Some are convinced it's just cheap labor, being taken advantage by private companies. Is the cheap labor and long hours (in combination with coursework) really worth the clinical exposure and experience?
To those who have been Medical Scribes: Testimonials/Reviews?
- Thread starter kangar00
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Re: cheap labor... as I have no idea how much scribes get paid. Don't know if it is possible @ your school -- but see if you can use work-study money to be a medical scribe. Usually work study is set to $8+/hour. Of course, you are limited to 20 hours a week I believe if you work via work study... so you will still have time to do coursework.
I started a job at a local hospital as a medical transcribist (even got to work from my dorm as the doctor just sent me his voice recordings). From there it became a research position with the same doctor.... but I think he gave up on me transcribing because I didn't know alot of medical termanology back then (I was a freshman in college). But it was FUN to learn new medical words. haha. The entire experience was paid for by work-study money. I also didn't work that many hours -- ~5 hours/week.
I started a job at a local hospital as a medical transcribist (even got to work from my dorm as the doctor just sent me his voice recordings). From there it became a research position with the same doctor.... but I think he gave up on me transcribing because I didn't know alot of medical termanology back then (I was a freshman in college). But it was FUN to learn new medical words. haha. The entire experience was paid for by work-study money. I also didn't work that many hours -- ~5 hours/week.
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I looked into being a scribed but never did it because I found a job as an MA instead. So what follows is just what I have picked up from others.
Upsides; you get paid to be in a medical environment unlike most other 'pre-med' experiences. Additionally you really do get to learn a lot about how medicine works and also just a lot about medicine. This alone will score you big points when it comes time to interview
Downsides; the hours can get a bit ridiculous. Even if you aren't working a lot, the few you do work may be the night shift which might get in the way of a college students much needed sleep. I think the biggest downfall is that you aren't actually providing care, you are just taking notes. Therefore I would say this experience is on the border of "clinical"
Essentially its just a paid shadowing gig. I would take it if its all you got, but keep your eyes open for something where you can actually provide some sort of care to patients (that hopefully pays better).
Upsides; you get paid to be in a medical environment unlike most other 'pre-med' experiences. Additionally you really do get to learn a lot about how medicine works and also just a lot about medicine. This alone will score you big points when it comes time to interview
Downsides; the hours can get a bit ridiculous. Even if you aren't working a lot, the few you do work may be the night shift which might get in the way of a college students much needed sleep. I think the biggest downfall is that you aren't actually providing care, you are just taking notes. Therefore I would say this experience is on the border of "clinical"
Essentially its just a paid shadowing gig. I would take it if its all you got, but keep your eyes open for something where you can actually provide some sort of care to patients (that hopefully pays better).
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I know a few threads have been created regarding scribe positions and interviews. The older ones are a bit outdated because, as far as I know, no one writes anymore and you're usually following the doc around with a mobile computer. I'm assuming they no longer test your notation speed during the interviews.
1) I think scribing is an awesome opportunity if you have very little clinical experience. If you're already an EMT, for example, this is probably gonna suck. You don't get too much patient contact because your purpose is to basically take notes for the doc while he exams the patients and also to keep track of labs etc.
2) Pay is pretty bad but probably not the worst you'll see as an undergrad pre-med. I think it averages at about $10 and hour
3) Hours CAN be crazy. I had a few shifts that went from 11pm to about 7 in the morning. It worked for me and the docs usually work with you on this.
4) You will learn about things outside of scribing. It's the ER, afterall. Things can be intense. You'll probably see a range of injuries from very minor to fatal.
5) If you're lucky you'll meet some cool docs that are usually willing to answer the questions you have about medicine and might lead to an awesome LOR as well. In my case there was plenty of downtime and I'd just hang out with the doc I was following and watch basketball games on TV or whatever. Had to pretend I was a Warriors fan but it was a good time otherwise
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It's been a while since I've done it but feel free to PM me with any questions.
1) I think scribing is an awesome opportunity if you have very little clinical experience. If you're already an EMT, for example, this is probably gonna suck. You don't get too much patient contact because your purpose is to basically take notes for the doc while he exams the patients and also to keep track of labs etc.
2) Pay is pretty bad but probably not the worst you'll see as an undergrad pre-med. I think it averages at about $10 and hour
3) Hours CAN be crazy. I had a few shifts that went from 11pm to about 7 in the morning. It worked for me and the docs usually work with you on this.
4) You will learn about things outside of scribing. It's the ER, afterall. Things can be intense. You'll probably see a range of injuries from very minor to fatal.
5) If you're lucky you'll meet some cool docs that are usually willing to answer the questions you have about medicine and might lead to an awesome LOR as well. In my case there was plenty of downtime and I'd just hang out with the doc I was following and watch basketball games on TV or whatever. Had to pretend I was a Warriors fan but it was a good time otherwise
.It's been a while since I've done it but feel free to PM me with any questions.
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It's way better than what has been previously described in this thread. I'd do it for free, but I've been getting paid to do it for the past 3.5 years. The long hours complaint is BS. Wait until you're actually an intern/resident/attending. It's way worse. This will at least get your feet wet. Want to know what being a doctor is like? It's seeing patients and DOCUMENTING EVERYTHING. Med students suck ass at both (initially) and you're going to have a leg up because of the exposure to these things. It's more than just "minor to fatal injuries." You see everything an ER physician would see - boring stuff as well as the really intense things. But you're not even a doctor yet, so don't think you'd know what to look for when diagnosing a viral illness versus some horrible bacterial infection at this point because you don't. And you do what they would have done if you hadn't been there, which is document the crap out of everything. Do you know what kind of physician you'd like to be? A great way to find out is to shadow ALL the different kinds. OR you can work in the ER where you see anything and everything, consult with different doctors from across the specialty spectrum and see all kinds of pathology that some specialists wouldn't know what to do with.
