Is there a difference between service and clinical experience?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>From what I hear, to get into a good medical school you need good service (volunteer activities) and clinical experience. However, what is the difference between the two? I see a lot of overlap; for example, someone who volunteers to help with patients in an ER is both doing service and clinical work.</p>

<p>Is non-hospital work okay for service? I know that med schools like to see people who have decent clinical exposure (it makes sense, if that's what you are going to be doing for your profession, you must enjoy working in a hospital). However, do they require dedicated, long term commitments or just decent exposure here and there? My school has some med prep programs that expose you to physicians, and there are shadowing opportunities that one can look for.</p>

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<p>Volunteering in the ER doesn't mean you get a lot of patient interactions as there are a lot of things volunteers are not allowed to do. Volunteers typically have a lot of communications with the patients, but won't end up doing any procedures at all. Volunteering helps you with communications and it's good overall. </p>

<p>I would say clinical experience would be more of a job in healthcare like a CNA or orderly. These will help you get involved in the patients well being. Communication with the patient really isn't there in these jobs, because usually the nurse will tell you exactly what to do.</p>

<p>Volunteer- Patient communication
Clinical experience- Clinical job</p>

<p>I would not count shadowing as a clinical experience, because you will not interact with the patient much (if at all).</p>

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<p>Re: shadowing. Yes, it is clinical experience.</p>

<p>There does seem to be some overlap between the two...I would say that volunteering at a hospital is both, but what you really want if you want to see what a physician's life is really like is to shadow. However, tutoring at a local elementary school, while it is good service, obviously does not qualify as clinical experience.</p>

<p>Hopefully one of the more experienced members will chime in soon.</p>

<p>Also, Rh., are you suggesting that most people that get into med school have something like a CNA or EMT?</p>

<p>From my understanding, clinical experience is just what it says...experience in a clinical setting, seeing what goes on in the day to day life of physicians, in a hospital, etc. While service, again is just what it says, doing something for the good of others without pay.</p>

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<p>
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Re: shadowing. Yes, it is clinical experience.

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<p>no, its not...</p>

<p>if that's all you're doing then its not since it just entails following a doctor around and watching....sure its clinical exposure but that's not the same as clinical experience. Rh had it right...clinical experience is more like CNA or EMT or something similar. The consensus on SDN seems to be that you would categorize shadowing as "Other" on your AMCAS and not "Volunteer - Clinical/Medical" since your not actually doing anything to help anyone so it doesn't exactly fit into that category.</p>

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<p>exposure...experience....tomato...tomahto....:-p</p>

<p>they start with the same letters anyway. :-p</p>

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<p>Based on my research I don't believe EMT or CNA is some panacea for admissions ills. They are a fine choice for some but wholly unneccessary. Just check out mdapplicants . Shadowing and volunteering should be just fine. Having patient and physician contact in a clinical setting that results in a meaningful experience that you can talk about and a record of giving of yourself is what you need.</p>

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<p>Volunteering in the hospital or a medical setting is considered clinical experience. Volunteering at a non-clinical setting (Habitat for Humanity, a shelter. etc) is just volunteering. As is the consensus over at SDN, LizzyM states that "if you can smell the patient, then its clinical experience." </p>

<p>
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clinical experience is more like CNA or EMT or something similar.

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<p>That's clinical experience if you want to get into PA school. PA school has a much stricter requirement about actually working around patients. A 1000 document hours I heard, but not a all schools. Pre-med clinical experience is more about volunteering/shadowing.</p>

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<p>OK, I seriously have no idea what to believe in this article. Can anyone succinctly answer the OP's question about service vs clinical experience? Also, can anyone explain the average amount and type of EC's that a typical pre-med student applies with? I am pretty confused about what med schools typically see on a pre-med student's app...EMT/CNA, shadowing, volunteering, summer research, clinical experience, etc is all giving me a headache.</p>

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<p>Here is more on the topic if you still don't understand.</p>

