How to classify a caregiving experience in the application?

[lachea7223]

Hi everyone! I recently spent four months,12/7, in the ICU and LTAC to care for both of my grandparents. I'm unsure which category this would be under since it is only like a semi-clinical experience per se, but more of a shadowing experience or moral obligation. I did spend tons of time interacting/coordinating with many specialties (Emergency, pulmonary critical care, nephrology, infectious disease, cardiology, vascular surgery, neurology, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, hematology, PT/rehab, and thoracic surgery) and participating in direct care/advising. I had to bridge communication between the team and my family due to the language barrier--so I pretty much managed everything. Inclined to write about this as one of my most meaningful because it really brought out my resilience and strength under great distress. And the experience inspired my undoubtful interest in critical care.

I have other clinical experiences (scribing, crisis text line, hospital volunteering) of over 1700 hours. tbh the medical knowledge and patient interaction I had learned and used were more extensive and in-depth than any, and the "work" hours were more in tune with residency. I understand how this experience is not altruistic, or it might not be fitting in the application since it can look pretentious, and frankly, I do worry about this (I obviously didn't do this for med school). I did quit my job thus shortening my other clinical experiences, so writing about it will at least let them know I wasn't just doing nothing for 4 months.

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[Moko]

Hi everyone! I recently spent four months,12/7, in the ICU and LTAC to care for both of my grandparents. I'm unsure which category this would be under since it is only like a semi-clinical experience per se, but more of a shadowing experience or moral obligation. I did spend tons of time interacting/coordinating with many specialties (Emergency, pulmonary critical care, nephrology, infectious disease, cardiology, vascular surgery, neurology, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, hematology, PT/rehab, and thoracic surgery) and participating in direct care/advising. I had to bridge communication between the team and my family due to the language barrier--so I pretty much managed everything. Inclined to write about this as one of my most meaningful because it really brought out my resilience and strength under great distress. And the experience inspired my undoubtful interest in critical care.

I have other clinical experiences (scribing, crisis text line, hospital volunteering) of over 1700 hours. tbh the medical knowledge and patient interaction I had learned and used were more extensive and in-depth than any, and the "work" hours were more in tune with residency. I understand how this experience is not altruistic, or it might not be fitting in the application since it can look pretentious, and frankly, I do worry about this (I obviously didn't do this for med school). I did quit my job thus shortening my other clinical experiences, so writing about it will at least let them know I wasn't just doing nothing for 4 months.

This experience was understandably very meaningful for you. Could you discuss this in your personal statement or secondary essays instead? Most secondaries will have some variation of a "challenge/adversity/stress" essay and/or "anything else?" essay, for which your experiences as a caregiver will be a perfect topic. Most adcom members will not notice a 4 month gap in your application, especially when your other experiences are so robust. And those meticulous enough to notice this gap can likely piece two and two together.

I don't think you will gain too much from listing this as one of your 15 experiences since you already have more than sufficient amounts of clinical experience. However, if you felt that it was important to list (ultimately you need to be happy with your application!), I would suggest categorizing it under the "Other" category instead. Just my thoughts.

 

[cj_cregg]

Agree with above. I would not list this as an extracurricular activity either because it was for your family members. That said, it is certainly a valuable life experience and it sounds like it had a significant impact on your journey to medicine, so it probably warrants a mention in your personal statement.

 

[MercifulCamper]

I had a similar experience. I had to be a caretaker for my mother for significant periods which caused slight gaps in my application experiences section. I elected not to list it in my activities section even though it was incredibly significant in my path towards medicine.

I know now the AAMC says that caregiving to family members is a clinical activity and can be listed as that. I didn’t realize that when I applied and just mentioned it in my personal statement.

My clinical hours were low about 250 for T20s but I ended up getting into UCSF and Yale probably because those adcoms read into my personal statement and saw that this was a significant clinical experience. Other adcoms that are “lazier” probably just filtered me out based on the low clinical hours - maybe not as admissions is a crapshoot.

It almost always came up at interviews and was incredibly vital in my why medicine answers. I would write about this in your personal statement and even consider listing it as an activity if you have space although its clearly not necessary given the success I was able to have without putting it as an official experience.

 

[LizzyM]

I agree that it is best classified as "other". You can be as descriptive as you wish to cover the full scope of your engagement with the health care team.

 

[lachea7223]

This experience was understandably very meaningful for you. Could you discuss this in your personal statement or secondary essays instead? Most secondaries will have some variation of a "challenge/adversity/stress" essay and/or "anything else?" essay, for which your experiences as a caregiver will be a perfect topic. Most adcom members will not notice a 4 month gap in your application, especially when your other experiences are so robust. And those meticulous enough to notice this gap can likely piece two and two together.

I don't think you will gain too much from listing this as one of your 15 experiences since you already have more than sufficient amounts of clinical experience. However, if you felt that it was important to list (ultimately you need to be happy with your application!), I would suggest categorizing it under the "Other" category instead. Just my thoughts.

You are on point that it can come up in secondaries and not necessarily be written as an activity, especially my most meaningful. That's some perspective I was unable to think through, so thank you!!

 

[lachea7223]

I had a similar experience. I had to be a caretaker for my mother for significant periods which caused slight gaps in my application experiences section. I elected not to list it in my activities section even though it was incredibly significant in my path towards medicine.

I know now the AAMC says that caregiving to family members is a clinical activity and can be listed as that. I didn’t realize that when I applied and just mentioned it in my personal statement.

