Caught of Guard:
My dream career is to become a pediatrician and I am currently taking pre med classes. However, my reality is far from it. You see have been working at retail store since I was 16 years old helping my family. A few days, ago, my friend took me to a networking event filled with students that have a background in medicine. I felt so out of place and to make matters worse one of the faculty members who is in charge of the event made a rude comment saying I was not willing to advance myself because of retail background. Really!!!! I was so angry and beyond hurt. How do I use my retail experience to my advantage to network into the medical field?
I know you are hurt, but don't take it personal. Raise above it. I would suggest to go to the library and get some resources about the medical field. There are even books on internships across the country. I would even reach out to the faculty member and ask how can you advance yourself. You will be surprised the reaction you will get.
I would use retail as a skill and not as experience. You see, to work in retail you need to be patient, friendly, learn to adapt to a fast environment and more than likely MULTI TASK!!! So you can handle being in that environment, school, and taking care of family. I am pretty sure you will need most of those skills to be successful in the medical field.
One of the most important things working retail taught me was how to ask questions. I seems like a simple thing, but it really isn't. In my field, asking good questions help me get to the heart of what my clients want to find out, what it is they're really interested in. It saves me uncounted hours spent on chasing down things my clients didn't want to know anyway. While I'm not in the medical field, I can see the same thing applying there -- learning how to interact with people and how to ask questions effectively is a vital skill that's rarely taught in formal coursework. I'm sure if you emphasize (and demonstrate!) those skills when you're networking with people in the field you're trying to break into, it won't be long before you succeed.
That is rude and inconsiderate! Don't let it discourage or distract you from achieving your dream. Use it as a motivator to work harder and push to the next level.
Retail is a great start in dealing with people (who are sometimes patients). You have to deal with the public and you also have to with the medical field. I went to X-Ray school with no background in anything related to medical, and I stayed in this field for 25 years. If you let people discourage you, you will never do anything. Good Luck, it sounds like you are a hard worker, also.