<p>What</a> is clinical experience? - Student Doctor Network Forums
Volunteering</a> Vs Hospital Work - Student Doctor Network Forums
Clinical</a> experience - Student Doctor Network Forums
different</a> types of clinical experience, which one to choose? - Student Doctor Network Forums
What</a> exactly is clinical experience? - Student Doctor Network Forums
Upping</a> clinical experience? - Student Doctor Network Forums
Looking</a> for great clinical experience - Student Doctor Network Forums
The</a> importance of clinical experience! - Student Doctor Network Forums
How</a> important is clinical experience when applying?? - Student Doctor Network Forums</p>

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<p>Thanks ASMAJ. I had read some of those myself. I like this one

[quote=LizzyM, emphasis added]
A clinical experience is one where you are close enough to smell (and touch) patients. </p>

<p>For the guy with the experience in the path lab, get someone to refer you to a surgeon or gynecologist who is sending those samples to the lab and spend some time shadowing so you can see patients and get to know their stores. I sometimes ask applicants about a memorable clinical experience and it tells me volumes about the applicant's point of view and their sensitivity to human suffering (or lack thereof).

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<p>CNA and EMT will put you over the top, because you're doing much more than shadowing a doctor or volunteering. It's not like they're hard to obtain either, you can easily get them through your Community College/your college or through a high school program- my high school has an academy where we get our CNA certification our junior year and a Pharmacy Tech license our senior year. We do clinical rotations the first semester than study our butts off the second. I wouldn't say getting either is easy to obtain actually, but they're not extremely hard.</p>

<p>If you want to stand out in the pre-med pool I think having a real medical job is much better than volunteering and shadowing. Because you have hands on experience and it shows you have a good amount of knowledge and will be able to interact with patients MUCH better. Other jobs like wheel chair transporter and registars you will probably get as much clinical experience as shadowing or possibly volunteering. Look at some MD applicants the ones with CNA experience usually get into much better score, or if they have a poor MCAT and GPA at least they get into a school.</p>

<p>Also remember the sites ASMAJ posted are usually by pre-med students and not medical students ( although some are ).</p>

<p>Not all of us are rich too, so having a part time job as a CNA would probably benefit you a lot more than having a part time job volunteering and shadowing. $10-15 isn't bad at college/high school age.</p>

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<p>Not trying to be harsh Rh. but your take on this is contra to all the advice I have ever heard. Not one physician or administrator has counseled that a scut (their word , not mine) paid job in a hospital is more important than 300 hours of shadowing 3 types of physicians and a couple hundred more hours volunteering at hospitals and medical offices. In fact one physician expressly counseled against EMT by saying "It teaches you how to be an EMT, nothing about the tasks or lifestyle of a physician." </p>

<p>I agree it isn't on the same level. Volunteering and shadowing with direct patient and doctor involvement at all times during the day is far better than a CNA or EMT job according to the physicians I have spoken to and the majority of admittees to the schools on my D's list that list stats on mdapplicants. Go do a search. Pick any med school and search. Come back and tell us what you find. I doubt if you'll find 15% of the accepted students with that type of work experience. Far more will have shadowing, volunteering, AND medical research. That seems to be the Holy Trinity of EC's. </p>

<p>YMMV and there are probably some schools that feel differently. I personally don't see why it would hurt an app, so if you feel strongly- do it. But I'd do the other stuff in addition.</p>

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<p>I don't know about the city you live in, but in Austin Tx all the hospital volunteer jobs there is no doctor-volunteer coordination it is usually a nurse which tells you what to do. There are also laws which prevent you from getting a lot of patient interaction like putting on a caste, helping a patient rehabilitate, ect.</p>

<p>I think it comes do to a matter of opinion and what type of shadowing jobs/volunteer jobs you can obtain. I think making my own decisions about what a patient needs and working with a patient to maintain their health/needs is much better experience than shadowing/volunteering can ever give me since I have to decide on my own. As a volunteer and shadower you will never get to experience some procedures hands on, because it is illegal or not allowed in the hospital. </p>

