what is considered clinical experience?

[xlilangel713x]

shadowing? volunteering in a hospital?? i know that schools want you to shadow so that you can be sure of what you are getting yourself into but is it really necessary to do years and years if you already know that this is what you want to do? and as for volunteering, i feel like that would be considered community service instead......? what else is there?

also, i shadowed a pediatrician for a year in high school as a part of an intern/mentor program at my school. i'm now a rising junior in college and haven't done any shadowing since. i also just recently decided to pursue med school after going through a few different non-science related majors before finally settling on bio. so would it be good to do some more shadowing before i apply next year?

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[146233]

If you shadowed in high school, that's enough. Clinical experience is really anything that puts you close enough to patients to smell them. Volunteering in the hospital would count as both community service and clinical exposure - which is why AMCAS has the classification "Volunteer - Clinical". Go forth and set the world on fire.

-z

 

[TheRealMD]

Years and years? I wouldn't think so. But you need to make sure that you come across informed enough that the time you did spend in a hospital taught you something. No one cares if you spent 500 hours in the ER because it's too easy to lie about.

 

[braluk]

According to LizzyM's (adcom SDN poster) signature:
If you are close enough to "smell patients", it is a clinical experience.