I still have all my prereqs to do for medical school, so I’m a couple years from even being able to apply. At that time I will have a lot of direct patient care experience that will be between 7-10 years old. I worked as a CNA, EMT, and an MA, but stopped working when I had my first baby and began going to college. We have also moved a few times since then (husband is in the military) so I am not licensed or certified in the state I currently live in to work any of these types of jobs. I currently volunteer for a hospice where I get direct patient care, and I am training to be a Crisis Counselor with the Crisis Text Line, and I don’t know if that can be construed as direct patient care…
Anyway, my main question is, will my previous work experience be too old to include on applications as clinical experience? Will they look poorly on it because I have had a huge gap due to school and babies and moving?
You have recent clinical experience which is good, and I don’t think your previous work experience is too old at all. A few of my ECs on my application were from 10+ years ago, and nobody seemed to mind. I think as long as you can tell the story of why you have a gap in there (probably best to mention it in your PS), then you should be fine. You’re doing well to get involved again, because recent experience will probably still be more beneficial than the older stuff.
In my not-an-adcom opinion, applicants discount too quickly the value of their past experiences. Regardless of how long ago it was, you still had the experience, and you still learned whatever it was you learned from the experience. If you can still recount why those experiences made you a better person, drove you towards medicine, etc, then they are still very valid experiences. Sure, you may be asked why they were so remote or why you didn’t continue said thing, but you seem to have very good reasons for why you had to step away and move on. We’re all human, and as non-trads, we all have more things going on in our lives that may pull us in different directions compared to those people who have only lived as a student. Your experience as a mother is arguably way more beneficial “training” as a caregiver than any volunteer position you could take with patient care. When I applied, I had zero direct patient care experience outside of shadowing, had zero background in medicine, but was able to make a case for myself by explaining how all of my other experiences, including being a husband/father, made me a strong applicant. Granted, all of our applications will be different. However, think about what experiences/lessons people get from the cookie-cutter requirements and how the things you have done in your life may have taught you those same lessons. You don’t have to fit the mold, you just have to sell yourself as someone who can fulfill the LCME and patient expectations of what a physician should be.