinoscopy]

Hi everybody,

I was hoping to get some gap year advice. I know this has been covered before, but I was looking for some specific suggestions if anybody has them.

I'll be graduating in December from a top-tier public university with a B.S. in biochem. I was a division 1 athlete (swimming) for four years at said university. I was OK at my sport, (competed on the national level and at the U.S. Olympic Trials). My GPA is not fantastic at 3.4-ish. However, there is a massive upwards trend in my GPA, damn you freshman year. I have 4.5 years of experience volunteering on a weekly basis visiting patients at a children's hospital. I did research last summer on nano particle breast cancer therapeutics. This was my first summer without a commitment to swimming so I finally had time to get a job, or do something other than swim.

Ill be studying for the MCAT from January-April, and will take it in April. I'll start applying after that. I'll be living in Oregon (near OHSU).

My questions are:

• Is there a part time job I can get while I'm studying for the MCAT? I don't want to spend every day at home studying, I'll lose my mind.
• What kind of job should I get after I've applied? Should I find some sort of patient-interaction related job? Should I find something that will purely make me money?
  
• Are there any sort of jobs that I should look out for that would be available at OHSU? How would I go about finding these jobs?

Thanks all.

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[whirlpool159]

Hi everybody,

I was hoping to get some gap year advice. I know this has been covered before, but I was looking for some specific suggestions if anybody has them.

I'll be graduating in December from a top-tier public university with a B.S. in biochem. I was a division 1 athlete (swimming) for four years at said university. I was OK at my sport, (competed on the national level and at the U.S. Olympic Trials). My GPA is not fantastic at 3.4-ish. However, there is a massive upwards trend in my GPA, damn you freshman year. I have 4.5 years of experience volunteering on a weekly basis visiting patients at a children's hospital. I did research last summer on nano particle breast cancer therapeutics. This was my first summer without a commitment to swimming so I finally had time to get a job, or do something other than swim.

Ill be studying for the MCAT from January-April, and will take it in April. I'll start applying after that. I'll be living in Oregon (near OHSU).

My questions are:

• Is there a part time job I can get while I'm studying for the MCAT? I don't want to spend every day at home studying, I'll lose my mind.
• What kind of job should I get after I've applied? Should I find some sort of patient-interaction related job? Should I find something that will purely make me money?
  
• Are there any sort of jobs that I should look out for that would be available at OHSU? How would I go about finding these jobs?

Thanks all.

You can become a medical scribe part-time or look for a medical assistant position.

 

[Colinoscopy]

You can become a medical scribe part-time or look for a medical assistant position.

I've heard mixed things about scribing as it apparently doesn't give you much patient contact at all. MA I'll probably consider.

 

[whirlpool159]

I've heard mixed things about scribing as it apparently doesn't give you much patient contact at all. MA I'll probably consider.

It's a good experience if you haven't shadowed a lot of doctors. One of my major experiences was scribing in an ED and I've received several interviews.

 

[stickgirl390]

Places like CVS and Walgreens will hire you as a pharmacy technician. I had a friend do that part time and she said it helped her a lot in med school. You could also look into being a veterinary technician part time. You'll get more hands on clinical experience than human medicine might allow at this point in your career.

 

[Magulick81]

I wouldn't worry about working while studying for the MCAT... make that your "job" so to speak. I was laid off when I took it, not one interviewer has asked me why I didn't work. And just get any job in the medical field to let ADCOMS see that you're dedicated to the field. Anything will look good as long as you're not shooting for Harvard or Yale. I'm an imaging tech assistant and I think it's a major reason I've had the interviews, although nobody has really asked about my job.

 

[Patrick Bateman's Brother]

Hi everybody,

I was hoping to get some gap year advice. I know this has been covered before, but I was looking for some specific suggestions if anybody has them.

I'll be graduating in December from a top-tier public university with a B.S. in biochem. I was a division 1 athlete (swimming) for four years at said university. I was OK at my sport, (competed on the national level and at the U.S. Olympic Trials). My GPA is not fantastic at 3.4-ish. However, there is a massive upwards trend in my GPA, damn you freshman year. I have 4.5 years of experience volunteering on a weekly basis visiting patients at a children's hospital. I did research last summer on nano particle breast cancer therapeutics. This was my first summer without a commitment to swimming so I finally had time to get a job, or do something other than swim.

Ill be studying for the MCAT from January-April, and will take it in April. I'll start applying after that. I'll be living in Oregon (near OHSU).

My questions are:

• Is there a part time job I can get while I'm studying for the MCAT? I don't want to spend every day at home studying, I'll lose my mind.
• What kind of job should I get after I've applied? Should I find some sort of patient-interaction related job? Should I find something that will purely make me money?
  
• Are there any sort of jobs that I should look out for that would be available at OHSU? How would I go about finding these jobs?

Thanks all.

Places like CVS and Walgreens will hire you as a pharmacy technician. I had a friend do that part time and she said it helped her a lot in med school. You could also look into being a veterinary technician part time. You'll get more hands on clinical experience than human medicine might allow at this point in your career.

Current pharm tech here. It's a pretty interesting experience, and you will learn a lot, especially if you take a pharm class concurrently. However, I'm rather positive that it will not count at all towards patient contact/clinical service hours. As a pharm tech, you will be working with or for patients A LOT (Exs. Last night I straightened out a current medications list with a patient on Aricept + Namenda... + Worked with Medicaid to get proper information to process Rx's.).

My opinion, go STNA or, better yet, MA.

 

[hayisferhorses]

I'm a pediatric CNA at the hospital and I love it!!!! Purely patient contact and flexibility with hours.