Session 53 In this episode, Ryan talks about a question from a former Air Force medic who is now working towards applying to medical school. Would it suffice if the time since your last clinical experience was almost 2 years ago? Or should you get more? Your questions, answered here on the OldPreMeds Podcast. Ryan again dives into the forums over at OldPreMeds.org where they pull a question and deliver the answers right on to you. OldPreMeds Question of the Week: Today's poster is a former Air Force medic and worked as a public health technician while in the Air Force. He was into it for a total of 8 years and is now in college working towards becoming a doctor. His current main focus is earning great GPA and studying for the MCAT. Because he has spent 8 years working in a hospital (close to doctors and working one-on-one on multiple occasions), can this experience be used as a shadowing experience? (He's applying to medical school in 2018 and the last time he would have worked with a doctor would be November 2016) Should more shadowing be done? Here are the insights from Ryan: Medical schools want to see that you have sustained commitment to medicine as a whole. If your last exposure was close to 2 years since, it's going to look bad on your application and they'll wonder why you didn't continue to expose yourself to medicine. Not surrounding yourself with medicine for two years is questionable. Being a military medic or being around military medicine is completely different than it is for civilian medicine in terms of the environment and how things are paid for and done. You would be better served by getting more clinical experience and shadowing more physicians. If you have two years until you're applying, start shadowing once every other week for an hour or two. You don't have to do a ton of stuff. Being a former Air Force medic, you're close to getting your EMT certificate or license to be able to go and get more clinical experience as a civilian. Major takeaway from this episode: All your experience plays a huge role in your application but 2 years is too long ago to not continue to do something now. Links and Other Resources: www.mededmedia.com