How to use my job to get into medschool (Healthcare Technologies Consultant)

[SKaminski]

Continued from a closed thread, due to it being in the wrong forum. (http://forums.sdn.net/showthread.php?t=979049)

Hey everyone,

So, i've been debating recently how i can best utilize my current job to increase my chances of getting into Med School. I am a Healthcare Technologies Consultant. Primarily, I create/program forms in Centricity (an EMR). Due to the nature of my job, I am often in a vast number of hospitals/clinics, doing installations, troubleshooting, and training.

As a consultant, I also meet with clinical managers and practitioners to discuss options in refining their EMR environment. We discuss workflow, Meaningful Use, and simplifying processes.

It's a 40+ hour a week job. I've probably spent 400+ hours in hospitals, at a minimum. I have worked with pretty much every speciality (peds to neuro oncology, family medicine to obygyn/cardiology)

So, should i consider this as "clinical experience"? I am assisting and interacting with providers.

Should i consider this "shadowing experience"? I am sometimes in the room (whether pulled in by nurses or providers) to help assist them in trouble shooting.

What do you guys think? I'm sure i'll talk a lot about it during med school interviews, as i'm sure having created Physical Exam forms, ROS forms, SOAP notes, History forms ect will be useful, but for getting to the interview step, how can i capitalize on this experience?

Thanks!

Clinical experience is defined as direct patient contact so I don't think your job qualifies. Shadowing is indirect patient contact and it sounds like your job didn't really have much of that either. I'm sure it will help but it's not going to be as significant to application committees as actual shadowing. A basic question to ask is: is this job/EC providing me with knowledge on what a doctor does, why/how a doctor does it? Another more complex question is: why do those things I learned draw me to that profession? That second question obviously requires the evidence that you gained from watching doctor-patient interaction. It's a very specific thing. You would think being an EMT would qualify but it isn't looked that highly upon by application committees in that regard because it lacks the patient-doctor interaction.

That being said, I'm sure it's a great experience you can write about and include in your personal statement. It's just not really going to contribute to either of the things you want it to.

Hey! Thanks for the response.

My understanding of the purpose of shadowing is to understand what a typical doctor's day is comprised of. Wouldn't be there, helping with training, engaging in discussions to understand their typical workflow, refining their system, and trouble shooting with them fulfill that purposes' intent to a certain degree.

Not that i'm trying to misrepresent myself. After your post i went online trying to find 'definitions' of what shadowing meant, although im having a difficult time. Do you know of some place its explicitly stated? (AMCAS website?)

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