My clinical hours were low about 250 for T20s but I ended up getting into UCSF and Yale probably because those adcoms read into my personal statement and saw that this was a significant clinical experience. Other adcoms that are “lazier” probably just filtered me out based on the low clinical hours - maybe not as admissions is a crapshoot.

It almost always came up at interviews and was incredibly vital in my why medicine answers. I would write about this in your personal statement and even consider listing it as an activity if you have space although its clearly not necessary given the success I was able to have without putting it as an official experience.

Thanks for sharing your journey, and I'm happy for you that your application has gone really well! These are definitely useful insights to help me better prepare for the interviews since questions about the experience seem to come up often.

 

[jhmmd]

Hi everyone! I recently spent four months,12/7, in the ICU and LTAC to care for both of my grandparents. I'm unsure which category this would be under since it is only like a semi-clinical experience per se, but more of a shadowing experience or moral obligation. I did spend tons of time interacting/coordinating with many specialties (Emergency, pulmonary critical care, nephrology, infectious disease, cardiology, vascular surgery, neurology, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, hematology, PT/rehab, and thoracic surgery) and participating in direct care/advising. I had to bridge communication between the team and my family due to the language barrier--so I pretty much managed everything. Inclined to write about this as one of my most meaningful because it really brought out my resilience and strength under great distress. And the experience inspired my undoubtful interest in critical care.

I have other clinical experiences (scribing, crisis text line, hospital volunteering) of over 1700 hours. tbh the medical knowledge and patient interaction I had learned and used were more extensive and in-depth than any, and the "work" hours were more in tune with residency. I understand how this experience is not altruistic, or it might not be fitting in the application since it can look pretentious, and frankly, I do worry about this (I obviously didn't do this for med school). I did quit my job thus shortening my other clinical experiences, so writing about it will at least let them know I wasn't just doing nothing for 4 months.

I think that this is a valid reason for "why medicine." Write about it in your PS.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I know now the AAMC says that caregiving to family members is a clinical activity and can be listed as that. I didn’t realize that when I applied and just mentioned it in my personal statement.

This is new information for me, but it's true: Five Ways to Gain Experience Without Shadowing . Something I'll need to keep in mind going forward since we see this question not infrequently.

That said, if you already have 1700+ clinical hours I probably would talk about your experience in your personal statement and essays rather than actually count the hours.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

This is new information for me, but it's true: Five Ways to Gain Experience Without Shadowing . Something I'll need to keep in mind going forward since we see this question not infrequently.

That said, if you already have 1700+ clinical hours I probably would talk about your experience in your personal statement and essays rather than actually count the hours.

I will just point out not every adcom faculty member or admin agrees with everything AAMC puts out there. That's all I can say, and that is why we are here.

 

[MercifulCamper]

I will just point out not every adcom faculty member or admin agrees with everything AAMC puts out there. That's all I can say, and that is why we are here.

Do you think Adcom members would hold it against an applicant that follow the AAMC guidelines? They are using the AMCAS application and the MCAT to evaluate students. Seems kind of silly to me.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I will just point out not every adcom faculty member or admin agrees with everything AAMC puts out there. That's all I can say, and that is why we are here.

Fair enough, and perhaps to your point the fact that I had to Google this probably speaks to how widely known this is. I think the general advice that this can be a good topic for essays but probably should not stand as the sole source of clinical experience on the entire application is likely sound.

Do you think Adcom members would hold it against an applicant that follow the AAMC guidelines? They are using the AMCAS application and the MCAT to evaluate students. Seems kind of silly to me.

The AAMC doesn't tell schools how to evaluate applicants, they just provide a centralized application system through which applicants can dispense their application to schools. Schools can then weight various experiences and even objective measures like the MCAT as they see fit.

 

[cj_cregg]

Do you think Adcom members would hold it against an applicant that follow the AAMC guidelines? They are using the AMCAS application and the MCAT to evaluate students. Seems kind of silly to me.

So as someone who doesn't consider caregiving for family in the same category of clinical experience as shadowing, EMS, scribing, free clinic volunteering, etc. - I don't "hold it against" anyone in the sense that I'm like "this applicant said that taking their grandma to doctor's appointments is clinical experience so therefore we reject them," I just make a note of how many hours there are of helping family and how many hours of traditional clinical experience.

 

[Fluidity of Movement]

Do you think Adcom members would hold it against an applicant that follow the AAMC guidelines? They are using the AMCAS application and the MCAT to evaluate students. Seems kind of silly to me.

Everyone will have their opinions regardless of what AAMC says. It is encouraging though that they are bringing to light the actual impact of these experiences, and as more applicants present with these experiences highlighted in their forms as "clinical" then the more impact it will have on adcoms over time.

Everything is variable, maybe we should get a scoring system for clinical experience XD

How do you quantify 100 hours of scribing with ~0 hours of direct patient care, to 100 hours of CNA with 50 hours of direct patient contact, to 100 hours of suicide hotline with 100 hours of direct patient care? But the first one you spend most of the time with a doctor, whereas the last one you spend none?

Is toileting/bathing more "clincal" than getting them to stop slashing their wrist for an hour? Is showing up to a 911 call as an EMT different from answering a 988 call? Etc. Everyone is going to have differing opinions, and value setting vs directness vs xyz over abc. it's difficult to directly compare clinical experiences.

(Note these numbers are mostly arbitrary and just pulled out of my ear for explanation purposes).