Is working at a call center clinical experience?

[Just Me Aaron]

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Hey, I haven't got in the last two cycles and am applying for a third (I am 24 years old). I have a 32 O mcat (10,11,11) and have done 120 hours internship at hospital, 245 hours volunteering at hospital, research, various clubs, school of life sciences peer mentor, and laboratory assist for two semesters.

Last year I worked at Walmart as a cashier for an entire year... I know its pretty close to a wasted year. I did mention it helped me deal with people, was humbling etc but I understand it won't be very impactful on my application.

This year however I got a much better job making a lot more money (which still isn't a lot) at a call center for a home medical company. I troubleshoot equipment, place orders, create routes for techs, and dispatch. On any day I get around 60 calls all of them being from patients, nurses, or other medical personnel. (about 50/50 split between patients and/or family of patients and medical personnel)

I applied to 25 md schools and 10 do schools this time which is a lot more than I did last time. (12 MD schools and 2 DO schools)

Does working in the after hours emergency call center for medical equipment count as clinical experience? I understand it isn't face to face but I hope it is much more beneficial for me than the year I spent at Walmart. Will working at a call center have a positive impact on my application?

Thanks in advance for any reply's whatsoever positive or negative.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Hey, I haven't got in the last two cycles and am applying for a third (I am 24 years old). I have a 32 O mcat (10,11,11) and have done 120 hours internship at hospital, 245 hours volunteering at hospital, research, various clubs, school of life sciences peer mentor, and laboratory assist for two semesters.

Last year I worked at Walmart as a cashier for an entire year... I know its pretty close to a wasted year. I did mention it helped me deal with people, was humbling etc but I understand it won't be very impactful on my application.

This year however I got a much better job making a lot more money (which still isn't a lot) at a call center for a home medical company. I troubleshoot equipment, place orders, create routes for techs, and dispatch. On any day I get around 60 calls all of them being from patients, nurses, or other medical personnel. (about 50/50 split between patients and/or family of patients and medical personnel)

I applied to 25 md schools and 10 do schools this time which is a lot more than I did last time. (12 MD schools and 2 DO schools)

Does working in the after hours emergency call center for medical equipment count as clinical experience? I understand it isn't face to face but I hope it is much more beneficial for me than the year I spent at Walmart. Will working at a call center have a positive impact on my application?

Thanks in advice for any reply's whatsoever positive or negative.

I think the more important thing is figuring out why you didn't get in the last two cycles. Is your cGPA or sGPA low? Were your schools too highly ranked? I ask this because you seem to be fine with clinical experience (and ECs in general) without the call center. Do you have any IAs or bad LORs?

 

[Just Me Aaron]

I think the more important thing is figuring out why you didn't get in the last two cycles. Is your cGPA or sGPA low? Were your schools too highly ranked? I ask this because you seem to be fine with clinical experience (and ECs in general) without the call center. Do you have any IAs or bad LORs?

Sorry I forgot to mention. I have 3.75 gpa. Was a biology major... Science GPA about the same, maybe slightly better. My Letter of recs should be fine I got them from people I trust and gave them nice gifts every time they wrote me LOR's.

I only had 1 MD interview and 1 DO interview. One thing that I think effected me was that I was 265 lbs (6foot tall) and being overweight doesn't look good for a doctor. I have lost 60 lbs and still working on it (I only eat 1 meal a day, it is called intermittent fasting).

I am trying to say that it was a blessing not getting accepted since it motivated me to finally lose weight but I don't know if I believe it...

Sorry for going too far off topic, I hope I can look back at these years and smile. They say you gotta have cloudy days to enjoy the sunny 🙂

 

[Just Me Aaron]

Thanks in advice for any reply's whatsoever positive or negative.

Thanks for catching that, I will edit it 🙂

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Sorry I forgot to mention. I have 3.75 gpa. Was a biology major... Science GPA about the same, maybe slightly better. My Letter of recs should be fine I got them from people I trust and gave them nice gifts every time they wrote me LOR's.

I only had 1 MD interview and 1 DO interview. One thing that I think effected me was that I was 265 lbs (6foot tall) and being overweight doesn't look good for a doctor. I have lost 60 lbs and still working on it (I only eat 1 meal a day, it is called intermittent fasting).

I am trying to say that it was a blessing not getting accepted since it motivated me to finally lose weight but I don't know if I believe it...

Sorry for going too far off topic, I hope I can look back at these years and smile. They say you gotta have cloudy days to enjoy the sunny 🙂

Woohoo! 👍

As for your question I think you can go with either kind of employment depending on how you describe the activity. But like I said before, in terms of clinical experience involving patient contact (the patient contact is the most important part, not necessarily interactions with doctors which you can get from shadowing and is important in another way) you are fine already.

If your LORs are good, then with your MCAT and GPA I think you might have just applied to the wrong kind of schools or didn't articulate well enough, in your secondaries, your specific interest in that particular school. You should use every secondary to kind of emphasize what about your activities and personality fits that school - even if it's included somewhere in a diversity essay (e.g. Jesuit schools and most likely DO schools probably want to hear more about your commitment to the community and the undeserved rather than your clinical research experience, while it's the opposite for most top 20s and top 30s). I'm not saying lie, I'm saying make sure you sell the right part of yourself to each individual school.

