Medical Should I pursue paid clinical experience or clinical volunteering? Am I too late?

[Goro]

Hi All,

I decided recently (within the last couple of months) that I want to pursue medicine and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by EC's, it almost feels like I'm too late. I'm a bio major (sophomore) so courses aren't an issue, but I have 0 hours of clinical experience or shadowing. Is there any way that I can get enough hours to be a competitive candidate by the time I apply to medical schools? I feel like the only things I have going for me right now are my GPA (cGPA: 3.96, sGPA 3.99), I'm an honors student, and I have about 60 hours of non-clinical volunteering at a dog shelter (ongoing). I'm in the process of arranging shadowing opportunities, so I'm not too worried there. It is more the clinical experience that is causing anxiety for me. Overall my main question is: should I prioritize clinical volunteering or should I get a job to get paid clinical experience? I don't know if I could do both (at least not at the same time), I don't want to jeopardize my GPA by overloading myself with other commitments, but I really need some hours under my belt.

Some options I have here are:
-scribing (if paid experience is the way to go)

OR, if volunteering is the way to go:
-applying to my school's volunteer EMS program
-volunteering at my local hospital

I would greatly appreciate any advice or perhaps some brutal honesty if I'm too late? Thanks!

Paid or unpaid, clinical exposure is what we want.

You will also need nonclinical volunteering.

You should have 150+ hrs of each of the above, and 50ish hours of shadowing .

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[Mr.Smile12]

I agree you need insight from shadowing and at least networking with physicians. Until you get some clinical insight into what it is like to do medicine every day, you're still a bit premature in choosing to go into medicine. Are you involved with premeds on your campus (clubs or through the prehealth advising office)? What other commitments do you have other than your work with the dog shelter? I would suspect as an honors program student you have access to people who advise students on health care careers (again, prehealth advising office), so what have you done to build that relationship to help you network with other physicians or medical schools? There's also this MCAT exam that you have to budget time to take and do well.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Thanks for the input. I'm part of various clubs on campus such as my school's pre-health society and I recently reached out to my school's pre-health advisor to set up a meeting to discuss things. Campus clubs and the dog shelter are my only current EC's. Do you have any advice in terms of paid clinical experience vs. clinical volunteering?

As @Goro said, get your clinical exposure. If I interviewed you, what matters is what you learned about the tedium and "uncomfortable" side of medicine because you will have to navigate the unpleasant parts every day.

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[Goro]

Get off campus and out of your comfort zone.