EC's - Administrative Hospital Experience

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JohnDorian13

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Hi all,

I apologize if this has been asked before but I tried the search function and was unable to find anything. I was just accepted back to school so I am planning to leave my career to go back full-time and take my pre-reqs.

My question is about EC's and whether I need to do additional while I am in school. When I leave work I will have worked at hospitals for the last thirteen years including the last three as Chief Operating Officer. These hospitals have ranged from a small highly rural hospital to a a 600 bed academic medical center where I managed a $800M budget and had over 2000 staff in my services. I worked my way in to the position over ten years after starting as a Housekeeper so I have demonstrated the ability to move up.

Although I have some clinical experience (the quality department reported to me) and have been involved in a lot of clinical committees and decision making I don't have any direct patient care. Should I volunteer or shadow while I am going to school? I don't mind doing it but I would prefer to focus on my classes to ensure a great GPA since I am leaving my career for this.

Thanks.

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What are you going to say when asked how you know you are suited for a life of caring for the sick and suffering? “That you just know”? Imagine how that will go over!

Here's the deal: You need to show AdComs that you know what you're getting into, and show off your altruistic, humanistic side. We need to know that you're going to like being around sick or injured people for the next 40 years.

Here's another way of looking at it: would you buy a new car without test driving it? Buy a new suit or dress without trying it on??

We're also not looking for merely for good medical students, we're looking for people who will make good doctors, and 4.0 GPA robots are a dime-a-dozen.

I've seen plenty of posts here from high GPA/high MCAT candidates who were rejected because they had little patient contact experience.

Not all volunteering needs to be in a hospital. Think hospice, Planned Parenthood, nursing homes, rehab facilities, crisis hotlines, camps for sick children, or clinics.

Some types of volunteer activities are more appealing than others. Volunteering in a nice suburban hospital is all very well and good and all, but doesn't show that you're willing to dig in and get your hands dirty in the same way that working with the developmentally disabled (or homeless, the dying, or Alzheimers or mentally ill or elderly or ESL or domestic, rural impoverished) does. The uncomfortable situations are the ones that really demonstrate your altruism and get you 'brownie points'. Plus, they frankly teach you more -- they develop your compassion and humanity in ways comfortable situations can't.

Service need not be "unique". If you can alleviate suffering in your community through service to the poor, homeless, illiterate, fatherless, etc, you are meeting an otherwise unmet need and learning more about the lives of the people (or types of people) who will someday be your patients. Check out your local houses of worship for volunteer opportunities. The key thing is service to others less fortunate than you. And get off campus and out of your comfort zone!

Examples include: Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald House, Humane Society, crisis hotlines, soup kitchen, food pantry, homeless or women’s shelter, after-school tutoring for students or coaching a sport in a poor school district, teaching ESL to adults at a community center, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, or Meals on Wheels.
 
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20+ year exec checking in here... all that business experience will help especially since you understand revenue cycle and appropriate coding/charting/EMR to business systems issues, multiple facility issues, etc.

Volunteer. Get involved in your community. A little surprised you don't already have that - or maybe you do and didn't really point it out.

Also, as someone who went back to school with people who are substantially younger than I was and even less experienced in work or real life, I made it a point to befriend them, to learn from them, to mock my life to an extent. The energy derived from my new set of peers, drove me when I was down, and I calmed them when "drama" entered in.

Shadowing isn't like a 20 hour a week to do - generally 8 hours a month for 2 years or 16 hours a month. I did mine in spurts when it fit in. Somehow, over the time the hours piled up with shadowing (volunteering, I think I have over 10,000 hours but am trimming that down for the application).

And I'm pretty happy with my GPA... though that "B" slays me... absolutely kills me.
 
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Thanks, I appreciate the reply. I do have a ton of volunteering but none of it is clinical, more like being on the towns Economic Development Board. I'm also glad to hear that you felt comfortable with the younger students. I went and took a tour of the university earlier this week and felt like I belonged more with the parents in the group rather than students so it had me slightly concerned.
 
Thanks, I appreciate the reply. I do have a ton of volunteering but none of it is clinical, more like being on the towns Economic Development Board. I'm also glad to hear that you felt comfortable with the younger students. I went and took a tour of the university earlier this week and felt like I belonged more with the parents in the group rather than students so it had me slightly concerned.
My suggestion would still be to get involved with other volunteering as @Goro suggested (I'm a former Rotarian but that doesn't count into my hours except for when I was in Peru digging water wells, nor do I count the 100s of hours I spent reviewing/editing personal statements, secondaries through 2 cycles). I also got in shadowing with many different primary care and specialty docs.

A tour of the school would probably have made me feel similarly in many ways but my alma mater is where I took my pre-reqs, or most of them anyway. About the only time my age/experience felt off was when my lab partner in gen chem hadn't done his work, I had. Whether my numbers were right or not didn't matter to me (I mean they did but I wasn't willing to CHEAT to have them be perfect) but he insisted that I use his roommate's work which had already been graded the prior semester from same lab TA.

I refused, got 95% on the lab; he got 100%.

Are there other times when the age gap shows up? Sure. I no longer drink, a few/lots come into class hungover and smelling like it. I no longer stay up to 4 AM all nights chasing the opposite sex. Are the stories funny? yeah. Oh. Yeah.

Oh, and that one time I took physics + lab with my son. People wondered if he "let your mom cheat off your tests" and my son's rapid response was, "I should be so lucky to cheat off her" (I got the 97% in class :D he got the 95%; both got near 100% in lab and our classmates/labbies are all friends of ours).

The age oddity will quickly be dissipate. Best of luck to you :)
 
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@Ad2b - if you have a thread somewhere with your whole story, I'd love to read it.
 
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@Ad2b - if you have a thread somewhere with your whole story, I'd love to read it.
:nailbiting::) Thank you for that but...

The book is going to be called "Mornings With Hope" by my pseudonym. Hoping to have it published in 2018 or 2019 depending on when the epilogue can be written: (hopefully!!!) "Admitted medical student somewhere over the rainbow in the US doing happy dances." The website is already active but there's nothing there yet... and there's a lot of editing that has to be done to make sure it reads how I want it.
 
do us a all a favor and maybe wait to publish after you've completed med school and settle into a post-grad career
 
do us a all a favor and maybe wait to publish after you've completed med school and settle into a post-grad career
Book is already done. Needs editing which I have to pay for and I need the epilogue.

The book is not about med school, or being a premed or an applicant or anything strongly related to that... I need the acceptance to write the epilogue for the book (or 2 years of consistent rejections which can/could happen).

It's about hope. Aptly named after my golden retriever who... well... just leaving it there :)
 
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