I have shadowed my supervisors (they were both MDs) while I was working on some research projects, but I never had any clinical experiences. If someone would, please tell me how to find clinical experiences. Should I talk to the hospitals directly? Should I talk with my supervisors first? Or should I apply through hospital's website?
Notarealname- You've got the right idea.
First off, your thought process is good in
separating shadowing from clinical volunteering. Shadowing is a lot of fun and is great to give you firsthand experience in what a doctor really does for a living (important for medical schools), but adcoms also want to see clinical volunteering in its own right.
Since it looks like you have
clinical contacts, contacting them is a great idea. Be prepared for the question, "what do you want to do?" Have an open mind and realistic expectations, but know if you want to volunteer in an ED vs. surgery vs. OBGYN, etc. Lots of doctors have lots of colleagues in all fields and may be able to help you set something up.
If this doesn't pan out, you can look for
volunteering opportunities at hospitals themselves. Do a search on google using a hopsital's name and Volunteer. At most decent sized hospitals, there's an office devoted to volunteering opportunities.
For hospital volunteering, it doesn't so much matter what department as what you're doing. Your
ideal volunteering does two things: you work directly with patients and you see what a doctor does. If you have plenty of one, try to focus on the other. Lots of jobs will have both.
Please go in with an open mind. Lots of premeds have a sense of entitlement going in to this and complain about having to clean gurneys and wheel patients around.
Reality check: you are a premed. This is the lowest of the low on the totem pole. It's not even yet on the totem pole. A volunteering position is a great opportunity for you to both do good for your community and get a peak inside a field you're not yet a part of. Keep a positive attitude about what you're doing. The more positive you are and the more responsibly you treat the job, the more you'll be allowed to do and see. It works. Trust me.
Volunteering in Emergency seems to be the most popular, both for the excitement factor and the fact that often it gives you the most patient contact. There's lots of scutwork (wiping down bloody gurneys, wheeling patients to CT, delivering hot blankets, etc.) but when you do this a lot and do it with a good attitude, it gets noticed. After a while, nurses will tap you on the shoulder and ask you for assistance. Doctors will invite you in to watch procedures. It's a reflection of the fact that they know you have a good attitude and, frankly, won't do something stupid or immature in front of their patient.
Don't limit your definition of clinical volunteering to hospital work. The typical premed has a year in an Emergency Room, six months low end research and a collection of doctors they've shadowed. But there are
two other tracks that can give you much better clinical opportunities that are much more rare amongs applicants (and therefore catch the eyes of adcoms).
Hospices give you great patient exposure. At many of the larger programs, you go through a 10 or 20 hours training program (good stuff). You work with patients who are dying and establish one on one relationships. This is excellent experience as you learn to cope with death in a very close and personal way. You're close in the ER, but you don't know the patient. Not true in hospice. Hospices are fantastic experience.
The other great option is working at
free clinics. Hospitals are big bureaucracy monsters that can limit the amount of involvement a volunteer can have. Clinics are usually run a good bit looser. It depends on the clinics, but at most you will be taking patient vitals and a basic history. These are great skills to go in to medical school with. You'll also have a lot of involvement with doctors, learning their diagnosis process and treatment planning. You also work with the underserved medical community (which, frankly, medical schools like to see).
Go in with a good work ethic and positive attitude and you'll be amazed at what you can see and do. Don't spreak yourself too thin. Depth is better than breadth. Best of luck with the process.
