I want to do some volunteer work. Does volunteer work have to be medical-related in order to apply for med schools?
Thanks for answering.
Medical schools expect both clinical (medicine-related) and non-clinical volunteer work from applicants.
Clinical volunteering because it gives a taste to potential doctors of what working with the sick, injured, chronically ill, mentally ill, elderly & demented and their families (their future patients) is like.
Non-clinical volunteering with those less fortunate than themselves because it demonstrates altruism and selflessness.
I can only speak only from D’s experience. She had some I would say more “clinical” experiences. But they were short, summer time experiences. Her longest commitment - 3 years during school year - happened to be non-clinical. This one was the most rewarding (for her!), resulted in further developing of communication skills and was very unusual for a pre-med. Actually, D. was the only pre-med in that facility, the other student volunteers were psych major. Going forward, her unusual for a pre-med volunteering experience along with her also unusual Music minor were the most common topics of her medical school interviews.
I would say, that maybe you should pursue some clinical experiences but do not overlook others that maybe very rewarding to you personally. D. had a chance to save somebody’s life (according to police) during her non-clinical volunteering. Who would forget that?
Both for the reasons given by WOWM. Note that medical-related volunteering doesn’t have to be done in a hospital and it doesn’t have to be done during the school year. S’s athletic commitment made volunteering during the school year too difficult. It was all done over the summers and non-hospital based.