How to get hospital volunteer hours?

[DenTony11235]

I'm in Brooklyn, NY. Every hospital i go to seems to have their hands full of volunteers. Do you guys have any suggestions on how to land some kind of shadowing or hospital volunteer position?

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[LizzyM]

Check out http://hospicenyc.org/volunteer/ They have a facility in Boro Park.

 

[Oso]

I agree with LizzyM in that you should look into hospice volunteering. I found it to be a very rewarding experience, and I enjoyed discussing it in interviews.

If you still want to do hospital volunteering, I would ask the volunteer offices if there is a time of year when they have a lot of openings and may have a position for you. For example, where I volunteered, they always had premeds leave during the summer months, so that was always the best time to look for positions.

Do keep in mind that volunteering is not the same as shadowing. You will have to do physician shadowing in a couple different fields to get a feel for what medicine is like and show schools that you know what you're getting yourself into. I've found that the best way to set up shadowing is through people/groups that have connections. Is there a pre-med organization or club on campus?

note: I just saw your 'pre-dental' status, so not sure if my shadowing bit applies to you or not. Either way, good luck!

 

[LostinLift]

Apply for a job scribing - once you're working as a scribe ask to shadow some doctors there. Volunteer in non-clinical areas, you'll get to do more helpful things (for the most part).

 

[kyamh]

For what it is worth, I tried volunteering in a Boston hospital - also a place saturated with premed volunteers - and I really hated my experience there. Not only did I not get to interact with any physicians, but the volunteers were also taking work away from and actively making life more difficult for paid (not well paid) hospital employees.

If there is a volunteer wait list, run far far away and look into other volunteering opportunities, like the ones mentioned in this thread.

 

[DenTony11235]

Thanks so much guys. LizzyM I've filled out the application. If anyone else has any advice please message me or reply here, I'm very actively looking for something now since Ill be applying to Med school this upcoming cycle. I've switched from pre-dent to pre-med, so i'll change my status now.

 

[baconshrimps]

I'm in Brooklyn, NY. Every hospital i go to seems to have their hands full of volunteers. Do you guys have any suggestions on how to land some kind of shadowing or hospital volunteer position?

Have you tried Maimonides?

 

[Oso]

Thanks so much guys. LizzyM I've filled out the application. If anyone else has any advice please message me or reply here, I'm very actively looking for something now since Ill be applying to Med school this upcoming cycle. I've switched from pre-dent to pre-med, so i'll change my status now.

Wait, when did you switch? Do you have enough shadowing and clinical experience to apply this summer?

 

[LostinLift]

Thanks so much guys. LizzyM I've filled out the application. If anyone else has any advice please message me or reply here, I'm very actively looking for something now since Ill be applying to Med school this upcoming cycle. I've switched from pre-dent to pre-med, so i'll change my status now.

If you apply this summer with no clinical experience you will most likely end up with no interviews come Fall. Like Oso said above how much clinical experience do you have?

 

[FlatFour]

Another pro-tip, I usually directly call the location at which I want to volunteer. I give them my name, tell them I'm a University student hoping to get into med school and blah blah blah, and they tell me what I have to do. The point is I make verbal contact which in my experience never hurts.

 

[LizzyM]

I concur. If you are going to start volunteering now, winter 2014, with the hope of starting med school in 2015, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Start volunteering but also make some plans to do something (employment, research, full-time service, MS) during the 2015-2016 cycle and hold off applying until June 2015.

 

[DenTony11235]

Wait, when did you switch? Do you have enough shadowing and clinical experience to apply this summer?

I do not have any at this point. I have volunteer ship with my club operation smile. I have over 100 hours shadowing various dentists. I do not have anything else.

That's why I was looking to start shadowing asap. Applying as late as next year is not an option.

 

[Oso]

I do not have any at this point. I have volunteer ship with my club operation smile. I have over 100 hours shadowing various dentists. I do not have anything else.

That's why I was looking to start shadowing asap. Applying as late as next year is not an option.

Unfortunately, you will need a lot more clinical experience and shadowing in order to be a competitive applicant. Look more into hospice/hospital volunteering and look into shadowing. With the exception of shadowing (kind of), these are things that schools want to see you do for an extended period of time. I don't think condensing it all into one super-packed semester would look very good.