<p>Research is definitely the best way to go though if you can get it.</p>

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<p>Wow, there's a lot going on here. Rh...you're pushing the envelope a little bit on what's clinical experience.</p>

<p>I tend to break clinical experience down into patient contact and doctor contact positions (because I've seen people get rejected for not having enough of one or the other). You do need both. Shadowing - that's doctor contact plain and simple. Here the idea is to get an idea of what doctors actually do - thought process, paperwork, workload, etc. It's not just, "oh I saw a doctor talking to a patient, that must be doctor contact". Volunteering - could have some doctor contact if you're lucky, but you shouldn't count on it. Volunteering should be a time to get patient contact, it should answer the question "do I actually like people enough to want see them on their worst day for the rest of my life?"</p>

<p>Clinical experience does NOT equal getting hands on experience with procedures. That is not an essential component. It could be nice, or make the experience more interesting, but you don't have to have it. You don't need to have put on a cast (which I would consider to be a physician or PA job given that there's a lot of important positioning that goes on) or wiped the crap off some incontinent patient for it to have been a good clinical experience. And having done either </p>

<p>Let's also be clear that CNA's don't make many decisions. I've seen several CNA's step way above their responsibilities and try to make decisions on their own which have been detrimental to the patient. Likewise the role/function of the EMT is often overstated by many. Further, neither of these have much doctor-contact at least compared to shadowing. I usually tell the CNA's to get out of my way, and EMT's are not usually in situations that allow a whole lot of interaction with the physician beyond what's needed for the care of the patient.</p>

<p>Now, as for service - this does not need to be medically related. In fact, I'd recommend that most of your service hours NOT be related to medicine, simply for the fact that you should be doing service because you want to, not because it's going to help you for medical school. Having a 100 or 300 or a 1000 hours of volunteering in the hospital ER looks like nothing more than resume padding and blatantly screams "I'm only doing this because you said I had to".</p>

<p>The bottom line: you need experiences with patients, experiences with doctors, and volunteering experiences. There's no "super" experience which is going to give you all three, and that's probably a good thing. As much as I hate to say it, these three things are really just boxes that have to be checked off the list to get accepted. That doesn't mean they're meaningless (as they actually have a very high function in making sure you want to do this for a career), just that they don't offer a lot of ways to distinguish yourself.</p>

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<p>Nice post Bigred! I see exactly what you mean. I didn't mean to imply that CNA's make huge decisions, but they make some little, little tiny ones.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
The bottom line: you need experiences with patients, experiences with doctors, and volunteering experiences. There's no "super" experience which is going to give you all three, and that's probably a good thing. As much as I hate to say it, these three things are really just boxes that have to be checked off the list to get accepted.

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<p>this is more or less what i was trying to get at in my post... more specifically i was making reference to how things are categorized on the AMCAS application and shadowing physicians is going to go under "other" on the application....this certainly doesn't mean its not important. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Volunteering and shadowing with direct patient and doctor involvement at all times during the day is far better than a CNA or EMT job according to the physicians I have spoken to and the majority of admittees to the schools on my D's list that list stats on mdapplicants.

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<p>this is just simply incorrect....</p>

<p>this thread degenerated into Rh and curmudgeon just talking up the activity that they (or their children) have done while putting down the other activity. I don't think there is any kind of hierarchy that you can create here. The important thing is that the experience is meaningful and at the end of the day its better to try and do more rather than less. </p>

<p>I was an EMT, shadowed doctors and did clinical research and I feel that all are very important in deciding on a medical career and all give you different kinds of experiences you can talk about on your application and in an interview. There is no justification for knocking something else while you try to talk up what you (or your daughter) have done. </p>

<p>
[quote]
CNA and EMT will put you over the top, because you're doing much more than shadowing a doctor or volunteering. It's not like they're hard to obtain either, you can easily get them through your Community College/your college or through a high school program- my high school has an academy where we get our CNA certification our junior year and a Pharmacy Tech license our senior year. We do clinical rotations the first semester than study our butts off the second. I wouldn't say getting either is easy to obtain actually, but they're not extremely hard.