If you want to be a doctor, do the scribe thing. If you want to be a nurse, by all means purse a CNA, EMT or MA to get yourself ready for that. Yes, you get to touch patients in those things and they have their pros and con to them, but they don't prepare you for a career as a doctor. Their responsibilities do not mirror what a doctors are no matter what specialty you pick. I'd love to see a doctor draw their patient's blood or hang an IV, clean up after a patient or fill out some med reconcilliation form. They don't do that stuff, trust me. They know how to but that doesn't mean they do it. If you want to learn what it's like to be a doctor/learn some things most med students learn for the very first time in medical school, then do the scribe thing. You'll probably get a meaningful letter of rec from a doc this way too.
I'm an EMT/ER tech also, by the way. Scribe is ten times better.
If you want to be a doctor, do the scribe thing. If you want to be a nurse, by all means purse a CNA, EMT or MA to get yourself ready for that. Yes, you get to touch patients in those things and they have their pros and con to them, but they don't prepare you for a career as a doctor. Their responsibilities do not mirror what a doctors are no matter what specialty you pick. I'd love to see a doctor draw their patient's blood or hang an IV, clean up after a patient or fill out some med reconcilliation form. They don't do that stuff, trust me. They know how to but that doesn't mean they do it. If you want to learn what it's like to be a doctor/learn some things most med students learn for the very first time in medical school, then do the scribe thing. You'll probably get a meaningful letter of rec from a doc this way too.
I'm an EMT/ER tech also, by the way. Scribe is ten times better.
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You said the same thing using different words.Like I said on another thread somewhere, depends on the hospital/program. The OP needs to talk to other scribes who worked at the ER he/she is applying for. Not all scribe programs are created equal.
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It's hard to say how useful it will actually be once medical school starts, but I really like it. By the time you get to medical school you'll have seen a few thousand pt interviews, written a few thousand H&Ps, seen a few hundred chest x-rays, a few hundred EKGs. Plus, you're hanging out with the docs all day. They'll often explain quite a bit to you if you show interest, give advice, ect.
Maybe most importantly it just gets you comfortable with the hospital environment. You have a basic sense for how an interview should go, a basic idea of what kinds of questions to ask, ect. I would totally do the job for free.
Maybe most importantly it just gets you comfortable with the hospital environment. You have a basic sense for how an interview should go, a basic idea of what kinds of questions to ask, ect. I would totally do the job for free.
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Like I said on another thread somewhere, depends on the hospital/program. The OP needs to talk to other scribes who worked at the ER he/she is applying for. Not all scribe programs are created equal.
No, I meant that you see more than just injuries of different kinds. There's a difference between a sprained ankle and a thyroid storm.
This x100. Also echoing what some of the others have said---scribe programs vary widely based on their location, director, etc. The best information you'll get is by asking those in your the program you plan on applying to. Just for information's sake, my program pays around $8-15/hr depending on how long you've worked there. My hours, in terms of length, are really no different than any other job would be: ~8 hours. We also get to make our schedule on a month by month basis and give availability, which is great. We don't have any overnights in our program.
Scribing has been the perfect part-time job for me while applying/interviewing/preparing for medical school. That said, it could be difficult to work the hours in if you're still in school (although several of my coworkers managed it just fine).
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Oh, got it. Yea, you'll definitely see more than "injuries" in the ER. The range of cases you see is pretty awesome. Definitely a selling point.
I loved the ER and it was definitely an eye opening experience. However, the scribe experience itself was just okay and was way more restrictive than you're describing. Prior to scribing I had worked at a free clinic for about 3 years where I was doing more patient histories, EKG's, and had better patient interaction overall than I did as a scribe.
That's just my experience but of the ~30 scribes I've known spread over a few different programs in Cali, most would be shocked at the notion that a scribe can do and learn more than an EMT could. That's an amazing scribe program you're describing there.
Edit: On second thought, this discussion made me think again with the EMT comparison.....maybe scribing is a better alternative?
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=508423
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That's pretty cool that you got a chance to do that. For some reason, free clinic experience is hard to come by where I live unless you want to do front desk stuff.
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Totally worth it, sure the hours sucked (pulled my fair share of night shifts) but the experience you gain from it more than makes up for it. Plus, you might luck out and find a good paying one. I got paid $9/hr for mine which was perfect for helping me out during college.
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Scribing to me was really stressful. They give you lists of terms for the history, ROS, PE and you input all the lab values/rad findings then fully document everything that happens in the ED Course. Working with so many different doctors just made everything worse. What one person likes another totally hates. It basically got to the point that my whole shift could be great or totally hell depending on which doc I got. Most of the scribes were girls, and I heard from them that some women doctors can be total b*tches.
That said, I learned a lot. I got paid okay, I think 9/hr. My trainers were great, and I liked interacting with the other scribes, going through the whole med school application process together. For a while though I just got so sick of suicidal/psych patients and people using the ER to treat their chronic pain problems, not to mention the lovely cold and flu cases. Unfortunately, my interest in medicine really took a nose dive when I was working as a scribe.
That said, I learned a lot. I got paid okay, I think 9/hr. My trainers were great, and I liked interacting with the other scribes, going through the whole med school application process together. For a while though I just got so sick of suicidal/psych patients and people using the ER to treat their chronic pain problems, not to mention the lovely cold and flu cases. Unfortunately, my interest in medicine really took a nose dive when I was working as a scribe.
