Scribing VS Tutoring

[MaybeDr]

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I'm trying to figure out how to spend my next year and spend it well. I'm retaking the MCAT this summer and going through and really trying to round out the rough spots in my application. My ECs are a little weak and I've got two job offers right now. In your honest opinion what looks better?

1st job: Medical scribe about 45 minutes from me, pay is meh. Pretty big time commitment while studying for the MCAT among my other commitments.

2nd job: Tutor. It's not just any tutor job. Here's the breakdown of our program here. Essentially some classes have these optional/additional classes you sign up for on the side. These classes are supposed to help you better understand the material and get some more exposure. These are offered for classes like genetics and organic chemistry. Essentially I would be teaching my own curriculum that would coincide with what is going on in lecture. I guess you could say this is kind of like a section or a recitation with a TA, but this is through a completely different part of the university. So I'd be teaching classes, doing private tutoring with DSPS students and athletes. This job does not start until fall, so that is a pro over scribing.

I'm doing hospital volunteering, and doing some research in a chemistry lab, and research for a private practice all over the summer.

I feel like I don't really need the scribing, it's too far away. I know I'd like teaching people way more anyways while doing school. That's partially why I want to do it so badly anyways. "Love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life" May help with my stress during the semester too.

I have 100 shadow hours planned out from now till winter. So clinical exposure isn't going to be exactly lacking for me. I feel like the tutoring may make me better rounded.

 

[mrh125]

I'm trying to figure out how to spend my next year and spend it well. I'm retaking the MCAT this summer and going through and really trying to round out the rough spots in my application. My ECs are a little weak and I've got two job offers right now. In your honest opinion what looks better?

1st job: Medical scribe about 45 minutes from me, pay is meh. Pretty big time commitment while studying for the MCAT among my other commitments.

2nd job: Tutor. It's not just any tutor job. Here's the breakdown of our program here. Essentially some classes have these optional/additional classes you sign up for on the side. These classes are supposed to help you better understand the material and get some more exposure. These are offered for classes like genetics and organic chemistry. Essentially I would be teaching my own curriculum that would coincide with what is going on in lecture. I guess you could say this is kind of like a section or a recitation with a TA, but this is through a completely different part of the university. So I'd be teaching classes, doing private tutoring with DSPS students and athletes. This job does not start until fall, so that is a pro over scribing.

I'm doing hospital volunteering, and doing some research in a chemistry lab, and research for a private practice all over the summer.

I feel like I don't really need the scribing, it's too far away. I know I'd like teaching people way more anyways while doing school. That's partially why I want to do it so badly anyways. "Love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life" May help with my stress during the semester too.

I have 100 shadow hours planned out from now till winter. So clinical exposure isn't going to be exactly lacking for me. I feel like the tutoring may make me better rounded.

I did medical scribing alongside mcat studying and it really exposes you to a lot of medicine you may not normally see and if you can rack up a large number of hours that'll really help your application. Though I did also have to commute anywhere from 45 mins to 2 hrs for the scribing and that made it really cumbersome (i'd spend more time commuting than anything and that sucked when I had to study for the mcat). I also tutored and I have to say that really can help you learn material from a different perspective and if it compliments what you're learning on the mcat that'll really help. What sort of hospital volunteering are you doing? Are you just pushing beds around? How many hours will you have by next cycle? The mcat is the most important thing and although you need good ECs do not let them compromise your mcat studying in any way. How much shadowing and medical volunteering do you have right now?

 

[swolebrah]

I am scribing part time and studying for mcat . It can be done , just use good time management . I also have a commute time of .5-1 hours depending on hours and traffic .

I will say if your just starting out scribing and depending on your hospital/docs your experience can be tiresome since there is a steep learning curve . However I would say not only does scribing get you paid clinical experience , but if you work long enough you can get a good doc LOR.

Iv been scribing for a year + now during school and now while I study for the MCAT . I know plenty of fellow scribes who also studied for MCAT while they worked part time . Either way good luck man, hope my $.02 helped

 

[MaybeDr]

The hospital volunteering is essentially just rounding, restocking stuff, help move patients, change their batteries for the cardiac batteries, basic stuff in a couple months I get moved to the ICU where you do a bit more. The clinic research sometimes involved with patients as well, but my project for the next 6 weeks isn't this year but once I'm done with this one I may be asked to again handle patients. I'll have 150-200 hours at the beginning of next cycle, with a 150-200 hours of shadowing. This is obviously if I don't do the scribing.

