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- Feb 18, 2018
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Hi all,
Taking a year to complete a short post-bacc program (Boston at HES) to improve GPA and complete missing pre-reqs over the next year. Planning to apply by next May if all goes to plan. I hope to stay in the Boston area during the interview process, assuming that I can find a well-aligned job and volunteer positions.
I'm looking for advice on how to improve my application with respect to clinical experience, volunteering, shadowing, etc. My classes will be in the evenings so I'll have a lot of time to work on acquiring hours, and would prefer to find a paying job that would help my application... but I'm not totally sure where to focus my efforts given my past professional experiences.
Do I need to add to my clinical experience?
Directly out of college I worked at a non-profit, community health clinic as a case manager for low income, mentally ill adults. Basically, I coordinated all aspects of their care, sat in on physician appointments, visited and developed discharge plans while patients were inpatient, etc. I stayed in this position for about 3 years, then went on to design, develop, and facilitate community health groups for the same organization for an additional year or so. I also briefly performed a variety of community health duties (including venipuncture testing, counseling, recruiting hospitals/clinics to participate, designing/facilitating skills groups) at a community HIV resource center for about 7 months until the program lost funding.
Do I still need to prove myself when it comes to clinical experience? Or would my professional background be enough? I’m concerned that the fact that I worked in a mental health role will lessen all the holistic work I did helping our patients understand and care for their comorbid health conditions.
Note: Since then I’ve worked at a fortune 100 company (not affiliated with healthcare) for the last 3 years in HR doing health and wellness engagement, health analytics, population health management, etc. Most of my work involved creating or promoting programs to improve patient outcomes, influence provider practices, identify health trends, etc. to reduce our medical spend.
What volunteering opportunities should I pursue?
I’ve racked up a lot of non-clinical volunteer hours in the last couple years: close to 100 at an afterschool program tutoring refugee children, probably another 60-75 with various “missions” through my company, and 40+ serving on a fundraising committee for a non-profit that provides preventive care to underserved children around Texas. (Quite a bit on the side working doing web/graphic design for non-profits as well but they were all for different orgs.)
I need to keep volunteering but am not totally sure what roles would be best. I feel like I should try to get hours at a hospital just to say I've worked in one, but I’m much more interested in serving in smaller community clinics typically. Also, if I go for a hospital I have no idea what type of volunteer role would be best, given my background.
Should I pursue FT work or focus on volunteering?
Since my classes will be in the evenings I was really hoping to get a job in research analytics or a related field, as I have data science/programming skills through my job. However, I want to make sure that I check the box on clinical volunteering/experience as well.
Obviously, working would provide a lot of financial support, but I don’t have to work FT necessarily if it would make more sense to focus on volunteering. Need to work PT at least though.
What would you spend the year doing, outside of the coursework? Anything I should be wary of?
(Will be applying as a Texas in state resident but post-bacc courses will be in the Boston area.)
Thanks in advance!
Taking a year to complete a short post-bacc program (Boston at HES) to improve GPA and complete missing pre-reqs over the next year. Planning to apply by next May if all goes to plan. I hope to stay in the Boston area during the interview process, assuming that I can find a well-aligned job and volunteer positions.
I'm looking for advice on how to improve my application with respect to clinical experience, volunteering, shadowing, etc. My classes will be in the evenings so I'll have a lot of time to work on acquiring hours, and would prefer to find a paying job that would help my application... but I'm not totally sure where to focus my efforts given my past professional experiences.
Do I need to add to my clinical experience?
Directly out of college I worked at a non-profit, community health clinic as a case manager for low income, mentally ill adults. Basically, I coordinated all aspects of their care, sat in on physician appointments, visited and developed discharge plans while patients were inpatient, etc. I stayed in this position for about 3 years, then went on to design, develop, and facilitate community health groups for the same organization for an additional year or so. I also briefly performed a variety of community health duties (including venipuncture testing, counseling, recruiting hospitals/clinics to participate, designing/facilitating skills groups) at a community HIV resource center for about 7 months until the program lost funding.
Do I still need to prove myself when it comes to clinical experience? Or would my professional background be enough? I’m concerned that the fact that I worked in a mental health role will lessen all the holistic work I did helping our patients understand and care for their comorbid health conditions.
Note: Since then I’ve worked at a fortune 100 company (not affiliated with healthcare) for the last 3 years in HR doing health and wellness engagement, health analytics, population health management, etc. Most of my work involved creating or promoting programs to improve patient outcomes, influence provider practices, identify health trends, etc. to reduce our medical spend.
What volunteering opportunities should I pursue?
I’ve racked up a lot of non-clinical volunteer hours in the last couple years: close to 100 at an afterschool program tutoring refugee children, probably another 60-75 with various “missions” through my company, and 40+ serving on a fundraising committee for a non-profit that provides preventive care to underserved children around Texas. (Quite a bit on the side working doing web/graphic design for non-profits as well but they were all for different orgs.)
I need to keep volunteering but am not totally sure what roles would be best. I feel like I should try to get hours at a hospital just to say I've worked in one, but I’m much more interested in serving in smaller community clinics typically. Also, if I go for a hospital I have no idea what type of volunteer role would be best, given my background.
Should I pursue FT work or focus on volunteering?
Since my classes will be in the evenings I was really hoping to get a job in research analytics or a related field, as I have data science/programming skills through my job. However, I want to make sure that I check the box on clinical volunteering/experience as well.
Obviously, working would provide a lot of financial support, but I don’t have to work FT necessarily if it would make more sense to focus on volunteering. Need to work PT at least though.
What would you spend the year doing, outside of the coursework? Anything I should be wary of?
(Will be applying as a Texas in state resident but post-bacc courses will be in the Boston area.)
Thanks in advance!
