Should I accept the offer to become a medical scribe?

[nchop28]

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I have my interview in a few days, and there's a high chance that they will hire me. However, I know a physician who will let me shadow his colleagues for as many hours as I want in their clinics (I currently don't have any shadowing experience yet). I feel like I could get a letter of recommendation from the scribing and the shadowing. The question is, should I accept the offer as a scribe? It's through ScribeAmerica, and you know how the shifts and the two year commitments are with them 🙁
Would you recommend just shadowing the physicians instead? Would that be a more worthwhile experience? What are reasons to be a scribe instead?
I don't care about the pay from scribing. It's so low anyway, so I might as well get a job that makes actual money.

 

[mmchick]

Why couldn’t you do both? Be a part-time scribe and then shadow also part-time (since money is no object for you).

I was a chief scribe with that company and not sure what you mean about a two-year commitment, this is definitely not the case, and many times people worked for 6-12 months before reasonably moving onto something else. SA managers know that scribes make scrapes in the bucket when it comes to pay, so it’s pretty expected for people to eventually move on. Training only takes like maybe 1-2 months if your CS or training manager is pretty decent. I think scribing offers some valuable skill building in the area of really learning how physicians think, and getting you to start thinking that way as you eventually type out all the full narratives for the physician and whatnot. It also just shows you the sheer magnitude of effort it takes to properly document EMR which is an unfortunate ugly head of the medical field (with its benefits of course).

Idk, seems to me you have two opportunities coming up that don’t have much leverage for getting you to commit full-time from a financial standpoint, so why not just negotiate taking on both to the convenience of your schedule.

 

[Catalystik]

I have my interview in a few days, and there's a high chance that they will hire me. However, I know a physician who will let me shadow his colleagues for as many hours as I want in their clinics (I currently don't have any shadowing experience yet). I feel like I could get a letter of recommendation from the scribing and the shadowing. The question is, should I accept the offer as a scribe? It's through ScribeAmerica, and you know how the shifts and the two year commitments are with them 🙁
Would you recommend just shadowing the physicians instead? Would that be a more worthwhile experience? What are reasons to be a scribe instead?
I don't care about the pay from scribing. It's so low anyway, so I might as well get a job that makes actual money.

You only need about 50 hours of physician shadowing, which should include a primary care doc. More than that adds no additional benefit to your med school application. Only 4 MD schools care about an LOR from a physician, but DO schools like them and some prefer a DO physician to write it.

Shadowing, which is a passive experience, does not substitute for active clinical experience. Scribing tends to cover that expectation (though some companies forbid any patient interaction).

Don't you still have a year of undergrad left to go? Your grades are the most important thing for you to focus on right now. How will they be impacted by variable shifts, pressure to work more hours, and possibly an expectation to commute to other hospitals with which ScribeAmerica has a contract?

Is there no medical facility nearby where you can volunteer 3-4 hours per week where patients could use your help? This sort of commitment is far more likely to work well with an academic schedule and other ECs you're expected to have before applying to med schools.

 

[Peter Pan.]

Why couldn’t you do both? Be a part-time scribe and then shadow also part-time (since money is no object for you).

I was a chief scribe with that company and not sure what you mean about a two-year commitment, this is definitely not the case, and many times people worked for 6-12 months before reasonably moving onto something else. SA managers know that scribes make scrapes in the bucket when it comes to pay, so it’s pretty expected for people to eventually move on. Training only takes like maybe 1-2 months if your CS or training manager is pretty decent. I think scribing offers some valuable skill building in the area of really learning how physicians think, and getting you to start thinking that way as you eventually type out all the full narratives for the physician and whatnot. It also just shows you the sheer magnitude of effort it takes to properly document EMR which is an unfortunate ugly head of the medical field (with its benefits of course).

Idk, seems to me you have two opportunities coming up that don’t have much leverage for getting you to commit full-time from a financial standpoint, so why not just negotiate taking on both to the convenience of your schedule.

They actually do ask for a 2 year commitment for part time and a 1 year commitment for full time. It’s not like they can hold you to that but they do say that.

 

[On_The_Way_Up]

I thought about it but the pay is low at $10 an hour and my commute would have been far. I make $11.50 an hour as a pharmacy tech and get lots of overtime for my gap year job. To each their own though. I got about 500 volunteering hours at 2 different hospitals. Honestly you could just do the volunteering and be fine for medical school.

 

[On_The_Way_Up]

They actually do ask for a 2 year commitment for part time and a 1 year commitment for full time. It’s not like they can hold you to that but they do say that.

This is true. They do stress this commitment. I’ve heard some even say they will blacklist you from medical school if you quit early. It’s total BS though.

 

[tottori]

I was a scribe and generally speak very highly of the experiences. The hours are often undesirable, but the vast clinically useful information you learn makes the job very worthwhile. That said, watch out for the scribes that overestimate their own experience and knowledge.

 

[mmchick]

They actually do ask for a 2 year commitment for part time and a 1 year commitment for full time. It’s not like they can hold you to that but they do say that.

This is true. They do stress this commitment. I’ve heard some even say they will blacklist you from medical school if you quit early. It’s total BS though.

As someone who hired >8 scribes for my and other locations.. this is a very softcore and regional dependent "requirement". More so than anything it's said to try and get them to stay on as long as possible, but usually more often than not we were so desperate to get scribes out to our more peripheral (to the nearby big city) locations that so long as they made it seem they were around for 6+ months, we were okay with it. I've never even remotely heard about the blacklist thing. That's absolute ludicrous considering SA and related scribe programs imo are generally all exploitive labor (low pay justified by the "unique shadowing experience" pre-meds are so hungry for - again expressed to me by a regional manager). All CS/RM are aware of the massive compensation issue and really do not fault scribes for leaving to find more appropriate pay that actually supports local costs of living.

The only "blacklist" warning I've heard and seen were related to scribes breaching HIPAA, but that is about it. So anyway I would recommend you only go for scribing if you can commit at least close to a year and making a bit of money is important to you. You could always transfer specialties if you'd like to dip your toes in other areas.