What kind of a job for pre-meds

[jaz_saini]

I need some info on how many pre-med's actually are phlebotomist?? Or what other medical related jobs do people do!!

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[UCMonkey]

I can't speak to the phlebotomist issue directly, but I think you'll find that a fair number of us are or have been EMTs and/or CNAs, probably with EMTs being more common. I think both of these jobs are probably more common among pre-meds than phlebotomy, since they afford many more opportunites and much more variety in direct patient care

 

[megkudos]

I am a phlebotomist (work one morning a week) and a pharmacy technician (work about 10 hours on the weekend) during the school year. Over the summers I lifeguard full time.

All of these jobs have been absolutely great. I get to do interesting stuff that I like, AND I get paid for it

 

[Pawnym]

I've thought about bein a lifeguard. That fun? Sit out and tan?

OR!!!

Is it like baywatch with people drowning in 3 ft deep water every other day.. and so would you be pamela anderson? or... david hasselhoff? ungh...



Really I'm thinkin about lifeguarding, CNA(if I can find the time to get certified while taking like 17 credits every semester)... and... hrmm.. pharmacy technician sounds like a decent idea too. I dont think you need to be certified in anything for that right?

thx

 

[oldman]

I am a full-time phlebotomist at a small hospital. as the only phlebotomist during the night. I get to draw all sorts of patients. For instance (I'm at work now) I have drawn 12 patients. One 3 day old, about 3 from the ER, the rest scattered between the ICU and the MED/SURG floor. I am also a volunteer EMT at the University of Minnesota. This Friday I will be on duty at the Men's Hockey game against the Badgers.

Depending on the state, you will need to take a course (California) or get trained on the job (I got trained on the job).

 

[oldman]

You definitely get to see a fair amount of stuff if you are a phlebotomist. I just drew blood from a lady who is bleeding out. They pushed in 4 units of blood but she's still losing it fast. She's going to be taken to surgery again, and a nurse charged in grabbing 2 more units of blood. Something us pre-meds probably forget to think about are what we will have to face someday. As I am typing, a young woman is dying.

 

[oldman]

Oh, I also worked as a rehabilitation technician. That was a good experience. I worked on a Transitional Care Unit, Ortho, Cardiac Floor. It was a great experience working with patients who were tansformed from bed ridden patients to fully functional humans ready for life outside of a hospital.

 

[oldman]

man, they just took two more units of blood.

 

[oldman]

yay they brought them back. they said they don't need it now. they are grabbing some fresh frozen plasma instead.

 

[megkudos]

Pawnzy,

It depends where you lifeguard how the job is. I work for a pool company which manages about ten pools. I work primarily at one pool near my house, it's a townhouse complex. Here's the deal IMO:

Advantages:
Be in the sun. Ahh...Get a really good tan.
Get paid really well cuz my boss rocks.
Get to play with really cute little kids.
Made good friends with the families there cuz I've been there 3 years.
Get to teach swim lessons for extra money if I feel like it, again, the kids are really cute
Lots of autonomy. Me and 1 other guard are on duty usually. My boss lives ~30 minutes away.

Disadvantages:
Little kids trying to do backflips in 2 foot water. Seriously though, you end up yelling at kids a lot.
People are really stuck up and don't want to follow the rules. (bringing badges, no food in pool area, ect.)
People don't watch their children. A.K.A. I am responsible for pulling little 3 year old out of 5 foot deep water. This doesn't happen often that the parent is no where to be found, maybe about 2 times a summer, but is SCARY. You really do have to pay attention.

As a whole though, I would definately recommend being a lifeguard. I LOVE being outside and the contact with people. It is a great job with a lot of responsibility.

The program I got certified with was only two weekends Sat and Sun 9-5. Many take longer than that though.

As far as being a pharmacy tech, You don't need any certification. Just go to pharmacy and inquire about getting a job as a technician. Many places really need people, at least near where I live in New Jersey.

Advantages:
You do learn a lot about drugs which is great and very interesting. Even learning Brand vs. generic names is helpful.
You pretty much get to do everything a pharmacist does, other than check drugs and counsel patients.
The pay can be good depending where you work.

Disadvantages:
People treat you like crap.
Customers don't respect you.
Retail sucks.
It is very tiring because you are on your feet all day.
We don't get any breaks even where I work cuz it is so damn busy.

Pharmacy is o.k. I'd rather work there than in a job that has nothing to do with what I'm interested in and I like learning about drugs.

