Where to find clinical experience?

[WonderGrill]

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The hospitals in my area include these volunteer opportunities: gift shop, welcome desk, comforting family members in the surgical waiting room, and visiting patients. Of these, only visiting patients seems even remotely relevant to clinical experience, and that entails simply going in to talk with the patients and comfort/support them.

None of the above really screams out to me as something that medical schools would see as clinical experience. Any suggestions for other places to look?

 

[starstruck20]

It is clinical experience. Anything with patient contact is clinical experience.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

The hospitals in my area include these volunteer opportunities: gift shop, welcome desk, comforting family members in the surgical waiting room, and visiting patients. Of these, only visiting patients seems even remotely relevant to clinical experience, and that entails simply going in to talk with the patients and comfort/support them.

None of the above really screams out to me as something that medical schools would see as clinical experience. Any suggestions for other places to look?

Look for scribing opportunities in your area. Not only with hospitals, some private group practices use them too.

 

[familyaerospace]

If you want more, you can ask to be transferred to ED. You will get more patient contact. As in, don't be surprised if they reach out and grab you nearly giving you a heart attack.

But yes, some of what you are doing is clinical experience. Well maybe not the gift shop, but everything else is at some level.

 

[Gandyy]

I've been involved in lots of clinical experiences (I think 🙂) and the most powerful experience for me yet was Hospice volunteering. Have you tried that or looked for that?

It makes a BIG difference for terminally ill patients to have a companion during their final days, and hopefully a big difference for you too.

 

[GrapesofRath]

The hospitals in my area include these volunteer opportunities: gift shop, welcome desk, comforting family members in the surgical waiting room, and visiting patients. Of these, only visiting patients seems even remotely relevant to clinical experience, and that entails simply going in to talk with the patients and comfort/support them.

None of the above really screams out to me as something that medical schools would see as clinical experience. Any suggestions for other places to look?

Visiting patients definitely counts as the type of clinical volunteering that ADCOMs look at as patient interaction. In fact, that's the majority of what hospital volunteering that involves the clinical exposure ADCOMs want to see entails.

As a hospital volunteer, there's not much else you can be expected to do or be allowed to do. If you look elsewhere you won't really find any opportunities much different than that.

I agree with Gandy above that hospice volunteering is a very good thing to look into and a potentially very rewarding experience. Goro says it all the time what really gets you the brownie points is working with the very sick and the disabled and helping them out and making a difference in their lives. That's really what altruism is. Putting yourself in uncomfortable positions and working with the less fortunate in a direct way is something every ADCOM will respect.

 

[DokterMom]

what really gets you the brownie points is working with the very sick and the disabled and helping them out and making a difference in their lives. That's really what altruism is. Putting yourself in uncomfortable positions and working with the less fortunate in a direct way is something every ADCOM will respect.

QFT. Get your hands dirty doing something uncomfortable. Many more opportunities are available and the 'brownie points' are significantly higher. Not to mention, the work will be a whole lot more interesting and the emotional/psychological benefits to you and others will be far greater.