<p>I'm an independent student volunteer at Cedars Sinai and I'm volunteering/shadowing a plastic surgeon. I go into his office on his clinic days so I get to interact with patients whenever I am there. So is this clinical experience or shadowing or both? I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I have no idea what this would be classified as</p>
<p>you said it yourself. ‘and I’m volunteering/shadowing a plastic surgeon’</p>
<p>@brosiedon, are you in the exam room/office during patient visits? This wasn’t clear from your post.</p>
<p>I am in the exam and or procedure room during patient visits</p>
<p>I’m assuming you’re not interacting directly with patients very much.</p>
<p>What you’re doing is shadowing and clinical experience. Clinical experience is broadly defined as just being around patients. So, yes, volunteering at the gift shop at the hospital is clinical experience (although poor clinical experience). As is shadowing. Being the clinical research coordinator is also clinical experience.</p>
<p>Sooo…if a student has been running volunteer participants thru a series of imaging studies (PET, fMRI), doing the medical screening beforehand (taking an abbreviated medical history including symptoms, medications, surgeries, etc), then operating the imaging devices and interpreting the data–would that be clinical experience?</p>
<p>Would it make any difference if the participants were healthy vs. stroke/head injury patients?</p>
<p>What about doing neuro-psych evaluations/exams for visual, hearing, speech, or communication disorders due to brain injury or stroke?</p>
<p>Clinical research counts as both research and clinical experience. The point of clinical experience is for you to get aclimated to being in the hospital environment, being around patients, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks, norcal— that’s what I thought. D2 has been doing this for 3 years now, but is absolutely convinced this is NOT “clinical experience” and is reluctant to include it on a med school application.</p>