Scribing while full time student?

[Americano12]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Anyone who has scribed while a full-time student: I'd like to hear your experiences and was wondering how you handled the overnight shifts/long hours while taking classes, since I am probably going to do this coming year. What was your course-load? How did you handle exams the next day after an overnight shift? Did you have someone take that shift for you? Thank you so much for your insight, experiences, and thoughts in advance.

 

[physcigirl27]

I scribed fulltime. And it was difficult because I had a long commute. My coursework was effected but I was in pretty serious financial difficulty so I had to do it. Overnight shifts (coming from a night-owl / insomniac) aren't bad UNTIL 11am..then you start feeling it. I took an MCAT class after my overnight for 3 months and somehow made it through but it was BRUTAL.

I would look into shift trading policies with the compnay you're planning on working for. I worked for 2 places: one had really good teamwork and I was able to find coverage/switch for the most part; The other place was not. I had to go in for my shifts even when I was feeling like **** because no one would cover for me.

 

[Etorphine]

For the amount of your daily life that you have to put into it, the payoff (perceived WOW factor by adcom committee) doesn't seem that great. You can get by with just volunteering in a hospital for 4 hours every week, and most likely your grades will suffer if you scribe overnight. Take it from someone that worked overnight in undergrad for extra cash.

If you're doing it for the cash, there are better alternatives.

 

[eefen]

It's doable. The company I work for is fairly sensitive to school schedules. Right now, I'm in school over the summer and working as a scribe and EMR tutor at different hospitals. I've probably had about five hours of sleep over the last two or three days. This isn't normal, and during the regular school year I only work as a scribe, usually on weekends, but there is the occasional night shift before a test/quiz. But during these seasons, caffeine becomes your best friend. I just consider it as residency training.

I'm actually working a night shift right now as an EMR tutor. I'll get off around 7 am or so, go home and sleep for an hour or two, and have class from 10 am to about 3 pm. I'll grab a bite to eat and head off to work as a scribe at a hospital about 45 minutes away from my house from 5 pm to 1 am. Then I'll have the blessed weekend off....

Edit: I will say, however, that despite the occasional craziness, I thoroughly enjoy scribing and have learned a ton. I definitely feel comfortable with patient-doctor interactions, have picked up a bunch of medical terminology, and was able to get some great LORs from three doctors that I have worked with for about a year. I would definitely recommend it if you have the time and are able to do so.

 

[Americano12]

Thanks for all of your responses everyone. Greatly appreciated.

 

[mwall003]

It's very tough to do both. However, if you manage your time correctly and sacrifice some time out with your friends to study/scribe, you'll be fine.

 

[physcigirl27]

It's doable. The company I work for is fairly sensitive to school schedules. Right now, I'm in school over the summer and working as a scribe and EMR tutor at different hospitals. I've probably had about five hours of sleep over the last two or three days. This isn't normal, and during the regular school year I only work as a scribe, usually on weekends, but there is the occasional night shift before a test/quiz. But during these seasons, caffeine becomes your best friend. I just consider it as residency training.

I'm actually working a night shift right now as an EMR tutor. I'll get off around 7 am or so, go home and sleep for an hour or two, and have class from 10 am to about 3 pm. I'll grab a bite to eat and head off to work as a scribe at a hospital about 45 minutes away from my house from 5 pm to 1 am. Then I'll have the blessed weekend off....

Edit: I will say, however, that despite the occasional craziness, I thoroughly enjoy scribing and have learned a ton. I definitely feel comfortable with patient-doctor interactions, have picked up a bunch of medical terminology, and was able to get some great LORs from three doctors that I have worked with for about a year. I would definitely recommend it if you have the time and are able to do so.

I have to agree with this. Crazy and horrible shifts aside, it was a really great experience and really sealed the deal for me in terms of medicine. There was a lot of encouragement and I realized just how false the misconceptions are bout medicine (no one cares about DO, no one cares where you really went to school, whether you're from Harvard or the caribbean your patients WILL treat you like **** when you don't give them Dilaudid)

 

[will831]

It is difficult for sure. I have been working the night shift (9pm-7am) 3 or 4 nights a week for a 1.5 years now. I have managed to get a 4.0 during that time and had a wife and kid at home that I still needed to take care of. Lets just say that I got very little sleep, especially when studying for the MCAT last semester. I say do it! The experience that you will get from it is priceless, you will learn things that you could never learn while volunteering or shadowing. Just be prepared to be extremely tired!

 

[Stumpyman]

It's very doable. Luckily, the hospital I worked for didn't have overnight shifts until right before I left, but still, there were late shifts. I did it for about a year, and managed a 4.0 in the time. I'd recommend starting off part-time, and later on seeing how that goes (that is, if you aren't in dire need of the money).

Someone mentioned that there isn't a large "WOW" factor in terms of how adcoms see scribes. Well, that may be somewhat true, but the experience itself is surprisingly great, and I absolutely don't regret being a scribe.