What to do next?

[Round786]

Hey all! I was looking for some advice on what to do next. I have a clinical job experience (18hrs/week scribing) and clinical volunteering (4hrs/week ED transporter). The obvious thing to me is nonclinical volunteering. But I quite frankly don’t feel confident in doing meaningful or substantial nonclinical volunteering while also juggling my class schedule and the other two activities listed.

To me, it looks like my two best options are either research or shadowing. Which one should I focus on?

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[lumya]

How long do you have until you're planning on applying? Non-clinical volunteering doesn't have to be grandiose; you can pick an organization you like and spend 1-2 hours/week and that adds up quickly. It'll certainly be less of a time commitment than research.

As for research/shadowing - Do you have any shadowing experience? You're working as a scribe so you're seeing what a physician does. What field are you scribing in? If you're in a niche field like dermatology, you should shadow a primary care physician. As for doing research, are you interested in research? It's not crucial for applicants who aren't intending on applying schools with a heavy research emphasis (i.e. Wash U).

 

[GoSpursGo]

I personally think the need to have both paid and volunteer clinical experience is overblown. As long as the raw number of "clinical" hours is solid I don't think it matters if you got paid or not. You need to do something that is nonclinical. I would probably drop one of these two experiences and instead find something nonclinical.

I agree with above that shadowing is worthless on top of other clinical experiences. Research really is not worth it if you can't commit at least 10 hours a week to it.

 

[Round786]

How long do you have until you're planning on applying? Non-clinical volunteering doesn't have to be grandiose; you can pick an organization you like and spend 1-2 hours/week and that adds up quickly. It'll certainly be less of a time commitment than research.

As for research/shadowing - Do you have any shadowing experience? You're working as a scribe so you're seeing what a physician does. What field are you scribing in? If you're in a niche field like dermatology, you should shadow a primary care physician. As for doing research, are you interested in research? It's not crucial for applicants who aren't intending on applying schools with a heavy research emphasis (i.e. Wash U).

Assuming I take no gap years, then I have 2.5 (?) years until I apply. I’m a incoming freshman that just graduated HS. BUT I am considered a Junior by my University since I have transfer credits from dual-enrollment.

I have no shadowing experience. The scribe and ED transporter activities are the only things I have currently done. I’m currently scribing for a spine institute, so my field is ortho and neurosurgery. And as for your question regarding whether I like research, I can’t answer that. I don’t even know what people do in research.

 

[Round786]

I personally think the need to have both paid and volunteer clinical experience is overblown. As long as the raw number of "clinical" hours is solid I don't think it matters if you got paid or not. You need to do something that is nonclinical. I would probably drop one of these two experiences and instead find something nonclinical.

I agree with above that shadowing is worthless on top of other clinical experiences. Research really is not worth it if you can't commit at least 10 hours a week to it.

Is it not a red flag, or at least a eye-raiser, if a large amount of my clinical hours will be paid?

 

[Round786]

Assuming I take no gap years, then I have 2.5 (?) years until I apply. I’m a incoming freshman that just graduated HS. BUT I am considered a Junior by my University since I have transfer credits from dual-enrollment.

I have no shadowing experience. The scribe and ED transporter activities are the only things I have currently done. I’m currently scribing for a spine institute, so my field is ortho and neurosurgery. And as for your question regarding whether I like research, I can’t answer that. I don’t even know what people do in research.

An*

 

[lumya]

Assuming I take no gap years, then I have 2.5 (?) years until I apply. I’m a incoming freshman that just graduated HS. BUT I am considered a Junior by my University since I have transfer credits from dual-enrollment.

I have no shadowing experience. The scribe and ED transporter activities are the only things I have currently done. I’m currently scribing for a spine institute, so my field is ortho and neurosurgery. And as for your question regarding whether I like research, I can’t answer that. I don’t even know what people do in research.

2.5 years is plenty of time to dedicate a small amount of time to non-clinical volunteering and medical schools prefer to see a commitment over trying to cram it all in at once. If you volunteered at say a food shelter for one hour to serve lunch once a week, after 2.5 years that's almost 150 hours right there. You can pick something that you're passionate about too. I sent a lot of time with cats at an animal shelter or reading to children and it was a great time.