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<p>again, as i said above...no reason to devalue another experience and i would say that EMT or CNA certification is really easy to get but as i've said numerous times before....getting certified means absolutely nothing without any meaningful experience afterward.</p>

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In fact, I'd recommend that most of your service hours NOT be related to medicine, simply for the fact that you should be doing service because you want to, not because it's going to help you for medical school.

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<p>i strongly disagree with this statement... i would hope that med school adcoms are smart enough to be able to tease out what you did to just "play the game" and what you did out of interest from what you write on your application and say in ur interview.</p>

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<p>shraf, I didn't list much of what my D did/does. I was talking about any applicant. When I do talk about my D I'll tell you by saying "My D did it this way". You'll know the difference. </p>

<p>I resent your attempt to personalize and trivialize what I assumed was a discussion of "what any applicant should do". </p>

<p>In fact my D did work (for free) a couple hundred hours running tests on patients in a medical office (opthalmologist). She considered her "hands-on experience" very valuable . My point was and remains that a student would be better served by the Trinity I spoke of rather than seeking an EMT or CNA cert. Many will concentrate on that cert to the exclusion of other opportunities. That is unfortunate. Believe it. Don't believe it. That's your call. ;)</p>

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<p>Again, for anyone interested in this (and not simply interested in posturing and pontificating ) I strongly suggest you do your own search. Go to SDN or more specifically to the profiles of accepted students on mdapplicants.com. and see for yourself how many listed CNA or EMT as opposed to those citing volunteering, shadowing, and research. It ain't many. Just pick a med school and it'll pop up a list of the last two cycles. Taking advice from pre-meds on how to get into med school just doesn't seem like such a great idea to me.</p>

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<p>
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shraf, I didn't list much of what my D did/does. I was talking about any applicant. When I do talk about my D I'll tell you by saying "My D did it this way". You'll know the difference.

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<p>i can already tell what your daughter did and did not do by the way you talk about certain experiences and trash others with little evidence ...(i can site whatever "advice" from doctors on the fly as well but that isn't evidence)</p>

<p>
[quote]
My point was and remains that a student would be better served by the Trinity I spoke of rather than seeking an EMT or CNA cert. Many will concentrate on that cert to the exclusion of other opportunities. That is unfortunate. Believe it. Don't believe it. That's your call.

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<p>in case you missed what i wrote earlier: </p>

<p>
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I don't think there is any kind of hierarchy that you can create here.</p>

<p>...and...</p>

<p>getting certified means absolutely nothing without any meaningful experience afterward.

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<p>and ontop of that....EMT certification (can't really speak for CNA) doesn't take that much time or effort...it can pretty much be done in a semester....so noone should halt all other activities in order to get certified since there is absolutely no need. And please stop with this "Trinity" BS, it's absolutely meaningless. There is more than a single path to getting into med school and you are giving the impression that there is a set of required activities when this is very far from the truth. </p>

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see for yourself how many listed CNA or EMT as opposed to those citing volunteering, shadowing, and research. It ain't many.

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<p>u do realize that actually getting experience as a CNA or EMT isn't as easy as walking up to some random doctor and asking to follow him around. maybe that's why there are way more who do volunteering and shadowing...or does that not fit in with your argument so u just chose to ignore it. </p>

<p>As for research....CNA/EMT/shadowing/volunteering is completely different than research so i'm not sure y you are comparing them. </p>

<p>In addition, you talk about these things as if they are mutually exclusive when they are certainly not. </p>

<p>Finally, be careful of the language you use in your initial (unedited) post</p>

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<p>Horribly OT but...what ya gonna do? LOL</p>

<p>
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Finally, be careful of the language you use in your initial (unedited) post.

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<p>Be careful or what? LOL. Is that some threat? What is wrong with you? </p>

<p>You calling me out big guy? Gee. I'll tuck my tail and just run on home. ;)</p>