Milk Bank Job--Clinical experience?

[shrutebeetandb]

Hi everyone,
I'm a non-traditional post-bacc career changer. I have an excellent resume and academic background, and I'm working on finding clinical opportunities while I finish up my pre-reqs. A job as a milk tech at our local NICU came open. I'm applying for it right now, and I was wondering if anyone had advice on whether it was enough patient and physician interaction to be considered clinical experience? The role mostly interacts with the RNs, RDs and LCs, but is primarily focused on the management of breastmilk, fortifiers, and timing of feeds to relieve the nurses of this time consuming duty. I know it'd be a good fit with my own previous work experience, breastfeeding experiences and I'm very excited about the possibility of using my meticulous organizational and math skills to help support preemies. I want to know if this is considered clinical since it's mostly lab work.
Thanks!!

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[Goro]

Sounds borderline, but I'll run with what the wise @LizzyM usually advises: "Put it down as clinical and let the Adcom decide where it goes."

 

[LizzyM]

Unless you are face-to-face with the patients (newborns and post-partum people in the hospital), I would not count this as "clinical" which by my definition requires close proximity to patients. I'd recommend calling it "non-clinical" and let adcoms "up-code" it if they disagree with me. Better to say that something is "non-clinical" and get upgraded than to say it is clinical and have adcoms disagree and downgrade you for exaggerating your clinical experience.

That's not to say that you shouldn't do this activity if you are enthusiastic about it and feel that it is a good fit with your interests but you'll need other clinical activities that get you communicating with patients and in proximity to them to determine if you'd like to work in a field that requires close proximity to patients (of course, there are some exceptions in the world of medicine but they are rare).

 

[shrutebeetandb]

Unless you are face-to-face with the patients (newborns and post-partum people in the hospital), I would not count this as "clinical" which by my definition requires close proximity to patients. I'd recommend calling it "non-clinical" and let adcoms "up-code" it if they disagree with me. Better to say that something is "non-clinical" and get upgraded than to say it is clinical and have adcoms disagree and downgrade you for exaggerating your clinical experience.

That's not to say that you shouldn't do this activity if you are enthusiastic about it and feel that it is a good fit with your interests but you'll need other clinical activities that get you communicating with patients and in proximity to them to determine if you'd like to work in a field that requires close proximity to patients (of course, there are some exceptions in the world of medicine but they are rare).

Thank you, this was really helpful. I'm interested in learning more about the position during the interview to see how much patient interaction there is with the role--from what I've read, different hospitals have different approaches to the job. I assume any interactions would be mostly with post-partum mothers and their support person and providing breastfeeding support. We'll see! Again, thank you for your time and response.