Questions About Non-Clinical ECs

[Serapis]

Hello all, I am a junior preparing to take the MCAT in May, and I would like to apply this cycle if possible. I've been lurking on SDN for the past year, and I had a couple of questions about whether my ECs are up to snuff, or if I need to add anything before I start applying. I've been volunteering at a 911 service as an EMT for the past two years, and have easily gotten 100s of hours from that of clinical volunteering. (To be clear, I am not coming at it from a check-the-boxes stand point, I really love being an EMT, and if for some reason I could not do medical school I would aim to go career fire/medic. I would have spent this much time regardless of whether I wanted to go to med school). I also work part-time at another agency, so I have paid clinical experience. My main non-clinical volunteering is as a volunteer firefighter with my local department. I have 100s hours with that as well, even if I do not include training hours. I think I can make a convincing argument in an interview that my experiences with the FD and the rescue squads have "checked the boxes" that they are looking for as far as working with disadvantaged and rural populations. Would this be acceptable to an adcom committee, or do I need to switch gears and start with some other activity (something like food bank, soup kitchen etc.)

As an additional question, I have about 40 hours of shadowing in different areas of the hospital (radiology, ER, cardiology, anesthesia, pathology, and surgery). Is this acceptable? I don't have a close enough relationship with any of them to get a letter of recommendation.

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[LizzyM]

You don't need letters of recommendation from physicians you've shadowed unless the school specifies it. DO schools like to see a LOR from a DO.

All of your shadowing appears to be in-patient, you might want to get at least one day of shadowing someone in primary care/ambulatory care as the majority of all patient care is delivered in outpatient clinical settings.

Volunteer firefighter is a tricky thing (my dad was a volunteer firefighter and I grew up with the fire radio in the bedroom and the turnout coat, pants and boots at the ready in the back hall). Do you really have 100s of hours actually fighting fires? That would be a couple dozen fires, at a minimum, which seems like a lot. Being "on call" or being at meetings at the firehouse don't really count. How do you interact with disadvantaged and rural residents? Are you going door-to-door distributing smoke detectors or doing educational events? It is community service but it is not in the same bucket as working face-to-face with people with disabilities, and those who are unhoused, aged, unemployable, and who cannot provide for themselves as you might meet in a social service setting (homeless shelter, food pantry, etc).

 

[Serapis]

Definitely not dozens of fires, but in that number of hours I was including all of the other calls the department gets, such as MVAs, brush fires, fire alarms, and odor investigations. Is that overly generous?

I should have clarified that the cardiologist was out-patient, but definitely, I should set up shadowing with a PCP.

The main interaction with rural/disadvantaged is the EMS side, since the county I am in is poor and rural and has a significant history of discrimination (without doxing myself, the county is notorious for having participated in mass resistance during segregation, and the effects are definitely still felt today, as the illiteracy rate is something like 25%, especially among the around 35% that is a minority). We do community service such as smoke detectors and CPR classes for the local community, but probably not enough to be put in the social service basket.

 

[LizzyM]

Your task will be to write this up to broaden the description of your role as a "first responder" to accident scenes, odor investigations and the like, and to describe your face-to-face interactions with the rural poor many of whom have low literacy.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

A more formal WAMC will help with this question. But let's go with what is here.

I'm okay with being an EMT, and the shadowing seems okay. Arguably, it may help you to describe the other community service activities you do when it comes to educating others in town about their health and what EMT's really do. Perhaps you also help with clothes or blanket drives for local shelters. Something where you can show your service orientation outside of your EMT role would help me if I looked at your application.

You should have a good idea which health systems are represented among the clinics and hospitals around you. Do students and residents rotate in those systems? If so, then you have the start of a list where presumably the faculty on the adcom know where you are and what you do.

Read Application Advice for Future Rural Health Professionals - SDN