Building Clinical Exposure & Volunteer Experience

Building your clinical experience is essential for building a foundation towards health professions.

Definitions:

Clinical Experience: Paid or unpaid direct patient care (example: CNA’s are paid positions that work directly supporting patients. Scribes or shadowing are great exposure within a medical setting, but are passive and do not require communicating with patients). Most valuable for applications. UW Medicine’s explanation of clinical experience.
Non-Clinical Experience: Paid or unpaid experience with no patient care within medical or non-medical settings. Still important for applications to show diversity of experience, knowledge, and exposure to different contexts. (example: Research, administrative/front desk, clerical, no-patient contact volunteering, food bank volunteer)

Categories to consider for health school applications:

Direct Patient Care/Patient-facing *highest priority* (ex: CNA/MA/EMT, Rehab Therapy Aide, patient escort)
Underserved Populations (ex: rural healthcare, non-profit volunteering with houseless youth, free clinics, low-income areas)
Leadership (ex: formal or informal roles like within student clubs/orgs, TA/RA, leading a team)

See below for Seattle, Puget Sound, and Washington State hospitals, clinics, and service providers. Some of the links below will lead you directly to volunteering or employment pages, while others may require you to search their homepages for volunteer, shadow, or employment info. The key to building your experience and network is being proactive and patient, while making sure to follow up with your communication and commitments.