Let's Clarify Some Things About Clinical Experience | Ask Dr. Gray: Premed Q&A

What counts as clinical experience? How many hours should you have when applying to med school? And is it okay to keep working a non-clinical job as a premed? All those questions and more on today's Ask Dr. Gray: Premed Q&A!

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Today's student is applying to med school in 2021 to start in 2022. She's currently working as a server while doing a DIY postbac program to raise her science GPA. Her questions are about clinical experience.

She has thousands of hours of medically-related activities like being a physical therapy aid, being a pharmacy tech, helping out at a pediatric oncology summer camp, and doing clinical research. But how much of that actually counts as clinical experience that is relevant to becoming a physician?

She is also wondering if medical schools might frown at the fact that she's working as a server rather than working a clinical job right now. It's a great question and a common one that students have.

It IS a potential red flag to have all your clinical experience in the past and not continuing anything up to and through the application process. But that doesn't mean you need a full-time clinical job.

Listen to hear my advice to her on how to keep her "foot in the door" of the medical world, even if she doesn't switch fully to a clinical job!