<p>I know that volunteering is an integral part of one's acceptance to medical school because of all the experience dealing with patients and the general healthcare setting it gives you, but what level of volunteerism is expected by medical school adcoms from undergraduate students?</p>
<p>Throughout high school (over the summers) I volunteered over 500 hours in the perioperative area of a city hospital. My tasks included transporting and discharging patients, secretarial duties, bringing patients food / drink, and basically running errands throughout the hospital. I had plenty of interaction with patients both before and after surgication. </p>
<p>I know that my hours volunteering in high school are meaningless to medical school adcoms and that I need to volunteer more as an undergrad, but is there more that I can do in terms of volunteering or am I better off to just keep doing what I did in high school? To me it just feels silly to do the same level of volunteering as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I think what you did is awesome! What adcoms are looking for is real commitment to helping other people. Making sure the description of your work emphasizes that aspect will be helpful.
Now, how to take it to the next level: Why not, as a college student, organize the volunteer corps from several high schools and act, of course with the blessing of the hospital's volunteer services co-ordinator, as a full time staffing agent? I'm sure it could be done and would help all concerned. Anyway, that's just one thought. In any case, keep up the good work & good luck!</p>
<p>My next door neighbor does interviews for Tuft's med school, and does other admissions stuff. He has quite the opposite views on volunteering. Everybody who tries to get into med. school needs to volunteer thats a given, but not at a hospital doing pointless non-medical jobs. What he described to me as good is working with a doctor, or doing medical reasearch with a doctor, not just doing pointless things around a hospital. Getting an allaround view of medcine while being immersed within it is what they love to see. They would much rather take people who have worked with a doctor and have something to show for it, rather then someone who was just there and did everything like everyone else.</p>
<p>You are completely wrong. A high school student isn't going to learn anything that is in any way meaningful medically speaking. What we would like to see from applicants is a dedication to helping human beings. Volunteering allows the young person to do just that. Following a doctor around his office is pointless.</p>
<p>You may have misunderstood me I was refering to college years and volunteering then. I am telling you this because I have talked about it extensively with him. And as I said he looks for people that work in labs at med. schools and in hospitals for undergrads. Maybe its different for other med. schools I don't know. He said that the thing that won't get you into Tufts Med. is just plain old pointless volunteering at a hospital during your undergrad years. But maybe you know something different.</p>
<p>Look, understand this: volunteering is not pointless unless you make it that way. Volunteering is about helping. If you're happy to help someone get their dinner into their mouth, you're the kind of person we want as a colleague. If you want to dream up some kind of way to look smarter than the guy next to you, we aren't at all moved. Your transcript and MCATs will tell us all we want to know about your intellectual capacity; tell us about your capacity for compassion with the rest of your time.</p>
<p>I understand your point clearly but as I said this must be one of the things they look for in Tufts. I am basising this off of what he told me and he is an extremely well respected Cardio-thoracic surgeon. Maybe in your part of the country its different but around here all the Yale docs and such that I know are not people that are liked for being kind to their colleagues, but are respected by their peers for being good at their job and being able to think new techniques up.
All this being said I know exactly what you mean by showing your compassion and caring for people. I think its a fine line between balancing the brains and the compassion towards people, and your general love for medicine. Having all of one thing and not the other won't get you in. Having both in a good balance along with good manners and comportment will get you in. Along with the high grade bias.</p>
<p>This summer I am taking a full year course to get a GER out of the way. This is the only summer I can take a class at another college. Along with that, I will volunteer at the hospital (per your helpful advice.) My question is, will it kill me to NOT do research/internship the summer after my freshman year? I think with the class and volunteering taking up much of my time I will have a hard time fitting in a research position / internship. Is it okay for me to just work at my regular, non medically related, flexible part time job this summer? The following summers I could concentrate on a.) volunteering and b.) research / internship...no classes. Also, I will be further into my major (maybe neuroscience) so will I be a better candidate for a position as opposed to a freshman just getting started? </p>
<p>3 quick comments/opinions from 22 years of working in a hospital:</p>
<p>Volunteering of all kinds is good - it does not have to be directly related to medicine; it could be anything.</p>
<p>Experience working with the public is good, and also does not have to be directly related to medicine. Many rosey ideals of "helping people" collide painfully with the reality of actually dealing with the public on a daily basis. People can be extraordinarily resistant to attempts to "help" them. Also, the fundamental nature of people does not change in a positive way just because they become patients. If someone still wants to "help people" after spending 6 months behind the counter at McDonalds, then they truly have a strong position. Someone who has never really worked with the public may want to look for other aspects of a career in medicine that they would find rewarding if "helping people" turns out to be less gratifying than they were expecting. </p>
<p>Many adults had wonderful experiences volunteering in hospitals when they were younger. But because of concerns about liability and patient privacy, today's young people frequently cannot get the same experience. Most hospitals no longer allow volunteers, especially teen volunteers, to do anything that is going to be highly informative. They tend to get relegated to some area like the gift shop. If you want to watch doctors in action actually interacting with patients, you may be disappointed.</p>