MA vs Scribing for my situation?

[BigPremedGuy]

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Hi all,

I'm wrapping up my paid internship at a coordinated care organization this month and am looking ahead to my next experience/ job during this app cycle.

Thru the internship I was employed for about 3 weeks full time scribing for a family medicine doc who just had arm surgery and could not type (left that part out of AMCAS lol). Along with being trained on EHR the experience was about 200 hours. Clearly I gained a ton of great experience, but nowhere near the level of people who are trained by big scribing companies, and those who work for 6 months - a year at scribing. At the same time, I am grateful I wasn't exposed to the ****tiness I hear comes with working for the big scribing companies, but I know this varies.

Now, about 2 weeks before my internship ends I got an offer to apply to the same clinic as a medical assistant from another physician I know well who works there. This opportunity sounds exciting, the MAs there taking patient vitals, prep rooms, and give initial patient interviews—which sounds enjoyable to me compared to the stoic silence you have to maintain during the visit as a scribe. MA pay is better too, but that's not a big concern for me.

My question is do you think my low time in scribing (~200 hrs) is significant enough that it would be better to lean towards securing an MA job? Iv'e heard conflicting evidence on SDN about how Adcoms generally view it. Meanwhile scribing is pretty universally accepted as a great premed experience, hence my question.

Thanks friends
edit: grammar

 

[ihoop24]

Your 200 hours of scribing are good, but the problem is that they don't demonstrate any sort of continuity since you only scribed for 3 weeks. I would personally take the MA job, but it wouldn't matter much given that you are applying this cycle.

 

[Means]

I would take the MA job. The experience and confidence you will gain from actually interacting with patients all day will greatly benefit you down the road.

 

[Fidelio17]

MA job. Better pay, more patient interaction, lots to talk about in interviews. & it seems you have a pretty good feeling about working there!

You may not learn as many "doctor things", but that's the point of med school. The point of clinical experience before med school is to learn how to (and then demonstrate that you can) interact with people in the clinical setting. It won't hurt you to be an MA over a scribe.

 

[Cornfed101]

Same boat here. Scribed for 200 hours, offered a job paying $6 more per hour as an ophthalmic assistant. Haven’t looked back. It’s awesome to actually be able to interact with patients.

P.S. I have a family so the extra money was nice

 

[BigPremedGuy]

Thanks all for the replies! Leaning towards MA