A lot of the research you would do at an undergrad level would be grunt work and literature review. I worked with a researcher most of my undergrad and I spent a lot of time running experiments for him, and then designed my own and ran it. It was overall... not a great time. It was very stressful and I dedicated probably over 20 hours/week to it. I'm sure it looked good on my application, but I do wish I had spent that time focusing on other things, especially since I'm not doing an MD/PhD. I know plenty of people who got into medical school with absolutely no research experience.

You should probably find some primary care doctors to shadow since you're in a specialty field for scribing, but your scribing experience does give you knowledge on what physicians do, which would count towards your familiarity with medicine as a field.

 

[Goro]

Assuming I take no gap years, then I have 2.5 (?) years until I apply. I’m a incoming freshman that just graduated HS. BUT I am considered a Junior by my University since I have transfer credits from dual-enrollment.

I have no shadowing experience. The scribe and ED transporter activities are the only things I have currently done. I’m currently scribing for a spine institute, so my field is ortho and neurosurgery. And as for your question regarding whether I like research, I can’t answer that. I don’t even know what people do in research.

You don't need shadowing!!

 

[GoSpursGo]

Is it not a red flag, or at least a eye-raiser, if a large amount of my clinical hours will be paid?

Not at all. I'm not sure where this myth comes from. All that matters is that you know what you're getting yourself into, and whether or not you got paid to gain that experience sort of doesn't matter.

You DO need some nonclinical volunteering to show that you are altruistic.

 

[inwantstobeadoctor]

I love serving the homeless population and working with organizations that cater to feed insecurity! Just to give you an idea or other things you can do to give back to the community

 

[Round786]

You don't need shadowing!!

Could you elaborate on why I don’t? Everyone else here has told me that since I scribe in a niche field (ortho spine/nsgy), I need to shadow at least a primary care doc.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Could you elaborate on why I don’t? Everyone else here has told me that since I scribe in a niche field (ortho spine/nsgy), I need to shadow at least a primary care doc.

Still don’t think it really moves the needle given your ED volunteering. That’s pretty generalizable

 

[candbgirl]

I think you need to slow down and enjoy your first weeks of classes. Make friends, relax, get into a study groove, see what on campus clubs interest you. Do you need the money you are earning at your scribe job? If not maybe cut back on that and continue with the patient transport work. Look around for service opportunities. There are usually soup kitchens and homeless shelters around that can use your help. And whether you feel confident or not doing nonclinical volunteering you need 200 hours of it. That’s the whole purpose of nonclinical volunteering- to get you out of your comfort zone and have you interact with people very unlike yourself. So you can easily put that off until next year to start after you are more comfortable deal with strangers and people unlike yourself. You won’t be applying until Summer after your junior year so you have lots of time to build your application. But it’s important that you have a good balance of activities. Don’t be a premed robot only focused on your application. Good luck.

 

[toastedbutter]

Some unis, like mine, have service and volunteer organization centers where community groups that need volunteers partner with campus liaisons. Interested students can check our the service center and they usually have dozens of places to volunteer with different time commitments, skill requirements, and locations.

For example, here are some I found (only one of these is my school, the rest I googled):

Connect2Community: Service Opportunities | The Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning

ginsberg.umich.edu

Member Groups and Programs - Dwight Hall at Yale

Dwight Hall Member Groups make change happen here. Yale Muslim Students Association Student-run. Yale Campus Girl Scouts Student-led. Black Students for Disarmament at Yale Opportunities to get involved. Yale EMS Opportunities to make a difference. FIRST at Yale Dwight Hall Member Groups &...

dwighthall.org

Locating Volunteer Opportunities | Center for Civic Engagement and Learning | Case Western University

The Center for Civic Engagement & Learning (CCEL) offers a variety of resources to help you locate service opportunities that match your interests. Br...

case.edu

Volunteer Database | Volunteer Center

volunteer.ucla.edu

Students - Bennion Center - The University of Utah

Volunteering, Academic Credits, & Leadership

bennioncenter.org

 

[gyngyn]

Could you elaborate on why I don’t? Everyone else here has told me that since I scribe in a niche field (ortho spine/nsgy), I need to shadow at least a primary care doc.

That's probably a good idea, even if only for a day.