In need of advice for my 1st gap year

[chefpompompurin]

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Hello! I'm an incoming senior (in college), who was planning to applying as a trad student (this cycle), but ultimately decided on a gap year due to MCAT. I was wondering if the following additional activities will be sufficient enough to show growth as an applicant during my senior year:

- Start volunteering at a homeless shelter

- Start a new clinical volunteering experience

- Shadow a new doctor

In addition to these, I will continue volunteering at a food bank + tutoring.

I'm mainly concerned with the clinical volunteering part. I know a lot of people start working as a MA, EMT, etc. but since I will be a full time student, I want to do a clinical experience that doesn't require a certification course and allows flexibility with my schedule. Will me not having a clinical job be looked down upon? If you need to know my other EC's or stats I can share those. Thank you so much!

 

[TradClimber]

There are clinical jobs which don't require certification. You could look into becoming a scribe, ophtho tech, MA (some places are willing to train and don't require certification).

How many clinical hours do you have currently?

You can absolutely do clinical volunteering, but it might be hard to rack up the hours you need in just 1 year (and for all those hours you may as well be getting paid IMO).

 

[chefpompompurin]

There are clinical jobs which don't require certification. You could look into becoming a scribe, ophtho tech, MA (some places are willing to train and don't require certification).

How many clinical hours do you have currently?

You can absolutely do clinical volunteering, but it might be hard to rack up the hours you need in just 1 year (and for all those hours you may as well be getting paid IMO).

Thank you so much for the reply!

I currently have 800 clinical hours (600 hours as a pharm tech which included administering covid tests to patients & 200 hours of volunteering at a clinic).

I would like a clinical experience where I can schedule whenever I can come in weekly in comparison to having a job that will schedule my hours for me, which is why I was thinking about doing volunteering over a job. I will be taking 17 hours this semester & share the responsibility of taking care of a sick family member. Due to not wanting to put my GPA in jeopardy plus my other commitments, I don't think I have the time commitment for a job. I just want enough clinical experience to show that I have grown as an applicant.

 

[TradClimber]

I see! It sounds like you have a solid plan. You will not be looked down upon for doing clinical volunteering instead of work. You’ll be in a good position with ~1000 clinical hours total in a year from now.

 

[chefpompompurin]

I see! It sounds like you have a solid plan. You will not be looked down upon for doing clinical volunteering instead of work. You’ll be in a good position with ~1000 clinical hours total in a year from now.

Sounds great, thank you so much for the input! I was also wondering during the year after I graduate (it will be during the application cycle), is it ok for me to continue these same activities? Or am I expected to pick up a job since I won't be in school anymore.

 

[TradClimber]

No problem! There is no expectation that you have a paid clinical gig. If you like the volunteering that you're doing at that point, and you're still learning, then stick with it.

You are correct that it looks suspicious to have long stretches of time with no clinical contact whatsoever, but you won't have that problem.

Also for non-clinical volunteering, I can recommend becoming a domestic violence counselor. I did this for 2 years and it was easily the most important volunteering experience that I had.

 

[chefpompompurin]

No problem! There is no expectation that you have a paid clinical gig. If you like the volunteering that you're doing at that point, and you're still learning, then stick with it.

You are correct that it looks suspicious to have long stretches of time with no clinical contact whatsoever, but you won't have that problem.

Also for non-clinical volunteering, I can recommend becoming a domestic violence counselor. I did this for 2 years and it was easily the most important volunteering experience that I had.

Thank you so much for the suggestion, I will look into that! Most of my application revolves around serving underserved communities, do you think it would be ok for me to replace the homeless shelter volunteering with domestic violence counseling? Can you tell me more about what you did in it? It sounds very interesting & more engaging, and I think it could potentially serve as a more valuable experience.

For your point about the long stretch of time with no clinical contact, I do have a concern regarding that. During my junior year of college, I did not get any clinical experience. The fall semester was spent studying for MCAT, and during the spring semester one of my immediate family members suffered from a stroke (which explains me having to care for a sick family member). How bad will this look?

 

[TradClimber]

let me rephrase: it can look suspicious to have a gap in clinical exposure in the time immediately leading up to your application. your situation is perfectly understandable and if you’re already planning ahead for next year, then you’re in a great position.

As a DV counselor, I mostly did intakes for new clients, interviewed them and wrote up restraining order requests which were eventually submitted to the court for review. In your situation, I wouldn’t hit the brakes on the homeless shelter volunteering, I would probably use a shotgun approach and find some DV or shelter organizations local to you and apply to a few that look interesting to you, then see which ones fit your schedule best and are in most need of volunteers.

another reason why I recommended being a domestic violence counselor in particular is because in some states, the organization can give you a certification stating that you are a certified domestic violence counselor, which certainly looks good on an application and is pretty unique.