What is Healthcare Experience?

Healthcare experience is an opportunity for you to be directly engaged in a healthcare setting, often interacting with patients, families and other members of the healthcare team.

You will hear some of the following terms used frequently regarding healthcare experience: clinical experience, direct patient care, patient contact experience, medical experience, etc. Sometimes observation or shadowing of professionals is included in the term "healthcare experience." It is important to realize that healthcare professions schools expect that you will participate both in shadowing/observation of professionals and in patient care experience whether paid, volunteer, or both.

Why is Healthcare Experience Important?

Healthcare experience gives you insight into what it is like to work in a healthcare setting and what it's like to work with patients. It can be an excellent tool in your discernment process as you determine if, and why, you want to pursue a career in healthcare. This kind of experience is one way of demonstrating to professional schools that you are invested your chosen career path.

How Do I Get Involved?

Healthcare experience can be gained through volunteering or through employment. Oftentimes, these kinds of experiences require an application process. Start by researching different opportunities and determining what steps you need to take to pursue opportunities of interest. Some will require a simple application, while others may require certification or training.

Healthcare Volunteering

Healthcare experience can be gained through meaningful volunteer experiences. In most cases, though, volunteers are only allowed to do so much when working with patients. It is still valuable to demonstrate compassion through service performed in medically-related settings like hospitals, clinics, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, rehab settings and therapy camps or clinics. See the Service & Volunteering page for more information.

Healthcare Employment

Healthcare experience gained by being employed in a medically-related setting typically offers an opportunity to more directly interact with and care for patients and their families. Often employment requires some classroom and clinical training first. There are also positions that might offer on-the-job training. In all cases, though, being an employee will involve thorough knowledge of and legal adherence to HIPAA law. It will also include the employer covering you with liability insurance. These additional steps are what enable you to actually offer direct care as an employee.

Healthcare employment is not always available in all clinical and healthcare settings, and not always available in situations directly related to the profession field you are considering. However, healthcare professions schools will value healthcare employment if it enabled interaction with patients, regardless of whether that employment was directly in the specific professional area.

Consider positions such as Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), Phlebotomist, Home Health Aide, Medication Aide, Pharmacy Technician, Patient Care Technician, Patient Companion, or Emergency Medical Technician.

Resources

- John P. Fahey Career Center Healthcare Employment Resources
  - Liquid Compass - Must be accessed through the Career Center Website
- Service & Volunteering Page