Questions regarding clinical experience

[sharkbyte]

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I have a couple of questions regarding clinical experience:

1. Is it bad if I only shadowed one doctor, who was a surgeon? I shadowed the surgeon for a substantial amount of time but I made the mistake of not shadowing a primary care physician. Will this be frowned upon?

2. I did all of my clinical experience over the summers (two summers of hospital volunteering and a summer of shadowing). I didn't do any during the academic years because I lost a parent early in college and as a result wanted to focus on paid employment and research during the academic years. Is this okay? Should I mention this in my secondaries or will adcoms be able to figure this out? Looking back, I could have volunteered 3-4 hours a week but I was too overwhelmed at the time by the need to start working to realize this.

Thanks!

 

[Banco]

1.) It's not bad. Adding a primary care doctor for a little bit of shadowing would be better.

2.) This is perfectly okay. As long as you speak intelligently about your clinical experience and what you saw/learned, you will be fine. Sorry to hear about your parent; there is a section on AMCAS where you can explain things of this nature - but I don't think you'll need to mention it in your secondaries unless the topic fits and you are comfortable with it.

 

[Styrene]

My experience: As long as I truly believe that what I did was meaningful, worthwhile and a great learning experience, others, too, believe the same.