Let me know if have any questions

 

[pj02007]

hey i also worked as a lifeguard, at a nyc beach. some things that differed from your experience:
there were 3 of us for an 8 hour shift. so each one had to sit 2:40 (usually eating lunch there). the sun was not pleasant. there were few people at this beach, as opposed to the crowded beaches elsewhere. so i had 0 rescues the whole summer. the other 2:40 hours i had to be in the area (swimming or building sand castles nearby). and i had 2:40 hours off. the other beach was much more crowded and lifeguards there got to do lots of rescues, but that added a lot of stress to the work. There were some nice girls, but it was usually the ugly sluts who would come up to you and harass you on the job

the nyc public pools were mostly in "undeserved" areas and there were many hooligans there. There were 3 or 4 guards for 8 hour shifts. While 1 sat and ate his lunch, the others might just talk or swim laps or workout at the track nearby. a guard could leave the premises for 2-3 hours, but to live early it would be a favour from the supervisor. the pool was 3ft deep and little kids didn't provide problems, but there were 15 y o hooligans who would pick on them or try to get on top of the lifeguard chair and dive! there was a cop who would kick them out afterwards.

generally the job was only stressful if you worked at a crowded beach, and either way the job was fun. but it wasn't really related to medicine.. also after 3 months of sun, i looked like a blonde mexican.

i think another cool job is volunteering in a foreign country. choose a cool country like Europe and work there in a hospital for free, but you also enjoy the great surroundings.

 

[khristich00]

I, like megkudos, also work in a pharmacy. Although, I am not a tech, I'm an intern, the only main difference is that interns can take Rxs from Dr's over the phone and they make a little more. Pretty much everything she said is true. There are a lot of disadvantages to pharmacy, primarily retail pharmacy. People do treat you like garbage, even though pharmacists are professionals, they don't get treated like it. Also, there are a lot of disgruntled pharmacists out there, especially in the retail scene, so you may work with someone who totally hates their job, which usually makes the consumer suffer. Although, I hear hosptial pharmacy is not that bad, plus the pay is more (at least in my area.) They don't really employ many techs though, mainly interns and to be an intern you have to have something like 50 some hours at an accredited college of pharmacy (at least that's the rule here in Ohio).

Although I think one good thing I have learned as a pharmacy intern is patient contact and patient education. I like when I get to counsel a patient and I actually get to use something I learned in school. Just the other day I got to educate a man on how to take his PrevPac, which was something we went over in pharmacology this year. I was also able to answer a lady's questions on PPIs and Anxiolytics, it made me feel really good. Sorry that was so long.

 

[Original]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by pj02007:
•

i think another cool job is volunteering in a foreign country. choose a cool country like Europe and work there in a hospital for free, but you also enjoy the great surroundings.•••••Europe is not a country. No kidding! look it up.

 

[jofrbr76]

I totally think that any clinical/patient care experience you can get in a working enviroment would be benefical. These types of jobs can be hard to get, but a nurses aid type job looks great on an application b/c you get to see health care from the bottom up. Sometimes literally!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

 

[megkudos]

khristich00,
It's interesting, the laws must be different in Ohio cuz I am able to take Doctor calls over the phone as a tech. So you are in in pharmacy school right? I'm not allowed to counsel patients though. So if they ask me any questions about their meds I have to refer them to the pharmacist, even though a lot of the time I'll know the answer This is kinda frustrating. It's a legal thing cuz even if, say, the patient hears me wrong and does something wrong, they can sue the pharmacy.

pj02007,
I disaggree with you that lifeguarding is not related to medicine. You have to be certified in CPR and other life-saving techniques, and even though you (hopefully) don't have to use them very often, you are prepared. I can see where you are coming from when you said this, but I guess I just feel kinda differently about it

 

[wolferman]

I'm a printer and camera technical support agent in a call center. At first blush my job may not seem related to medicine or an ideal job for a pre-med, but having been there for 6 months, I can tell you that I'm learning some very valuable skills. Here are a list of ways tech support agents are like doctors:

1. We must be good listeners and be able to understand what people's concerns are.
2. We must be able to deal with upset people.
3. We must be able to explain complicated procedures/concepts in laymens terms so the caller can understand, even if they've only used a computer a couple times. Plus, we have to do this over the phone where we can't even see the hardware or PC screen.
4. We must be able to relay bad news. This usually comes when I tell them I can't support their product because their warranty has expired. 5. We take a history at the beginining of every call to figure out the problem. We collect signs and symptoms of the problem.
6. We must consider PC hardware interactions in much the same way a doctor thinks about drug interactions.
7. We must be ale to assure the caller that we can help them and prove helpful or they will lose trust in us.
8. We must always stay current with the latest developements in the field.

