<p>I'm confused as to what med schools actually expect you to get from it?...</p>
<p>I spent my summer volunteering at in an OR and ER. I got to see how the two specialties differ (i.e. environment, "hierarchy"), got to sit on surgeries in the OR, shadow a vascular surgeon for a bit - had one patient where I got to see the whole "process" - diagnosis, surgery, followup (well at least the doc told me he was doing better a few days later :p...), talk to ER patients and hang out with the nurses, restock/clean beds, and see some really weird cases in the ER (i was volunteering at night only). </p>
<p>I guess I learned that I wasn't very interested in long term relationships (from following a surgeon around), and really enjoyed the ER experience. But is this enough? Is this what I was supposed to find out? Or do they seriously expect me to do real patient interaction. Someone please don't tell me my summer was "wasted" and that I should've gotten a research position or something instead.</p>
<p>What you did (i.e., shadowing and some volunteering) if fine. Obviously, more pt care experience would be a plus but it sounds like you at least got your feet wet a bit. The question is whether or not you can talk about it in an interview. You need to be able to show your INFORMED interest in medicine through this experience.</p>
<p>Well, there’s no specific things they’re looking for exactly. They just want you to get a feel for how it is to be a doctor, to make sure that this is a career you’re really dedicated to. After all, someone with medical experience can likely make a stronger argument in favor of being a doctor than someone who has none.</p>
<p>Everyone gains something different from their experiences. In terms of medical school, “How do these experiences contribute to why you want to be a doctor?” You came out of your experience with some opinions about what you might want to do with your career. That’s a step in the right direction because you gained a perspective of what being a doctor might entail and where you stand on that.</p>
<p>Clinical experience probably differs depending on the candidate, but it’s basically experience that gives you an insight into the medical field. So, what you did was clinical experience. Medical schools will likely want to know how this clinical experience affected you. For example: Can you better describe why you want to be a doctor now? If you were interested in a certain specialty, could you back it up now?</p>
<p>Hope that helps. Of course, these are my own opinions based on what I’ve come across so far and may not necessarily hold true in all scenarios, so take that how you will.</p>
<p>But thats clinical experience, and it sounds like what OP did was shadow with some volunteering. The point of volunteering I would think is actually SERVICE</p>
<p>and if you’re in it for the money (which is totally fine, i mean, this is america where you can pursue happiness, right?) then just stretch your experience out a bit like the way you usually have to when you write an essay about a book in english</p>
<p>I do not know what Med. Schools getting out of this, but I know that D. herself got a lot out of her volunteering and shadowing Specifically usefull was working with newborns. She observed doctors interacting with parents and decided that pediatrics is not for her for that reason, although she liked other aspects of it, like dealing with children. She definitely had very positive experiences also and started thinking about potential specialties. She will have these experiences during Med. School and change her mind many times. However, as a pre-med, it might help her choosing her Med. School.</p>
<p>I’m in the process of applying to medical school right now and I have exactly 0 hours volunteering in a hospital. </p>
<p>I have hundreds of hours of volunteering with an agency in my town though, doing very meaningful work with their clients.</p>
<p>I have hundreds of hours of shadowing concentrated on two doctors (supplemented by a little time with multiple others too).</p>
<p>Don’t waste your time volunteering just to volunteer so you can check it off some “list” or something. Do it because you’ve found a cause you’re passionate about and want to become a better person by working for it. Notice a problem, find a novel solution to it. If you approach service with the attitude of “This will help me grow as a person and will probably help me discover if a career dedicated to working in service to others as a physician will be worthwhile” rather than “I have to get X amount of hours spread across X amount of departments so I can write it on my med school resume” you’ll get a lot more out of it!</p>
<p>As a pediatric resident if I had a dollar for everytime I got a “ooohh, peds, loved the kids, hated the parents” it would be a lot easier to pay off my med school debt…</p>
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<p>THIS is what “volunteering” is.</p>
<p>What the OP has described is SHADOWING. Obviously, there’s a big difference.
Shadowing should be to get exposure to medicine, to really see (even if only in small doses) what it’s like when people are coming to you with their problems. By and large, most of medicine is performed when the patient is miserable and doesn’t feel well, when they (or their family) are stressed and scared, and when the last thing anyone wants to do is be “nice”. Until you’ve seen it, you don’t know what it’s like to have 20, 40, or 60 people come to you in a day and tell you their problems. You also don’t know what it’s like when the sounds and especially the smells take over your day.</p>
<p>Ah, my misunderstanding bigredmed. I interpreted this guy’s question like this: “This summer, I volunteered in an ER. I got to do thus and such. It didn’t seem like it meant that much. What is the point of volunteering if it didn’t mean much when I did it the way it was recommended?” [Probably by a pre-med society/advisor]. So I was speaking to the “point of volunteering.”</p>
<p>You’re right in that it seems like OP ended up doing some shadowing that was unfulfilling. Don’t really know the answer to that one, other than what I’ve experience, which I referenced in an above post. </p>
Glad you agree with my analysis of volunteering though!</p>