Also, make sure you don't fall into the trap of not applying to enough schools. Even if you look at the 3.8/35+ people on MDApps (or ask around in real life) you'll see that most people applied to 15-25 schools. If you're not low on money, then I would definitely apply to more schools - people from July are still getting verified so it's not particularly late especially at schools w/o rolling admissions or those who haven't interviewed yet or are still on October interviews.

Hopefully you get many more interviews this cycle, and if you can spend some time building up extra ECs (particularly non-medical volunteering, maybe just on the weekends) so you have something to update schools about during your interview/after while waiting for a result.

 

[theseeker4]

Hey, I haven't got in the last two cycles and am applying for a third (I am 24 years old). I have a 32 O mcat (10,11,11) and have done 120 hours internship at hospital, 245 hours volunteering at hospital, research, various clubs, school of life sciences peer mentor, and laboratory assist for two semesters.

Last year I worked at Walmart as a cashier for an entire year... I know its pretty close to a wasted year. I did mention it helped me deal with people, was humbling etc but I understand it won't be very impactful on my application.

This year however I got a much better job making a lot more money (which still isn't a lot) at a call center for a home medical company. I troubleshoot equipment, place orders, create routes for techs, and dispatch. On any day I get around 60 calls all of them being from patients, nurses, or other medical personnel. (about 50/50 split between patients and/or family of patients and medical personnel)

I applied to 25 md schools and 10 do schools this time which is a lot more than I did last time. (12 MD schools and 2 DO schools)

Does working in the after hours emergency call center for medical equipment count as clinical experience? I understand it isn't face to face but I hope it is much more beneficial for me than the year I spent at Walmart. Will working at a call center have a positive impact on my application?

Thanks in advance for any reply's whatsoever positive or negative.

You want to follow the "if you can smell a patient, it is clinical experience" test. I would not, personally, call talking with patients on the phone clinical experience. I would list it under general employment, non-clinical.

 

[Johansef]

did you apply early?

 

[Just Me Aaron]

did you apply early?

I was on two waitlists and I had a small glimmer of hope that I would get accepted as classes started. Sadly I sent my primary applications recently. Haven't received any secondaries yet except for like 3 that were given to the day I sent my primary in.

 

[volcomx]

I was on two waitlists and I had a small glimmer of hope that I would get accepted as classes started. Sadly I sent my primary applications recently. Haven't received any secondaries yet except for like 3 that were given to the day I sent my primary in.

Dude, 3rd time reapplicant and you still sent in your primaries in September?! Prepare to be a 4th time reapplicant, and make sure you send in primaries on June 10th at 9AM, and secondaries in by July. You can reapply while you are on waitlists btw.

 

[theseeker4]

Dude, 3rd time reapplicant and you still sent in your primaries in September?! Prepare to be a 4th time reapplicant, and make sure you send in primaries on June 10th at 9AM, and secondaries in by July. You can reapply while you are on waitlists btw.

+1. Very bad choice to avoid applying early because you hope to get off the waitlist. Hopefully it doesn't bit you as hard as it has the potential to.

 

[BlueLabel]

Hey, I haven't got in the last two cycles and am applying for a third (I am 24 years old). I have a 32 O mcat (10,11,11) and have done 120 hours internship at hospital, 245 hours volunteering at hospital, research, various clubs, school of life sciences peer mentor, and laboratory assist for two semesters.

Last year I worked at Walmart as a cashier for an entire year... I know its pretty close to a wasted year. I did mention it helped me deal with people, was humbling etc but I understand it won't be very impactful on my application.

This year however I got a much better job making a lot more money (which still isn't a lot) at a call center for a home medical company. I troubleshoot equipment, place orders, create routes for techs, and dispatch. On any day I get around 60 calls all of them being from patients, nurses, or other medical personnel. (about 50/50 split between patients and/or family of patients and medical personnel)

I applied to 25 md schools and 10 do schools this time which is a lot more than I did last time. (12 MD schools and 2 DO schools)

Does working in the after hours emergency call center for medical equipment count as clinical experience? I understand it isn't face to face but I hope it is much more beneficial for me than the year I spent at Walmart. Will working at a call center have a positive impact on my application?

Thanks in advance for any reply's whatsoever positive or negative.

Unfortunately I don't think that's going to qualify as a clinical experience. If you do have to reapply next cycle, just be absolutely sure you get those applications turned in ASAP, it's going to help you a lot.

That said, you seem like a great guy and I'm pulling for you man. Best of luck.

 

[APrioriAporia]

There's a saying that if you can smell the patient then its a clinical experience. Some ppl might say since you can't smell the patient then it's not, but I think as long as you were able to talk to some pts/staff and learn from them abt health care, then I would say its a clinical emplyment. If u just took orders then that's another thing.
And I would agree with the others on focusing on why you're a third time reapplicant with no seemingly glaring red flags.

 

[Just Me Aaron]

Dude, 3rd time reapplicant and you still sent in your primaries in September?! Prepare to be a 4th time reapplicant, and make sure you send in primaries on June 10th at 9AM, and secondaries in by July. You can reapply while you are on waitlists btw.

On my second application I put my application on June 1st and all all my lor's and transcripts secondaries early and it did not seem to help me much. You are right I should have applied earlier though.