If you’ve worked as a medical assistant or will be filling out the AMCAS primary application, you will most likely be writing some sort of description for your experience. It can be tricky, though trying to figure out if you want to write a story or tell it how it is, or just provide a simple job description. The truth is, all of these work, but sometimes it’s good to provide a mix of them throughout your 15 descriptions. Today, I’m going to walk you through how each method shines and give some examples you can follow!
Working as a medical assistant is one of the best if not THE BEST experience you can have before applying to medical school. I regard it as the single best thing I ever did in college and the best part of my application. You’ve probably helped many sick patients, made awesome memories with them, and got to do some really good clinical tasks. You’ll have gotten to interact with doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and every other health professional too!
As a result, medical assisting will likely be one of your 15 AMCAS experience descriptions and you’ll need to write a paragraph about it to the medical schools. You may be wondering “How do I write an amcas experience description?” or “How do I write a medical assistant amcas description?”. Well, I’ve got your answer today and some examples. Let’s walk through it!
If you haven’t become a certified medical assistant, check out my writeup on doing it WITHOUT A CLASS here. If you haven’t started medical assisting and want your first job doing it, see my write up here.
What are the amcas experience description categories?
To start, I’ll explain the amcas experience descriptions. You have 15 total slots for your descriptions and they come in many different categories, so you have to pick what fits your activity best. However, it encompasses everything, even hobbies! Here are the options:
Artistic Endeavors
Community Service/Volunteer – Medical/Clinical
Community Service/Volunteer – Not Medical/Clinical
Conferences Attended
Extracurricular Activities
Hobbies
Honors/Awards/Recognitions
Intercollegiate Athletics
Leadership – Not Listed Elsewhere
Military Service
Other
Paid Employment – Medical/Clinical
Paid Employment – Not Medical/Clinical
Physician Shadowing/Clinical Observation
Presentations/Posters
Publications
Research/Lab
Social Justice/Advocacy
Teaching/Tutoring/Teaching Assistant
In total, there’s 19 of them. You can only choose one though! What I found was that a lot of my activities could be multiple of these, so I just had to pick the one I felt it best represented.
What do you fill out on the amcas experience description?
Within each individual activity, you will have to type out the:
Experience name
Contact name, their title, email address, and phone number
Organization name
City/state/country
Most meaningful experience (Yes or no question, you can have a max of 3 of these)
Completed hours (plus start and end date)
Anticipated hours (plus start and end time)
What is the meaningful experience designation on amcas?
Now, these are all kind of self explanatory, but I wanted to explain the meaningful experience designation. These are experiences that you deem to be the “most meaningful” in your journey and as a result, they give you more character count/words to explain it. You normally get 700 characters to give your description and with this designation, you get an additional 1,350 characters. That’s a huge increase! With this, you can tell stories or really explain why it was important and what you did.
The medical assistant experience description:
Ok now we are ready for the description. I want to talk about the two main strategies you can use here.
Be factual and say exactly what you did & learned
OR
Tell a story that SHOWS what you did & learned
For me, I really tried to give a good balance between #1 and #2 throughout my 15 activities. However, I only used one strategy per activity unless it was a most meaningful description.
For strategy #1, you should say you called patients back, triaged them, took vitals, charted, did the lab tests, took blood, ran xrays, set orthotic devices, and anything else you did during your job. Talk about the patients you took care of, what you loved about caring for others, and reflect on the impact it had on you. How did it inspire you to be a doctor? Did you realize how much joy and interest you had in playing a role in the patient’s recovery?
An example would be something like this: 700 characters
“The clinic serves uninsured patients who are financially disadvantaged. I understand that high costs of medical care and health insurance cause many people to avoid medical care and I wanted to do what I could to help those who are in this position. I took patient vitals, drew blood, completed procedures such as ankle brachial index, and gained experience taking care of patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes. My experience reinforced that every person’s medical needs deserve to be attended to with the same level of care and empathy no matter their background. Ultimately, I saw how important it is for healthcare workers such as I to support and fund these clinics.”
For strategy #2, I recommend you think of a patient interaction or some sort of procedure you were charting in. It should be a story that shows that you were charting, interacting with physicians, and better yet, with patients. Talk about the joy you had celebrating with the patient that they were healed or better. Talk about how distraught you were when little Suzy walked in with a dog bite and was in pain. Speak to the emotions you had at the time and how you comforted the patient. These all show empathy, care, and attention to the patient. They SHOW your qualities without saying “I am empathetic” “I care about patients”.
Here’s an example: (most meaningful experience description)
“As my first experience with patient care and with physicians, many of my memories are of taking care of patients. For example, “Ella” was a teenage athlete and after taking her vitals, I asked her to explain what brought her to the clinic. She looked worried, tired, and was visibly fatigued. Ella had been feeling out of her normal for 2 weeks and was falling asleep in class, struggling to keep up in practices, and hadn’t improved. Her parents expressed that Ella not improving had been keeping them up at night and was a source of anxiety for the whole family. I communicated Ella’s concerns to Dr. L and followed her into the exam room where she listened to the family’s story and concerns.
Dr. L ordered a blood workup and a test for mononucleosis. I drew Ella’s blood, attained the complete blood count, and started a mononucleosis test. The mononucleosis test was positive. Dr. L gave the news and information about the illness to Ella and her family, who were all relieved. Their worry and anxiousness as to whether their daughter had a deeper health issue could be put to rest. Ella looked at her parents with a smile and said, “We don’t have to worry anymore!”. I felt an overwhelming feeling of joy and sense of purpose seeing her relief. I enjoyed being able to assist patients in times of their need or upon receiving a diagnosis. For many patients, their visit was the worst day of their week or even of their life. Being a part of the team that facilitated their treatment and restoring a feeling of confidence in patients that they could return to their normal lives is something I look forward to every day. Dr. L’s compassion for Ella and the relief we provided to Ella’s family was one of many instances that inspired me to become a physician. Experiences with patients such as Ella were the first confirmations that patient care is what I enjoy and sparked my desire to become a physician. “
Now, the story basically shows that you were working with a physician, charting things in an EMR, assisting with handing supplies around, consoling and working with patients, and being a great team player. It showed you being empathetic and caring towards our patient named Anne and hints to the reader that you care a TON about each patient and you look fondly upon memories of them recovering.
The story tells everything you did, mixes in that you did procedures, and also tells all about your care for the patient. These stories are not just good for SHOWING, but also are really good because they’re entertaining. After all, the committee are humans too and we all like to be entertained! The goal should be to keep the committee members reading. It’s like a mini-coffee session. What can you do or say that will get your point across AND keep the reader interested? They’re more likely to give an interview to someone they felt wrote a compelling, interesting story.
In my opinion, a story can accomplish and project many more values and reflections than a standard job description can.
One thing I want to note is I think it’s good to show/reflect on what you enjoyed the most or learned from the experience. In example #2, I explained that I found I loved the memories of patients recovering. It was a way to show how much I liked patient care while also indicating that I cared about their recovery.
Hopefully this helps you write your amcas experience description for medical assisting and gives you a good idea of the two primary strategies you can use!
If you were a scribe, you might benefit from reading my scribing experience description article.
If you had an artistic endeavor, you will want to check out my description of an artistic endeavor here.