Non traditional, ex-server and now stay at home mom to a Deaf toddler trying to figure out clinicals and shadowing

Hi!

I’m in my junior year of college and am a psych major, last year I wanted to shift gears and commit to premed but with Covid it made getting some of those requirements hard. I’m looking at a post-bacc to get my required classes in and found one that seems like a great fit. I have a 3.97 gpa and 4.00 science gpa (bio and chem)

I am 32 and most of my work experience has been in the service industry (serving, cooking and managing) and volunteering at outreach programs and clinics. I had our first baby during Covid and left the service industry to spend time at home with him. Around 10 months we realized he is Deaf, he’s actually the 5th generation in our family and something we’re quite proud of! However this also means I’m driving two hours three times a week to his speech therapy, have a ton of audiology appointments as well, have meetings with a Deaf mentor and ASL classes. I have at least one of these 5 days a week, sometimes two of them in the same day. We are planning on moving to a more populated area with a Deaf school and our son will be able to do almost everything we have now in one place, so it’ll be easier and my husband has a flexible schedule so he’ll be able to take him to school when I’m in school. We weren’t going to move until I was accepted to a program though.

I think my grades will be solid but I am worried about getting clinical and shadowing experience in as we are Very rural and I have a crazy schedule, there’s also not a lot of opportunity within a 2 hour drive. I’m very proud of my story and caring for our son and am wondering if this will mean anything on my application? I know I want to go into psychiatry and serve the Deaf community and keep volunteering with outreach programs, so I’m feeling prepared in that area but it might not be enough on an application?

Thank you!!

Due to covid situations there are a lot of clinical experiences online now but the one i like is HEAL network Clinical shadowing HEAL101
Link: HEAL 101 - July 2022 - Crowdcast
so what you do is register for free (have to re-register each month) and every month is a new series, every Wednesday they do a crowd-cast that’s live but you can look at it anytime after its posted and there is a quiz after (it really helps to take detailed notes) its very interactive even if you don’t do the live version. you can watch the hour long video and do the quiz on your time, I think in order to get the certificate for the month you have to do all 4 for that month and make sure you do the quizzes all within that month and/or the first 2 weeks of the next month. if you can do one hour of clinical shadowing a week it doesn’t matter what time and you get a certificate and say you did x amount of hours of shadowing… even in a rural area with not much opportunity.