So, as you can see, tech support agents get quite a bit of person-person interaction and learn some essential skills that will be necessary later as doctors. I would recommend this type of job to anyone considering med school.

I can't wait to use this list at an interview...if I ever get one.

 

[starplayer]

I'm a IT assistant, and like wolferman said...it parallels medicine.
Get any job you want, just as long as you like it...it's bound to tie into medicine somehow.
(unless you've had few "medically" related positions)

 

[lord999]

Originally posted by megkudos:
[QB]khristich00,
It's interesting, the laws must be different in Ohio cuz I am able to take Doctor calls over the phone as a tech. So you are in in pharmacy school right? I'm not allowed to counsel patients though. So if they ask me any questions about their meds I have to refer them to the pharmacist, even though a lot of the time I'll know the answer This is kinda frustrating. It's a legal thing cuz even if, say, the patient hears me wrong and does something wrong, they can sue the pharmacy.

Almost universally, technicians (even certified) CANNOT counsel. The only exception are the government pharmacies. As to the intern question, I don't know of any state that gives the title "intern" unless you're in pharmacy school. Although interns can counsel, the liability falls upon the supervising pharmacist as well as the intern. Are their tech ratios where you're at? They just wiped out ours.

 

[khristich00]

Yes, lord999 is correct. You must have so many hours at an accredited college of pharmacy in order to become an intern, the number varies for each state. Here is Ohio it is somewhere around 54 hours. And also, counseling is done under the direct supervision of your preceptor (to make sure you aren't giving any inaccurate information). It is a good experience, I've learned a lot and I like educating peeople on their medicines.

Lord999, are you in pharmacy school as well?

 

[squeek]

Hi, Jaz--

I see you're in Seattle. I lived there for 5 years during/after college, and got a great job at the UW hospital. The position is called "unit services coordinator," and there are several positions available for each inpatient floor (and they're ALWAYS looking for more people). It's sort of a secretarial job, but you are working on an inpatient floor, and you learn TONS about the way the hospital works. I'm an MSII now, and I am much more familiar with the hospital environment than my classmates.

Job Duties as a USC: coordinate patient transfers and admissions to the floor, order labs, transcribe physicians' orders (you learn a lot about medicine this way if you have initiative and ask questions and look up the meds you write down), order blood and blood draws, order special equipment, help residents with paperwork, get to know the nurses and what they do(after working there, I LOVE nurses. They're the nicest people in the world). I learned a lot just from chatting with residents--they're very receptive when they find out you're a pre-med. It's a busy, sometimes stressful job, but I worked full time for a year and loved every minute of it. (You can work just nights, or weekends, or one day a week, too, if you're still in school.)

I learned a ton about medicine, I realized I really enjoy the hospital environment, and admissions committees really liked this part of my resume, as it was great clinical exposure. Also, the pay is pretty good for an undergraduate. I was 35 hours a week, so I had full health insurance coverage plus ~$1700/month, if I remember correctly. If you work part-time, you don't get benefits, but the pay is equal or better.

 

[Pawnym]

i would just like to say that getting one of these many available pharmacist tech positions is easier said than done.

I just visited... 4 or 5 locally and none were hiring.

I THINK THEY DISCRIMNATED AGAINST ME BECAUSE IM A WHITE MALE!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> damn old pharmacist guys don't wanna hire us handsome young men, hehe, they want young women that they can seduce with all their MONEYS!!! :wink:

just voicing my frustrations. and as far as unit services coordinator jobs go. The 3 hospitals near me all require either 3-5 years experience or a certification for a class.

do I need a hook-up to get these jobs? I don't want to go begging the cardiologist who lives next door to me - specially since I don't think I've ever talked to him(the father of the family) in the 11 years I've lived nextdoor.

<img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" />

hehe

 

[megkudos]

lord999- yeah I know, it's the law everywhere that techs can't counsel. I was just pointing out that I am allowed to take Dr. calls though (the poster had said they can't) What is a tech ratio?

Pawnym...Hmm, I'm sorry that you had trouble finding a job as a tech. What part of the country are you from? I wonder if it's just where I live that there is a shortage of techs (new jersey). Did you try any larger chain pharmacies? Often they can find out if other stores in their chain nearby are hiring.

