Last Minute Clinical Experience

[frosty42]

I'm starting to get a bit worried about my lack of clinical experience.

I just graduated from undergrad and am now taking 2 gap years as I hope to enter medical school in 2022.
I unfortunately did not realize the importance of gaining clinical experience and shadowing hours and am only recently realizing how much I might be lacking in those areas.

I shadowed a neurologist full time for the month of June 2016 (the summer before my freshman year of college). This wound up being roughly 120 hours. This experience confirmed to me that I was dead set on applying to medical school, hence why I didn't feel like I needed to shadow anymore (no excuses - I sincerely regret not shadowing since then, but I know that I can't change the past and can only move forward at this point).

Additionally, my mother is an OB/GYN so I feel like I have a good idea of what being a physician is like. I also know that this means I didn't take full advantage of the resources she could have provided me with in terms of finding physicians to shadow.

I know this was a mistake, please go easy on me! I'm just trying to move forward and see what I can do now.

I did not shadow any physicians in college. I shadowed an internal medicine physician (~20 hrs) who I worked for this summer after graduating.
I worked for him as a medical assistant/scribe for 15 hrs/wk for 5 months (~300 hrs).
That is my only traditional clinical experience.

In undergrad, I worked in a psych research lab and worked one-on-one with individuals with schizophrenia at a psychiatric hospital. I administered neuropsychological assessments.
I know that this is not "traditional" clinical experience like working as a scribe or EMT, but I'm hoping that I can count it as clinical hours.

I am working full-time in a non-clinical Americorps position for a non-profit that provides medical supplies to local clinics so any further clinical experience would need to be volunteer.

I'm mostly stressed about looking like I jammed everything in at the last minute before applying, but I guess that's the situation I've put myself in at this point.

Please let me know any advice you may have about gaining more clinical experience/what you think an adcom's perspective on this situation would be.

TL;DR
Didn't get enough clinical hours or shadowing experience in college
Worried about looking like I'm just cramming in hours at the last second
Advice/adcom perspective?

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[Rogue42]

You really can't put on your application that you shadowed before undergrad. I mean you can, but traditional wisdom says that anything you did before college doesn't technically count.

You definitely need more shadowing hours, 100%. How much? Eh, depends on who you ask, but I would like to see that number >100. Further, 300 hours of paid clinical experience is good, but again, I would like to see that number higher. I understand you're in Americorps, and that is awesome! That will definitely help buff / overshadow the weaker parts of your application. Finally, volunteer clinical hours wouldn't hurt; you could probably be a volunteer transporter (some times this doesn't count) and in some places of the country there are free clinics where you can volunteer at.

But, at the end of the day, DIRECT patient contact is king, and you simply don't have those hours. Adcoms are going to look at your situation and your application holistically and uniquely like they do for every applicant. However, most applicants have a decent amount of shadowing, volunteering, and direct patient care. After all, how are you going to explain that you know you want to be a doctor? Because saying, "my mom is, so I want to be," sounds a bit privileged (not saying you would do this, just saying that applicants from families with parent physicians feel like this is a sufficient answer to the question and it is NOT).

 

[Goro]

I'm starting to get a bit worried about my lack of clinical experience.

I just graduated from undergrad and am now taking 2 gap years as I hope to enter medical school in 2022.
I unfortunately did not realize the importance of gaining clinical experience and shadowing hours and am only recently realizing how much I might be lacking in those areas.

I shadowed a neurologist full time for the month of June 2016 (the summer before my freshman year of college). This wound up being roughly 120 hours. This experience confirmed to me that I was dead set on applying to medical school, hence why I didn't feel like I needed to shadow anymore (no excuses - I sincerely regret not shadowing since then, but I know that I can't change the past and can only move forward at this point).

Additionally, my mother is an OB/GYN so I feel like I have a good idea of what being a physician is like. I also know that this means I didn't take full advantage of the resources she could have provided me with in terms of finding physicians to shadow.

I know this was a mistake, please go easy on me! I'm just trying to move forward and see what I can do now.

I did not shadow any physicians in college. I shadowed an internal medicine physician (~20 hrs) who I worked for this summer after graduating.
I worked for him as a medical assistant/scribe for 15 hrs/wk for 5 months (~300 hrs).
That is my only traditional clinical experience.

In undergrad, I worked in a psych research lab and worked one-on-one with individuals with schizophrenia at a psychiatric hospital. I administered neuropsychological assessments.
I know that this is not "traditional" clinical experience like working as a scribe or EMT, but I'm hoping that I can count it as clinical hours.

I am working full-time in a non-clinical Americorps position for a non-profit that provides medical supplies to local clinics so any further clinical experience would need to be volunteer.

I'm mostly stressed about looking like I jammed everything in at the last minute before applying, but I guess that's the situation I've put myself in at this point.

Please let me know any advice you may have about gaining more clinical experience/what you think an adcom's perspective on this situation would be.

TL;DR
Didn't get enough clinical hours or shadowing experience in college
Worried about looking like I'm just cramming in hours at the last second
Advice/adcom perspective?

Doesn't matter about the lack of college shadowing/clinical; exposure. Not everyone is pre-med.

You have plenty of clinical experience, especially from your scribing. Scribing is glorified shadowing in my book, but it's also a job, which is good, and it is counted as patient contact experience.

Hence, you're fine!