I just dont know that it will allow me to do well in school and keep everything else a float. I'd really only be doing it for the pay and the medical exposure, I don't need/dont really want a letter, I've already got a fantastic one from the private practice I'm working for.

It would just be difficult doing 20 hours a week scribing, 15 doing research in lab, 10 medical research and 4 hours hospital+ MCAT studying

I should say that scribing will seriously inhibit my research next year,as well as my new club, and my volunteering.

 

[sunflower18]

It sounds to me like you really don't want to scribe. I used to be a scribe and a scribe trainer, and I can tell you from experience, just like @swolebrah said: for most people, it is a really steep learning curve. You have to learn tons of medical terminology, differential diagnoses, AND how to type ~100 wpm if you don't already. It can be very very stressful, and requires many people to spend significant time outside of work studying and practicing. I scribed parttime while studying for the MCAT, but I had started three or four months prior to beginning my study schedule, so I didn't have to worry about dealing with the learning curve at the same time.

I would say that if you aren't really excited about it and/or committed to the idea of scribing, you won't want to put in the outside work required to succeed. That will make you not a very good scribe (no offense), you'll be frustrated and tired about how much difficulty you're having, and you'll burn out and possibly quit. So that's no good! This is all speculative, of course, but again from my own experience training others, the ones who succeed as scribes are the ones who are really enthusiastic and willing to put in extra effort in order to improve. People who don't do that quit and/or are totally miserable. I don't want you to end up miserable!

So if you don't want to scribe and you aren't willing to work for it, I'd say take the tutoring gig. Tutoring is awesome too, just in a very different way. Good luck with your decision.

 

[Shams al Deen]

Ya the first 6 weeks of scribing are rough. See if you can start the scribe job after you take the MCAT. Tutoring is awesome also, try to do both.

 

[PKA<0]

I tutored organic chemistry my senior year and loved doing it. Helping people/learning in the process is great. I currently am a medical scribe for my gap year learning what I believe to be valuable information. Tutoring helped me ace the science sections of mcat but I bombed verbal (not because tutoring got in way, but because of lack of timing etc.) so I'm retaking. So that means I studied for mcat/tutored and am studying for retake while scribing. Both are very doable. I think scribing will help me in the long run more than tutoring though. Weigh your pros and cons. For me: Scribing- possibly more beneficial in long run, but time consuming. Tutoring -forces you to relearn while you teach basic sciences, but still undergraduate level stuff

 

[swolebrah]

It sounds to me like you really don't want to scribe. I used to be a scribe and a scribe trainer, and I can tell you from experience, just like @swolebrah said: for most people, it is a really steep learning curve. You have to learn tons of medical terminology, differential diagnoses, AND how to type ~100 wpm if you don't already. It can be very very stressful, and requires many people to spend significant time outside of work studying and practicing. I scribed parttime while studying for the MCAT, but I had started three or four months prior to beginning my study schedule, so I didn't have to worry about dealing with the learning curve at the same time.

I would say that if you aren't really excited about it and/or committed to the idea of scribing, you won't want to put in the outside work required to succeed. That will make you not a very good scribe (no offense), you'll be frustrated and tired about how much difficulty you're having, and you'll burn out and possibly quit. So that's no good! This is all speculative, of course, but again from my own experience training others, the ones who succeed as scribes are the ones who are really enthusiastic and willing to put in extra effort in order to improve. People who don't do that quit and/or are totally miserable. I don't want you to end up miserable!

So if you don't want to scribe and you aren't willing to work for it, I'd say take the tutoring gig. Tutoring is awesome too, just in a very different way. Good luck with your decision.

Spot on post. Wish I had known this advice when I first started our scribing. It was pretty tough in the begging since I had midterms going on at the same time, but I toughed it out.

Scribe companies are always hiring though, so OP you could tutor for now and maybe go into scribing later on?

 

[mehc012]

Scribe. It's really not that hard, but it's extremely educational!
Tutoring is fun, but you don't learn nearly as much.

 

[MaybeDr]

Despite majority vote, I'm going to keep the tutoring because I believe it'll benefit me more as a person by helping with my confidence, interpersonal skills and perspective (I'm very negative in nature at times). I'll push off my start date with scribing until next round, so I can do more things and focus on my MCAT.

While scribing is great, I have some medical experience. My application is lacking in leadership, volunteering, and involvement with my community. I don't think scribing by itself will make up for all of that (nor does my advisor for that matter). Though I do appreciate the input everyone !

 

[HinduHammer]

I saw somewhere else on SDN recently a quote which I really liked and sums up this thread: "Advice is what you seek when you already know the answer but wish you didn't"