hospital auditor....is this clinical experience?

[6god]

Hi everyone,

Long-time lurker, had a quick question. I work as an "infection control auditor" at my local hospital. Basically I walk around in various patient wings and keep track of whether doctors and nurses obey proper sanitation procedure with an iPad. I never enter the patient rooms, but I see the patients inside and outside their rooms all the time. I observe how the doctors and nurses interact with the patients, and to be honest now have a lot of exposure to the clinical environment.

Since I don't actually interact with patients, is this considered clinical volunteering? Also have a job available to work in patient transport, is that clinical?

At the end of the day, I find it odd if patient transport is considered clinical but my auditing job isn't, because I feel like I will have learned so much more about patient interactions and the clinical environment from the latter.

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[CyrilFiggis]

No. You are not patient forward.

 

[Goro]

Not all jobs that are hospital-based are clinical.

Yours is not clinical.

You're supposed to engage with patients, so that you can understand what you're getting into, and that you really want to be around sick and injured people for the next 30-40 years.

 

[Catalystik]

Yours is not clinical.

Agreed.

 

[LizzyM]

I'm going to be the outlier here and say that if you are in the hallways and the patients are in the hallways, you are "close enough" to meet my definition of clinical.

That said, being a transporter and needing to actually speak to patients and wrangle them into wheelchairs despite their mobility issues would be "more clinical" than what you are doing.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

no

 

[stinkycheeseperson]

it's not the best but at least it's active and you're seeing a lot and possibly doing something useful instead of scribing/shadowing kids who just creep people out.

how can you talk about it? that's the key

 

[allseasons]

I'm going to be the outlier here and say that if you are in the hallways and the patients are in the hallways, you are "close enough" to meet my definition of clinical.

That said, being a transporter and needing to actually speak to patients and wrangle them into wheelchairs despite their mobility issues would be "more clinical" than what you are doing.

this is pretty much what I thought. It would be a very weak one, but enough for you to put it down as "clinical" on amcas.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I also can see it be ambivalent. This is more a regulatory role but an important one. I agree it depends how much contact you actually had with patients (interviewing them) versus just collecting data. So your description is going to be important.

You have given a description of your duties. What did you learn from this experience, and what would you teach other medical students about what you observed?

 

[deleted1088242]

I wouldn’t consider either one clinical experience. Good “foot-in-the-door” experiences though.