In all likelihood, these folks are there because they don't have family (or the wealth) to be able to be cared for at home. I know because I have a family member who was in such a facility and I have one who is living at home with some assistance despite physical health problems and dementia.
Here's how it goes with your AMCAS application: each item in the "work and activities" section gets a tag: artistic endeavor, research, teaching & tutoring, volunteer-clinical, volunteer-nonclinical, etc. In some cases, as a reviewer is looking at your application they are looking for evidence of clinical experience, then community service/altruism, then teamwork and leadership, then research, then teaching, etc. depending on what the school is looking for in its students. Some schools will want to see evidence of service through non-clinical volunteering rather than two-birds/one-stone of only clincal volunteering with no non-clinical service to the community.
If you have other non-clinical community service with the volunteer-non-clinical tag and you have other clinical activities, do what you want but if you are hoping that nursing home work labeled as volunteer-clinical will get you points for altruism/community service, think again.
Adcoms love non-clinical volunteering particularly with the elderly. Don't be afraid that using the non-clinical tag will diminish the value placed on the work.
Honestly, calling it non clinical helps me more.
I have a year and a half of volunteer work in the hospital , got around 200 hours, and between the shadowing a got a few years ago and the shadowing I'm gonna get this summer, I have more than 200 hrs of exposure to doctors and patients. So shadowing and clinical volunteering for me are already covered.
If anything, I was worried about the my seeming, lack of community service that is non clinical. Calling my nursing home experience non clinical actually makes me
more well rounded. It means I have community service, clinical volunteering, and shadowing. I have all the big things. Except research but I'm not applying anywhere where that really matters ( no T40 schools for me).
There are just a few caveats there.
-- My PS is centered around the " treating the dementia through therapy" angle that I mentioned earlier ( and then tying that into wanting to improve the quality of somebody's life through medicine) - is that still valid? My nursing home experience is still the center of my PS.
-- I asked for my non-academic LOR from them- it's a the best place for a letter of rec that can mention my good qualities that would make me a good physician, the hospital volunteer position was done in a way where I was not observed by anyone who could write me a letter. So I would have asked the nursing home for a letter anyway bc it's the best letter, but now I'm a bit worried that it doesn't count as clinical exposure so the letter may not be as important was I thought?
--- I did the hospital volunteering from halfway through soph year, through junior year, and then the summer after. I then, going into senior year, did just the nursing home work. Does it look bad that I stopped doing clinical stuff?
--- So if I put the nursing home experience down as Non clinical, and somebody perceives it as clinical, that's fine. But putting it down as clinical when it may not be seen that way is the issue? My problem is it seems subjective what it is, and most people have told me it's clinical. But if putting it down as clinical causes more potential issues, I'll put it down as non clinical.
That's all. If anything, calling my nursing home experience community service, non clinical is actually better for me. My app is more well rounded than I thought.