 

[Pawnym]

missed a few grocery stores but I tried all the eckerds and walgreens and walmarts, and locals, etc.

I think I missed 1, maybe 2 grocery stores. s'ok. Gonna get something at one of the hospitals. Just to at least get my foot in the door.

 

[megkudos]

Good luck You sound very motivated, I'm sure something will work out for you

 

[flyfish]

Lets see. I was a cna for a year.I was a physical therapy aid for another year.I was an er and neonate phlebotomist for 4 years.Now I am a Medic for the Air National Guard. After working in the medical feild for 8 years I am certin that I want to be a doc. I think you can not go wrong with any medical job. They all expose you to different asspects of med.

 

[Pawnym]

yes'm i am. Thanks for the compliment.

You're very... helpful, benevolent, and kind.

You should get vol. hours for what you do here!

 

[tBw]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by pj02007:
•
i think another cool job is volunteering in a foreign country. choose a cool country like Europe and work there in a hospital for free, but you also enjoy the great surroundings.•••••Europe, a "cool country"!? Hah, ha, that cracked me up. I have to suggest pj02007 for that poll on the funniest SDN member now, even though they didn't intend to be....

I'm surprised no one has mentioned working in a research lab at a college as a pre-med job.

 

[kal ka doctor]

There are only a few Lebanese left in Israeli jails after the last prisoner swap, and they were not released because they had murdered civilians.

Lemme guess you saw that heard that on CNN,Fox News, CBS, or NBC.

 

[Dr.D-man]

I'll be starting my new position as a phlebotomist next Monday. Should be fun!

 

[KornKobs]

I need some info on how many pre-med's actually are phlebotomist?? Or what other medical related jobs do people do!!

Well, I worked as a pharm tech for a year and a half, it was a good experience because I got to learn a lot about the different types of drugs..and you get some patient contact, although different from hospital experience. I now work in a hospital and I deliver patient equip, pharm, specimen, and charts. It's nice bc I get to work around the entire hospital and see what goes on on each floor, including or! which is pretty cool, although I'm in the process of applying for a diff kind of position that'll give me the opportunity to work with patients more instead of just delivering things. I recently applied for front desk in LD and if I don't get that, then maybe the cna job in liver transplant. I haven't had a whole lot of experience in either, but I guess they are willing to take healthcare students..and I'm a pre-health student, so hopefully that counts. Anyways, I hear a lot of people like to do the phelb. job bc it shows that u have experience working with patients already, but there are a lot of other things to do that involve patient care. do what you're comfortable doing. any job that you hold while in school full-time will look good bc it shows that you can balance the two. hope this helps.

 

[Anastasis]

Wow - how old is this thread? Sounds like when it started Oldman was still a pre-med

 

[TMP-SMX]

I'll be starting my new position as a phlebotomist next Monday. Should be fun!

Where are you working? I'll be sure not to roll up my sleeves there...

 

[Dr.Acula]

Its funny to see people reply to posts 4 years old.
Also, getting a job as a scribe would be an excellent for a pre-med.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Respiratory therapist by 'profession' (meaning what I do for pay), but I have been a volunteer EMT for the past 10 years. I have previously worked as a phlebotomist and echocardiographer among other things.

 

[bigDee]

I need a medical job. What kind of jobs are there to do in a hospital where you don't need experience or anything to start with.

 

[October88]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by pj02007:
•
i think another cool job is volunteering in a foreign country. choose a cool country like Europe and work there in a hospital for free, but you also enjoy the great surroundings.•••••Europe, a "cool country"!? Hah, ha, that cracked me up. I have to suggest pj02007 for that poll on the funniest SDN member now, even though they didn't intend to be....

I'm surprised no one has mentioned working in a research lab at a college as a pre-med job.

Hahaha sorry but yes I agree it will indeed hurt you

 

[RyanRt]

I've been an x-ray tech for 5 years. Unfortunately it takes two years and some debt to get that job.

 

[mcloaf]

Hahaha sorry but yes I agree it will indeed hurt you

Lol October, this thread was started in 2002 and last posted on in 2006...

 

[Shinobiz11]

yes'm i am. Thanks for the compliment.

You're very... helpful, benevolent, and kind.

You should get vol. hours for what you do here!

No clue how I posted in this thread

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

Edit: I've never seen this thread before, I don't know how I posted here... I was attempting to post a reply on the article theads, and somehow my reply for dumped here....

How strange... Sorry for the necro...

 

[ChineseKid]

Wrong thread!

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

This thread is honestly purgatory.... Something weird happens here.....