School List Help

[Cyborg666]

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1. cGPA: 3.97 / sGPA: 3.97

2. MCAT: 519 (131,125,132,131)

3. State: CA

4. Ethnicity: ORM (But immigrant?)

5. Undergraduate institution: University of California

6. Clinical Experience: ~100 hours ED volunteer (ongoing), ~120 hours doctor secretary (not in the US).

7. Research Experience: ~200 hours (have a research job lined up after I graduate this June for my gap year).

8. Shadowing: Was told that online shadowing doesn't count. However, I have worked with nurses and doctors at the ED.

9. Non-Clinical Volunteering: ~200 hours of hospital ambassador, ~100 hours Red Cross blood donor ambassador (ongoing), 24 hours in COVID-19 vaccine drive in clinic, 12 hours in population health setting up supply kits for lower income COVID patients (ongoing).

10. Leadership: ~100 hours as a general chemistry learning assistant, 1 quarter as a genetics learning assistant, 1 quarter as a virology learning assistant.

11. School list:
AMCAS (25)
Kaiser
UCR
UCSD
UCI
UCLA
UCD
UCSF
Stanford
UFL
UCF
UMiami
USF
NYU
UPenn
Penn State
Ohio State
UM Ann Arbor
Georgetown
WashingtonU
Harvard
Mayoclinic
Tufts
UIndiana
Rochester
Boston Med

TMDSAS: (5)
UT Southwestern
UT Austin
Baylor
UT San Antonio
Texas A&M

Basically was told by my premed advisor that I have no chance because I never worked as an MA, EMT, or scribe. Is this true? if so, would working as one of those part time during my gap year help?

Thank you very much for the help! 🙂

 

[deleted1074206]

You probably need more clinical hours since international experiences don’t really have as much weight. Try and get shadowing too! But your stats and nonclinical volunteering look good to me

 

[Cyborg666]

You probably need more clinical hours since international experiences don’t really have as much weight. Try and get shadowing too! But your stats and nonclinical volunteering look good to me

Thank you for replying! For clinical experience, do you think it's fine if I do that after I submit my application? Also, do you think my school list is realistic considering my stats and EC's then?
For shadowing, I really have been trying, however most doctors around me won't let me shadow them because of COVID restrictions. Hopefully I can get some before June.

 

[candbgirl]

What’s a Hospital Ambassador? Depending on your answer your nonclinical volunteering focusing on the unserved/underserved in your community are lacking. You’ve got a good start on your clinical experiences but you need more hours in the US. And don’t apply with physician shadowing. You only need 50 hours between now and application time. Because you work in an ED it should be reasonable to hook up with a couple of docs to shadow on your days off. Good luck.

 

[candbgirl]

Thank you for replying! For clinical experience, do you think it's fine if I do that after I submit my application? Also, do you think my school list is realistic considering my stats and EC's then?
For shadowing, I really have been trying, however most doctors around me won't let me shadow them because of COVID restrictions. Hopefully I can get some before June.

It’s not fine to wait for clinical experiences. Find a doc that has a private practice. Ask some of your ED colleagues if they have a friend. Covid restrictions are dropping most places( hospitals in Chicago haven’t budged but maybe other places have.) You need shadowing and clinical experiences to apply. Otherwise how will you convince ADCOMS you know what you are getting yourself into and that you really want to spend the next 35+ years dealing with the sick , injured and dying.

 

[Faha]

Your complete lack of shadowing and only 100 hours of clinical volunteering will limit your chances for interviews. You should accumulate 50 hours of in person physician shadowing (including primary care ) and another 100+ hours of clinical volunteering with patient contact before you apply in June.
The Texas schools (and U Florida) admit few non residents with no connection to the state. Georgetown and Boston University are looking for applicants with many more hours of clinical exposure than you will have.
You could add these schools:
Vanderbilt
Duke
U Virginia
Jefferson
Cincinnati
Case Western
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Western Michigan

 

[Cyborg666]

It’s not fine to wait for clinical experiences. Find a doc that has a private practice. Ask some of your ED colleagues if they have a friend. Covid restrictions are dropping most places( hospitals in Chicago haven’t budged but maybe other places have.) You need shadowing and clinical experiences to apply. Otherwise how will you convince ADCOMS you know what you are getting yourself into and that you really want to spend the next 35+ years dealing with the sick , injured and dying.

I really appreciate your responses! The hospital ambassador was mainly taking patients to various parts of the hospital and coordinating with the nursing staff when I need to discharge patients (I had this as clinical but was told by an advisor that it's not. To me it definitely felt clinical because I was actively involved in the whole admitting and discharging process in the hospital).
For paid clinical experiences, I have been applying to many places without success. The thing is everything I keep finding requires full time commitment and I just can't do that at the moment due to the fact that I am still in school.
For the nonclinical experience, I will be racking up a lot of hours in the next few months with the underserved (the ongoing population health one).
As for shadowing, that is something I will definitely work on.
Again thanks! I will definitely be working on the points you mentioned!

 

[candbgirl]

I really appreciate your responses! The hospital ambassador was mainly taking patients to various parts of the hospital and coordinating with the nursing staff when I need to discharge patients (I had this as clinical but was told by an advisor that it's not. To me it definitely felt clinical because I was actively involved in the whole admitting and discharging process in the hospital).
For paid clinical experiences, I have been applying to many places without success. The thing is everything I keep finding requires full time commitment and I just can't do that at the moment due to the fact that I am still in school.
For the nonclinical experience, I will be racking up a lot of hours in the next few months with the underserved (the ongoing population health one).
As for shadowing, that is something I will definitely work on.
Again thanks! I will definitely be working on the points you mentioned!

