Glide year work dilemma

[pstomd]

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Hi all - I hope you're doing well! I’m writing to see if you’d be willing to share your advice on something. I finished my career changer post-bac/MCAT in May and have all of my secondaries in. I have a couple of interviews scheduled and am hoping to hear about more. I've been working at a hospital out west in an administrative role. In writing, the job sounded great- I’d be supporting a senior executive all while being exposed to the operations of a major academic medical center. In reality, the actual work has been nothing like what was described. Most days I have approximately 30 minutes of low level work to do with nothing else. I’ve been filling time with informational interviews with doctors on campus and have been setting up shadowing opportunities in a number of specialties. It’s been interesting to be at a hospital but I have trouble justifying such a long commute to sit in a cubicle and do nothing all day. I didn't secure this job in time to list it on my AMCAS but did mention it to some of the schools I applied to in my secondaries/updates.

On a whim one day, I sent my resume in to a few places - some medically related and others not - and got a callback for interviews with a very well known tech company. It sounds like an interesting (and busy) job helping maintain trust and integrity in the platform, but is not at all related to healthcare. It would be a good fit for my background in policy and oversight, and I think it would be a fun opportunity to spend the remainder of the year working at a tech startup. I do worry that admissions committees might prefer that I do something medically related. At the same time, I fear that if I don’t get in to medical school (even if I stay in a healthcare related job) I’ll be stuck doing something that I don’t like. Do you have any thoughts to share on this? In short, medical school is my priority but I want to spend my time this year doing something that keeps me intellectually engaged. I know I'm getting a bit ahead of myself since I don't have a job offer just yet. Thanks in advance!

 

[pstomd]

Tagging @Goro and @gonnif in this since you've both given incredibly helpful advice to me (and others) in the past.

 

[crazymedguy123]

I think go for the job you are interested in. Your application is mainly going to be judged on what you done prior to applying and less on what you are doing now. You have a couple of II's already which is a good sign that you might have success this cycle. As long as you can tell schools you arent doing nothing this cycle and explain how your job is teachong you things (teamwork, innovation count), then this works i think.

The only place where i could see some issue is if you ultimately arent accepted and you want to reapply to med school. If you arent accepted due to a lack of clinical experience/volunteer experience for example, then this time might be better spent doing those things. Otherwise, i would say go for the job you want to do!

 

[pstomd]

I think go for the job you are interested in. Your application is mainly going to be judged on what you done prior to applying and less on what you are doing now. You have a couple of II's already which is a good sign that you might have success this cycle. As long as you can tell schools you arent doing nothing this cycle and explain how your job is teachong you things (teamwork, innovation count), then this works i think.

The only place where i could see some issue is if you ultimately arent accepted and you want to reapply to med school. If you arent accepted due to a lack of clinical experience/volunteer experience for example, then this time might be better spent doing those things. Otherwise, i would say go for the job you want to do!

Thank you for your thoughtful comments, this is very helpful. I think if this ends up working out I'll line up some clinical/volunteer experience while I'm out there to help mitigate your second point.

 

[Goro]

Hi all - I hope you're doing well! I’m writing to see if you’d be willing to share your advice on something. I finished my career changer post-bac/MCAT in May and have all of my secondaries in. I have a couple of interviews scheduled and am hoping to hear about more. I've been working at a hospital out west in an administrative role. In writing, the job sounded great- I’d be supporting a senior executive all while being exposed to the operations of a major academic medical center. In reality, the actual work has been nothing like what was described. Most days I have approximately 30 minutes of low level work to do with nothing else. I’ve been filling time with informational interviews with doctors on campus and have been setting up shadowing opportunities in a number of specialties. It’s been interesting to be at a hospital but I have trouble justifying such a long commute to sit in a cubicle and do nothing all day. I didn't secure this job in time to list it on my AMCAS but did mention it to some of the schools I applied to in my secondaries/updates.

On a whim one day, I sent my resume in to a few places - some medically related and others not - and got a callback for interviews with a very well known tech company. It sounds like an interesting (and busy) job helping maintain trust and integrity in the platform, but is not at all related to healthcare. It would be a good fit for my background in policy and oversight, and I think it would be a fun opportunity to spend the remainder of the year working at a tech startup. I do worry that admissions committees might prefer that I do something medically related. At the same time, I fear that if I don’t get in to medical school (even if I stay in a healthcare related job) I’ll be stuck doing something that I don’t like. Do you have any thoughts to share on this? In short, medical school is my priority but I want to spend my time this year doing something that keeps me intellectually engaged. I know I'm getting a bit ahead of myself since I don't have a job offer just yet. Thanks in advance!

Not everything has to be medically related. If you can do some volunteering on the side, then your app will look fine.

 

[pstomd]

Not everything has to be medically related. If you can do some volunteering on the side, then your app will look fine.

Thank you!!