By Keely Greiner, Health Professions Peer Ambassador

I know that we have to do a lot of things to get into medical school. There are long lists of classes, activities, and characteristics we feel we need to complete. While pre-med advisors caution against a box-checking approach, certain suggestions for pre-meds hold more significance than others. I’d like to tell you about the importance of clinical experience, speaking from my own perspective. 

You really have no idea what the hospital is like until you work there. I’ve volunteered in various capacities in hospitals and clinics many times over the years. Yet, I felt that I experienced and learned more in a single day of work as an inpatient Patient Care Technician (PCT) than I had in all of my years of volunteering. That’s not to say that my volunteering felt meaningless, but rather, that my clinical experience was so much more meaningful for me.  Continue reading →