Advice for a Nontrad

Hi all!

Soo im coming from a nontrad background. Not sure if that means much - I got my original degree in PR, worked for a few years in the field before I decided I wanted to go to medical school. It’s been nearly 2.5 years since then and I’ve been steadily taking my pre-req’s. I’ll be finishing my pre-reqs shortly and will start studying for the MCAT and I need some real advice here.

I’m working full time (i support myself fully) and going to school part time. I have other volunteer/obligations that keep me pretty busy outside of work.

How important is research experience? I currently have zero and am not sure how to go about getting any. I haven’t really been able to get any either, considering i’ve been supporting myself for a while so it never fit in. I work for a very well known retina specialist practice, and we have a research department but i’ve never heard of them taking anyone on in a non-employed research capacity…..maybe I could see if I could help out? Huge doubt that happens though - so what are some common paths for research experience?

I’ve been working as a medical scribe for ophthalmologists (who specialize in retina) for the past two years, before which I was a tech who mainly worked with patients. Obviously this sort of equates to a ton of face to face doctor time and patient interaction. Can this count as shadowing? I asked a doctor before and he said it absolutely could, because I’m doing all the things I would be doing while shadowing - the only difference is i’m getting a paycheck for it. Does this make sense?

For non-clinical volunteering- I’ve been doing regular volunteer work though my church and leading other groups and roles in a non-employee capacity the last three years. Do you think this counts?

Thanks guys- any honest and helpful advice is greatly appreciated!