WAMC 4.0/516

[LuxFei24]

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[chilly_md]

Your low clinical hours and non-clinical hours will likely prevent you from getting many, if any, interviews. Your description of the 120 hours in a walk-in clinic includes cleaning rooms in-between. So admissions readers may assume you had fewer actual hours of clinical exposure. It is likely you will not have a very convincing personal statement to show why you want to pursue medicine and be a physician.

 

[chilly_md]

Thank you for the response -- I appreciate the honesty! Yes I am very worried about that... My clinical volunteering though is constantly on my feet perhaps I need to explain it better -- I have the opportunity to really interact with the patients and then the cleaning happens in short in between.

There is not an excuse for a lack of hours -- I had spent much more time committed to other aspects like leadership and dance. A gap year in clinical work is what I will target for a following application year if I do need to reapply.

Is there any strength to the commitment to these other areas that will lend my application some support? I felt that the translatability of my other interests and skillsets were beneficial to my personal growth and how I can become a strong physician i.e. for my personal statement I relate my observations of a previous family medical case to the educating and communication that I have witnessed in my shadowing experiences and how I have developed expression, communication and collaboration skills through dance and cultural studies. For instance, dancers like all performing artists love to grasp who their audience is and are often able to use certain movements to elicit a desired response/emotion which will translate to helping me to better my interactions with patients.

I do not think your other activities can make up for that. Having your personal statement rely a lot on shadowing is not something I would recommend as it is a passive activity and usually ends up discussing what the physician did instead. And using dance as a way to mention skills you developed and how they can transfer to medicine is avoiding the question of why you want to be a physician and focuses too much on selling yourself.

You had a prior post describing how you were a humanities major and both your parents are physicians. I do not think admissions will think you have actually explored the field enough to come to your own sound decision for pursuing medicine.

It would be wise to take a gap year to scribe and gain non-clinical experience off-campus before applying in 2023.