This will be a crucial aspect of your life as a doctor, and you must make sure you enjoy this work and are well-suited for it. Furthermore, clinical experiences help you develop the skills you need for the medical profession, and which are highly regarded by admissions committees. For example, interacting with patients can help you cultivate empathy and compassion.
Working in a high-pressure clinical environment can help you hone your ability to stay calm and make quick decisions under duress. Meaningful clinical experiences also help to make your application more generally robust. Admissions committees are always more impressed if you can show rather than tell i.
In fact, a few medical schools even ask for at least one letter from a supervisor in a clinical setting. If your application is strong in other areas, such as your academic performance and MCAT score , and you have meaningful experience of other kinds such as volunteering or shadowing hours , then you still have a competitive chance of acceptance.
You just need to ensure that your application components such as your personal statement, essays, and activity descriptions effectively highlight your strengths and suitability for medical school.
You can also address your limited clinical experience in your personal statement and medical school secondary essays. If there were extenuating circumstances related to your background, family, or health that led to your lack of clinical experiences, you can expand on them in your diversity secondary essay or accommodations essays. The guidelines below will help you not only find a suitable clinical experience but also make the most of it.
Remember, one of the key purposes of clinical hours is to further your understanding of the medical profession, develop key patient interaction skills, and explore your continued commitment to becoming a physician. At the same time, you must be strategic about selecting the right opportunities.
Similarly, make sure you have the hours available in your schedule to give the opportunity your best shot. In fact, many of the best osteopathic med schools require some kind of clinical or shadowing experience in an osteopathic clinical setting from their applicants.
They expect applicants to provide examples of their experience working with osteopathic medical tenets to demonstrate their commitment to the philosophy of osteopathy. If you're struggling to decide what type of medical specialty you would like to pursue, this video can help!
Getting into medical school is not easy. We can help! As you find out what kind of clinical opportunities you should be getting based on your interest and skill sets, make sure you explore all the logistically available options vis a vis the different types of clinical experiences. These are some of the most popular options to gain clinical experience:.
Note that some of these clinical opportunities require pre-existing qualifications, experiences, and certifications. It might be worth investing some time in gaining these qualifications, for instance, beginner level EMTs only need to be trained for 1 to 4 months before they can begin working.
On the other hand, nursing roles require the completion of a nursing degree which represents a significant investment of time and effort, not to mention money. That might not be a viable option for the typical undergrad student. For undergrad students, the easiest opportunities are volunteer experiences in clinical setting. You can apply to volunteer in hospitals and clinics, as well as long-term care and retirement homes. As we mentioned earlier, make sure you emphasize active clinical duties and patient interactions in your search, or find a way to combine your admin duties with clinical duties.
Another avenue you can explore are the clinical experience tie-ups between medical centers and schools, universities, or programs. Check your school website and ask your faculty members to find out what exclusive opportunities your school offers for its students to gain clinical experience. Many medical centers reserve certain internship or assistant-ship opportunities for students from specific affiliated or nearby schools.
Sometimes, you may find an alumni connection who could help you get a lucrative or prestigious clinical job. Similarly, if you have any family or friends working in clinical settings, ask them if they need any assistance with their duties. Try to cultivate opportunities for regular patient interactions and work on improving your bedside manner, as well as your ability to think quickly under pressure. Many clinical settings are high-stress, high-pressure environments, which might trigger extreme emotional reactions in you.
Make sure you work towards maintaining your emotional stability and inner calm in these tough situations. Throughout the process, be committed, disciplined, and curious, and engage with the work and the environment.
Noting down these details as they happen will make it easier for you to recall them as you write your personal statement, activity descriptions, and secondary essays, which could happen many months or even years down the line. The University of Utah School of Medicine has long provided recommendations for prospective applicants to better understand what medical schools are looking for in extracurriculars. They recommend a minimum of 32 hours and at least 48 hours to be considered competitive.
We typically recommend much more, with at least hours of direct clinical exposure. Becoming comfortable in a clinical setting is critical to understanding what patient care is actually like, confirming medicine is the right fit, and demonstrating you have an understanding of the path ahead to admissions committees. Whatever you choose to do, you need to be interacting with patients directly.
What direct clinical experience is not : shadowing, administrative duties, housecleaning duties, or any other indirect patient contact role. The opportunities for clinical experience can often be difficult to come by for premedical students and may require application processes themselves. Ready to master the rest of the major extracurricular activities?
Check out the remainder of our extracurricular guide posts about service , leadership , research , and shadowing. If you find yourself needing any help , our advisors love working with students to help them make the most of their clinical experiences.
Sign up to get regular admissions tips, advice, guides, and musings from our admissions experts delivered straight to your inbox. No spam, we promise. Let us know how we can help you. Fill out the form or drop us an email. As I travel to visit with students across the state of Texas regarding the application process, the most common questions about clinical experiences that I receive are: What type of clinical experiences should I have?
How much clinical experience do I need? Why does it matter if I have clinical experience before I apply? The exposure that the student receives during this time can offer a glimpse into the day-to-day demands that a physician sees. As a family medicine physician, I often have students shadow me in my clinical practice. After a few shadowing encounters, I have started to ask that students take notes on the patient care experiences that they witness.
This often opens up the dialogue about my practice and about careers in medicine. I then provide guidance for them and ultimately can provide a letter of recommendation for their application.
Therefore, I would highly recommend that you engage your shadowing physician and build a mentoring relationship with them. In preparation for applying to medical school, having a letter of recommendation from a mentor-physician will go a long way in making you a competitive applicant.
Therefore, I would encourage future applicants to look into paid positions such as working as a certified medical assistant CMA , emergency room scribes, emergency room techs, phlebotomist or even becoming an EMT.
If you have difficulty finding shadowing opportunities or a paid position, there are creative ways in which you can gain clinical experiences. Students are often enticed to go overseas for their clinical experiences.
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