Hours of patient care experience?

[wolverine2015]

I know there's no set requirement or anything, but about how many hours of patient care experience do you think it would be good to have under your belt before applying? I worked 400 hours last summer as a patient care tech and I'm wondering whether my time would be better spend in the future doing more patient care work or doing something different

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[wolverine2015]

*spent

 

[kalbrecht17]

I know there's no set requirement or anything, but about how many hours of patient care experience do you think it would be good to have under your belt before applying? I worked 400 hours last summer as a patient care tech and I'm wondering whether my time would be better spend in the future doing more patient care work or doing something different

Its not about quantity necessarily but about quality and what you got out of it. If you put on your application that you saw tons of patients because you had so many hours and now know what their life is like and now i should be a dr, that isn't really effective. However if you can convey the message that during your hours, you got to have meaningful interactions that left you with a firm grasp of what physicians go through and what patients go through, that is much more important. That's why there's not a set number requirement.

 

[LizzyM]

I know there's no set requirement or anything, but about how many hours of patient care experience do you think it would be good to have under your belt before applying? I worked 400 hours last summer as a patient care tech and I'm wondering whether my time would be better spend in the future doing more patient care work or doing something different

A summer of f/t employment is just fine. If you feel moved to work or volunteer in a clinical setting (perhaps with a different age group or a different facility) then that would be fine but if you haven't done research you might want to seek that out in this academic year and next summer.

 

[wolverine2015]

A summer of f/t employment is just fine. If you feel moved to work or volunteer in a clinical setting (perhaps with a different age group or a different facility) then that would be fine but if you haven't done research you might want to seek that out in this academic year and next summer.

Is non-lab research looked down upon compared to other types of research? I worked in a lab the summer prior to starting my freshman year. But I've been doing research last year and this year in health management involving cost of care & patient outcomes, and research involving developing statistical algorithms for diagnosis & individualized treatment. I plan to to declare a major in either statistics or economics (or major in one & minor in the other) and I enjoy this type of research much more.

 

[Geebeejay]

From what I've heard from advisors and such, med schools like to see a sense of commitment. That being said, I would expect medical schools would give some weight to a long tenure at a certain job as opposed to bouncing around different jobs every couple of months/every semester. So, maybe continuing as a tech would be a good idea.

 

[LizzyM]

Is non-lab research looked down upon compared to other types of research? I worked in a lab the summer prior to starting my freshman year. But I've been doing research last year and this year in health management involving cost of care & patient outcomes, and research involving developing statistical algorithms for diagnosis & individualized treatment. I plan to to declare a major in either statistics or economics (or major in one & minor in the other) and I enjoy this type of research much more.

That research is legit, too, although depending on the school you might get more or less traction with that.

 

[Praefectus]

400 hours? I think you'll be fine.