Hi!
I'm a bit of a nontrad and have been working in healthcare consulting since graduating college, and I'm currently applying this cycle. Recently, I've been considering switching from my current job to a scribe or medical assistant position. I was wondering if anyone would know how changing jobs during the app cycle might look though. Is it seen as a red flag (since I did touch on my experiences at healthcare startups/consulting a good amount throughout my app, would it seem odd if I sent an update about changing jobs or spoke about this in interviews?), or could it potentially help since I'd be switching to a role in a more clinical setting?
I think I had "enough" clinical volunteering/shadowing hours on my app (~300 hrs volunteering/120 hrs shadowing, so nowhere close to the 1000s of hours that people on SDN tend to have, but definitely had a number of meaningful patient encounters), but I was thinking that scribing could be a good way to continue building my clinical experiences. I also think the job sounds interesting/is a neat way to be in a clinical setting on a daily basis and interact more with patients, which I enjoy. Also, with the wait for IIs, I keep thinking about "what ifs", like if I don't get an II/get in this cycle, in which case I feel like scribing could help me gain more meaningful patient experiences.
On the other hand, I would be taking a pretty steep pay cut, so wouldn't be able to save much for school in a scribe job. Plus, since my firm's working from home currently, it offers some flexibility with volunteer commitments, postbac classes, and (hopefully) interviews.
Basically I've been at a crossroads, and would appreciate any insights from people about how valuable they found scribing to be and/or opinions on whether switching might positive or negatively impact my app - thank you!!
Edit: not sure how relevant this is, but my clinical volunteer experiences/shadowing have been on pause due to the pandemic, and I've been volunteering in other settings, but not in a hospital/clinic setting, so I'm not sure what the potential impact of that might be on my app this cycle + if I have to reapply
I'm a bit of a nontrad and have been working in healthcare consulting since graduating college, and I'm currently applying this cycle. Recently, I've been considering switching from my current job to a scribe or medical assistant position. I was wondering if anyone would know how changing jobs during the app cycle might look though. Is it seen as a red flag (since I did touch on my experiences at healthcare startups/consulting a good amount throughout my app, would it seem odd if I sent an update about changing jobs or spoke about this in interviews?), or could it potentially help since I'd be switching to a role in a more clinical setting?
I think I had "enough" clinical volunteering/shadowing hours on my app (~300 hrs volunteering/120 hrs shadowing, so nowhere close to the 1000s of hours that people on SDN tend to have, but definitely had a number of meaningful patient encounters), but I was thinking that scribing could be a good way to continue building my clinical experiences. I also think the job sounds interesting/is a neat way to be in a clinical setting on a daily basis and interact more with patients, which I enjoy. Also, with the wait for IIs, I keep thinking about "what ifs", like if I don't get an II/get in this cycle, in which case I feel like scribing could help me gain more meaningful patient experiences.
On the other hand, I would be taking a pretty steep pay cut, so wouldn't be able to save much for school in a scribe job. Plus, since my firm's working from home currently, it offers some flexibility with volunteer commitments, postbac classes, and (hopefully) interviews.
Basically I've been at a crossroads, and would appreciate any insights from people about how valuable they found scribing to be and/or opinions on whether switching might positive or negatively impact my app - thank you!!
Edit: not sure how relevant this is, but my clinical volunteer experiences/shadowing have been on pause due to the pandemic, and I've been volunteering in other settings, but not in a hospital/clinic setting, so I'm not sure what the potential impact of that might be on my app this cycle + if I have to reapply
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