How many more clinical hours should I get?

[barness]

Hey everybody,

I graduated from college Springs 2020, and have spent my 1st gap year so far working in clinical research. I started at the beginning of August and worked full time as a clinical research coordinator until early october then got another coordinator role with another company doing covid vaccine trials. Adding my work hours together, in week or so I will have 480 hours worked. I'm planning on taking the MCAT early March, and my current job doesn't give me much time or leave me with much energy to study. I was wondering, how many more hours should I try to get before moving part time/quitting entirely to study full time?

My other stats are as follows:

I graduated from a good state school.

Major: Biochemistry
GPA: 3.72
sGPA: 3.73
Research hours: (mostly bench work and whatnot) 2000

Publications/Presentations: 1 presentation and 1 authorship (not main)

Volunteering: 50 (clinical) + 120 (non-clinical) = 170 total
(I'm in the process of applying to join big brother big sisters)

Extracurricular: I started a pre-health club with some classmates, and was treasurer

Shadowing: 0 (Lost my opportunity last spring due to covid, and am working on finding docs to shadow) (Side note: both my parents are Doctors, so I have an understanding of what day to day is like and there lives outside of medicine)

Previously, I took the MCAT and got a 505. I didn't make a proper plan or schedule, but spent a lot of time studying. I know where and how to improve now, but need the time to do it.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

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[candbgirl]

Well it is expected that you have at least 200+ hours of clinical experiences. That’s face to face contact with the sick, injured and dying.I don’t know how much, if any , of your clinical research will count. Many times the people you work with in clinical research are considered/called subjects and not patients. You also need 200+ hours of nonclinical volunteering to the unserved/underserved in your community. And finally, you need around 50 hours of shadowing and some should be with a primary care doc.
Remember, these are just the minimum expected. Continue to build your application but study hard for the MCAT. Good luck.

 

[barness]

Well it is expected that you have at least 200+ hours of clinical experiences. That’s face to face contact with the sick, injured and dying.I don’t know how much, if any , of your clinical research will count. Many times the people you work with in clinical research are considered/called subjects and not patients. You also need 200+ hours of nonclinical volunteering to the unserved/underserved in your community. And finally, you need around 50 hours of shadowing and some should be with a primary care doc.
Remember, these are just the minimum expected. Continue to build your application but study hard for the MCAT. Good luck.

Fortunately, my first job's subjects were all considered under your criteria to be "patients".