I wonder why that ADCOM said it wasn’t clinical. You certainly had direct patient contact and I understand that maybe some of it wasn’t clinical but the other activities seem to be clinical. 🤔

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I really appreciate your responses! The hospital ambassador was mainly taking patients to various parts of the hospital and coordinating with the nursing staff when I need to discharge patients (I had this as clinical but was told by an advisor that it's not. To me it definitely felt clinical because I was actively involved in the whole admitting and discharging process in the hospital).
For paid clinical experiences, I have been applying to many places without success. The thing is everything I keep finding requires full time commitment and I just can't do that at the moment due to the fact that I am still in school.
For the nonclinical experience, I will be racking up a lot of hours in the next few months with the underserved (the ongoing population health one).
As for shadowing, that is something I will definitely work on.
Again thanks! I will definitely be working on the points you mentioned!

I think being a hospital ambassador sounds like a patient navigator from your description. I would consider it clinical experience... it is in a hospital, and it seems to be associated with the health care system (as opposed to lawn maintenance staff/ground crew, no offense to those who do that for hospitals). Was your advisor thinking because it didn't involve doctors that it wasn't clinical?

 

[Cyborg666]

I think being a hospital ambassador sounds like a patient navigator from your description. I would consider it clinical experience... it is in a hospital, and it seems to be associated with the health care system (as opposed to lawn maintenance staff/ground crew, no offense to those who do that for hospitals). Was your advisor thinking because it didn't involve doctors that it wasn't clinical?

Yes, I think so. He basically said that this would be a great experience if I wanted to apply to nursing school because most of my contact in that experience was with nurses. I have read somewhere that "if you smell the patient, it's clinical experience." I definitely did more than smell them haha. When I told him I used reddit and SDN to get that information, he said usually it's all wrong lol (literally not even exaggerating). He also said ED volunteer is not that "clinical" and that I should be an EMT/MA/Scribe for my clinical experience to be "real" .

 

[Cyborg666]

Your complete lack of shadowing and only 100 hours of clinical volunteering will limit your chances for interviews. You should accumulate 50 hours of in person physician shadowing (including primary care ) and another 100+ hours of clinical volunteering with patient contact before you apply in June.
The Texas schools (and U Florida) admit few non residents with no connection to the state. Georgetown and Boston University are looking for applicants with many more hours of clinical exposure than you will have.
You could add these schools:
Vanderbilt
Duke
U Virginia
Jefferson
Cincinnati
Case Western
Hofstra
Einstein
Mount Sinai
Western Michigan

I will definitely add those schools to my list, thank you! My entire family lives in Texas, but I am not a Texas resident, would that help my case at all with the Texas schools? I am working on my shadowing hours, I will hopefully get at least 50 by June when I plan to submit my app. If enough people tell me that my hospital ambassador position is clinical, I will definitely make it clinical and that would bump me to +300 hours of clinical experience in the US right now (~400 by June). I will also have around 200 hours overall of nonclinical volunteering and ~300 hours of research by June hopefully. Would you say that is good enough for my app overall?

 

[Faha]

I will definitely add those schools to my list, thank you! My entire family lives in Texas, but I am not a Texas resident, would that help my case at all with the Texas schools? I am working on my shadowing hours, I will hopefully get at least 50 by June when I plan to submit my app. If enough people tell me that my hospital ambassador position is clinical, I will definitely make it clinical and that would bump me to +300 hours of clinical experience in the US right now (~400 by June). I will also have around 200 hours overall of nonclinical volunteering and ~300 hours of research by June hopefully. Would you say that is good enough for my app overall?

Yes, those hours should be adequate. You could try the Texas schools with your family connections as long as you mention them in your Texas application.

 

[chilly_md]

I can see where people would say the hospital ambassador position is non-clinical. You were performing the duties of patient transport essentially, and if you did not need to utilize a gurney or wheelchair for that, people may dismiss it as more of a greeter role. Especially if you were to use ambassador as the position title on your application. Some schools are sticklers and aren't very fond of ED volunteering or hospital ambassadors.

 

[Cyborg666]

I did utilize both gurneys and wheelchairs in my ambassador experience! Yeah honestly I hope I can find which schools those would be and save myself the money applying for them. I will try my best to find an MA job by the time I apply so I can at least have a projected hours thingy for that.
Thank you for your response!

 

[chilly_md]

I did utilize both gurneys and wheelchairs in my ambassador experience! Yeah honestly I hope I can find which schools those would be and save myself the money applying for them. I will try my best to find an MA job by the time I apply so I can at least have a projected hours thingy for that.
Thank you for your response!

I would focus on this in your activity description then, as well as what you learned from patients and honestly use the title of patient transporter instead because ambassador comes across as somebody who is just representing the hospital at events or a customer service person if the reader isn’t too familiar with the role.

Good luck on finding the MA job!

 

[Cyborg666]

I would focus on this in your activity description then, as well as what you learned from patients and honestly use the title of patient transporter instead because ambassador comes across as somebody who is just representing the hospital at events or a customer service person if the reader isn’t too familiar with the role.

Good luck on finding the MA job!

Thank you!