Healthcare experience

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drchris33

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I am just curious about what type of healthcare experience you all did prior to marticulation or acceptance to medical school.

here is mine:
Athletic trainer for four years (undergrad)
Certified EMT-B
Nurse's aide (2 years)
Respiratory therapist (almost 2 years)
Certified phlebotomist

Chris

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I had a 3 year time lapse between my undergrad and DO days and did the following:

EMT-D
Nursing Assistant
Surgical Technician

The funny thing is I talked about these work related experiences more during my radiology interviews than interviewing for DO school. Go figure.
 
Here is my experience- Tox Lab, AUA Emergency Room Tech, Protein purification/gene transformation research, NT in OB,OR, and Cath Lab, volunteer work at local hosptal

Sounds like you have some great experience!
 
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Pags

how difficult is it to get a surg tech position? is training necessary before hire? i'd be interested in something like that.
 
I had a one-day experience as a volunteer at the ER during college before I quit going. Got into med school with nothing else. healthcare service makes no difference as far as i can tell.
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by PTjay:
•Pags

how difficult is it to get a surg tech position? is training necessary before hire? i'd be interested in something like that.•••••It depends soley on the hospital and the state in which you will work. I was let go as a nursing assistant in the ICU due to the downsizing epidemic in the mid 90's for area hospitals in upstate NY. There was an opening for a surgical tech job in the OR where experience was preferred. Since I was being let go, I had first dibs on landing that job in which they would train me for 12 weeks. Also, being in NY, I was not required to have surgical technician certification, as is required in some states, in order to work. The hospital was willing to train me knowing that I would leave if and when I was accepted to medical school. They took chance on me (for any of you ABBA fans) and it gladly paid off for both parties.

So that's my little saga. There is standard training for surg techs and you can obtain national certification by passing a standardized exam and having logged so many work hours. I was making almost $10/hr back in 98', however, you can make up to $17/hr (maybe even a bit more now) as a contracted surg tech through an agency.

I thought my experience was invaluable. You learn organization and efficiency skills, and maybe most importantly, learn how to work under pressure. The downside....working with some nasty surgeons and histrionic personalities.
 
Wernicke,
I do not agree with what you said and I think pre-med students in this thread should listen to the majority. I also was accepted, but I feel that my health care experience set me apart from many other qualified students. In my interview, which was 45 min., we talked about my experience for about half of it. If you don't have any type of experience, how do you know that you really want to become a physician? My advice is to get as much experience as you can and it will be to your advantage. Why do you think you hear stories of people who make 10's and have 3.9gpa and get rejected? (I have a friend with exact #'s) Werincke, you are the exception!!!!!!!!!!!
 
wernickie was not an exception because I am sure that he/she had an interview just like everone else and had to talk about past experiences. When you interview, you just have to justify past experience. For most pre-meds this usually involves some healthcare experience because this is the field we are interested in. Anyone who just does "time" in healthcare just to put it on an application is wasting their own time. You would be far better off spending your time repairing musical instruments or whatever it is that interests you. In the interview you will have to speak with passion about your past expereiences and if you have to pretend that your healthcare experience was really interesting when you were really bored then your are lying on your first day on the job. Personally I have worked in many different aspects of healthcare because I wanted to see if it really was for me, not because it looked good on an application. Bottom line, do what you are interested in but when you are asked the "why do you want to be a doctor" question be able to draw on previous experience that supports your answer. ie "as a track athlete I had very little extra time to devote to volunteering while in college but my training taught me an appreciation for the physiological limits of human performance that I would like to pursue etc..." Just my 2 cents. Sean.
 
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