The road to becoming a doctor or nurse is not an easy one. Educational requirements for all types of clinicians are pretty stiff. But there are ways to enhance one’s medical training early on. One of them is to spend time working as a medical scribe.
The job of medical scribe can act as a nice introduction to clinical practice before a med school student is ever ready to get their hands dirty, so to speak. Fortunately, we offer a number of certification programs for medical scribe specialists. We invite you to learn more about them if this particular career path interests you.
As always, we do not want you to misunderstand the content of this post. There is no requirement to work as a medical scribe prior to going to med school or becoming a clinician. It’s just that doing so could have a positive impact on your eventual medical career over the long term.
What Medical Scribes Do
The medical scribe’s position is more or less a support position. Medical scribes document the relationships between clinicians and patients. A medical scribe records the details of a patient’s visit. Records relating to the patient’s history, medical decisions, and care plans are also created. It is all done electronically thanks to electronic health records (EHR) policies that are now industry standard.
How It Could Enhance Your Med School Training
Now that you know what a medical scribe does, perhaps you are curious as to how you could enhance your med school training by spending some time working in the field. Right off the top, working as a medical scribe puts you in the thick of things. Every day you go to work will give you an opportunity to experience what clinical practice is like. You’ll get to observe how clinicians respond, how they make decisions, and even how they deal with the ups and downs of the job.
Such real-world experience will ultimately prove invaluable as you complete med school and go on to practice yourself. But there’s more. Working as a medical scribe could enhance your med school training via:
- Shadowing Opportunities – Future clinicians are expected to have documented shadowing hours before starting med school. As a medical scribe, shadowing is part of the job.
- Understanding Terminology – Medicine has its own terminology that cannot be avoided. You’ll get to learn and understand a ton of it working as a medical scribe. That means less to learn in med school.
- Research Opportunities – Working as a medical scribe could open the doors to research that will broaden your knowledge and enhance what you learn in medical school.
- Better Communication – Medical scribes need to be solid communicators to succeed. Spending time as a scribe should improve your communication skills, which can only help you in med school.
- Better Decision Making – Working as a medical scribe will give you a better understanding of how medical decisions are made. When you get to med school, decision making will not be merely theoretical. You will have real world experience.
Granted, working as a medical scribe requires a time commitment. Your schedule might already be pretty full as you prepare for medical school. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, working as a medical scribe could prove an invaluable training ground that boosts both your education and your eventual career.
ProTrain offers three different certification programs for medical scribes. Take a look at them while you’re here on our website. If you have any questions about signing up or getting started, don’t be afraid to ask. To speak with a career counselor, call 1 (844) 292-8641
