Volunteering at Free clinic experience

[JillMMed]

I just started volunteering at a Free Clinic in my area and I wanted to know how would this look on med school applications. At the clinic I am medical assistant ( take bp manually, height, weight, ekgs, ask simple questions such as " are you in any pain,etc...) and I also scribe for the doctors there. At my clinic many of our patients speak spanish , kinda learning spanish on the fly as I go. But we are not just a primary care clinic , we also have many other specialties such as endocrinology, cardiology ,orthopedics,etc... Everyone in the clinic is a volunteer MA's,Scribes,Interpreters,even the Doctors. I really enjoy working here. This is my first real direct patient care position. They provided all the training for MA( But I did take an EMT course 3 yeas ago) and Scribe. With the scribing position I take all the notes for the providers, but many of them kinda teach you at the same time , you can ask questions and they explain things clearly . I started here in Nov 2016 but my plan is to apply to medical school again (1st time was a disaster) This summer 2017. My only concern is that I may not have enough hours. I only work at the clinic 2 times a month for 3-4 hours per shift right now I am about 28 hours. This is my only other volunteer experience besides hospital volunteer for a few months ( which was around 50 hours).

Do you guys think I should be okay with the amount of hours I may get from this place?

*** Currently I work at a hospital as a unit secretary about 32 hours per week , as well as doing a DIY post bacc program ( taking 3 classes this term).

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[Catalystik]

I just started volunteering at a Free Clinic in my area and I wanted to know how would this look on med school applications. At the clinic I am medical assistant ( take bp manually, height, weight, ekgs, ask simple questions such as " are you in any pain,etc...) and I also scribe for the doctors there. At my clinic many of our patients speak spanish , kinda learning spanish on the fly as I go. But we are not just a primary care clinic , we also have many other specialties such as endocrinology, cardiology ,orthopedics,etc... Everyone in the clinic is a volunteer MA's,Scribes,Interpreters,even the Doctors. I really enjoy working here. This is my first real direct patient care position. They provided all the training for MA( But I did take an EMT course 3 yeas ago) and Scribe. With the scribing position I take all the notes for the providers, but many of them kinda teach you at the same time , you can ask questions and they explain things clearly . I started here in Nov 2016 but my plan is to apply to medical school again (1st time was a disaster) This summer 2017. My only concern is that I may not have enough hours. I only work at the clinic 2 times a month for 3-4 hours per shift right now I am about 28 hours. This is my only other volunteer experience besides hospital volunteer for a few months ( which was around 50 hours).

Do you guys think I should be okay with the amount of hours I may get from this place?

*** Currently I work at a hospital as a unit secretary about 32 hours per week , as well as doing a DIY post bacc program ( taking 3 classes this term).

It sounds like a terrific opportunity. At a minimum, you'd have about 100 hours total of clinical volunteering between the past hospital community service and the new free clinic activity. Assuming you interact with patients on occasion during your current hospital employment, and maybe have some other shadowing hours already, I think you'll have enough clinical exposure to suit the majority of med schools.

 

[candbgirl]

It sounds great and you obviously like it there so good for you. Now as to your reapplication- what happened last time to make it a disaster? What have you done to significantly improve your application for the next cycle? From what you shared , it sounds like you have very weak ECs? Any shadowing? How about volunteering in the community for those less fortunate than you, the underserved? How will you show your altruistic side? Any research? We know your clinical exposure is sparse(but improving). Maybe you should think about putting off reapplying until 2018 so all deficits from last time are addressed. Of course all of this must be accompanied by competitive stats.


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