Remember that you need to convince medical schools that you are serious about medicine. You're starting at a slight disadvantage, having recently been interested in and pursuing dentistry. Schools will need to see passion and commitment towards medicine, things that will take more than one semester to properly demonstrate.

What are your plans for the MCAT? What about letters of recommendation that address your interest in and ability to pursue medicine? I highly suggest you consider applying in 2015 or after. You definitely have a shot at medical schools, but you have to be strategic about it, you can't just rush in and apply.

 

[DenTony11235]

I don't have school at the moment. I can devote many hours to shadowing/volunteering right now. You guys are saying its impossible for me to apply and get in this cycle because they'll see that I only started extracurriculars so recently?

I have volunteer experience with OP Smile and shadowing dentists. Does that count for nothing?

 

[Oso]

I don't have school at the moment. I can devote many hours to shadowing/volunteering right now. You guys are saying its impossible for me to apply and get in this cycle because they'll see that I only started extracurriculars so recently?

I have volunteer experience with OP Smile and shadowing dentists. Does that count for nothing?

I'm not going to tell you that anything is impossible, but I do think it's highly unlikely. And shadowing a dentist does not give you insight into the life and duties of a physician.

Also, without any physician shadowing experience, how do you know for sure that medicine is the career for you?

 

[baconshrimps]

Also, without any physician shadowing experience, how do you know for sure that medicine is the career for you?

This is a question that will come up at an interview, for certain, if you have no shadowing/clinical experiences or a LOR from a physician.

That being said, all of my shadowing happened after I decided I wanted to apply to medical school. I think medicine is one of only a handful of careers today that necessitates you become involved in an extracurricular activities that borders on apprenticeship in order to be admitted to the field. Most other careers and even switching between careers just requires you to climb the ladder by taking some entry level or mid level position.

 

[Planes2Doc]

I don't have school at the moment. I can devote many hours to shadowing/volunteering right now. You guys are saying its impossible for me to apply and get in this cycle because they'll see that I only started extracurriculars so recently?

I have volunteer experience with OP Smile and shadowing dentists. Does that count for nothing?

Devoting many hours to volunteering in a short time frame can actually hurt you, since you will come off as a "Box Checker." This is why the timing of ECs must be strategically planned lomg before applying. Even though a good number of applicants don't give a crap about volunteering, they have the longevity to make it look like they care. Unfortunately, doing this too late in the game will not help you.

 

[LizzyM]

I don't have school at the moment. I can devote many hours to shadowing/volunteering right now. You guys are saying its impossible for me to apply and get in this cycle because they'll see that I only started extracurriculars so recently?

I have volunteer experience with OP Smile and shadowing dentists. Does that count for nothing?

If you have done charitable work, such as OP Smile (is that like Operation Smile, service to the needy who have congenital defect?) you do have some "experience" to put on your application that shows that you have made an effort to help people and are not just all talk in that regard.

 

[Swagster]

Where I'm at, there are several volunteer factories where you can get 200+ hours in a nine month span. But the truth of these places is that you stand around much of the time and go through the motions. One on one interactions with a physician would seem so much better, but obviously harder to come by and there's no way to amass 200+ hours. Are there any schools that consider the quality of the clinical experience over the quantity?

 

[Boolean]

Where I'm at, there are several volunteer factories where you can get 200+ hours in a nine month span. But the truth of these places is that you stand around much of the time and go through the motions. One on one interactions with a physician would seem so much better, but obviously harder to come by and there's no way to amass 200+ hours. Are there any schools that consider the quality of the clinical experience over the quantity?

I would feel practically every school would value this. If you walk into an interview with 2,000 hours of hospital experience logged and the experience most enlightening to you was figuring out how to get the crisp machine to dispense more than one bag of lays, you're going to have a bad time. Sure, having lots of hours is good, but it's what you learned in those hours that is important (From what you can see posted, you should at least maintain a reasonable minimum of hours though, 100+ seems to be a go-to number)

 

[Planes2Doc]

Where I'm at, there are several volunteer factories where you can get 200+ hours in a nine month span. But the truth of these places is that you stand around much of the time and go through the motions. One on one interactions with a physician would seem so much better, but obviously harder to come by and there's no way to amass 200+ hours. Are there any schools that consider the quality of the clinical experience over the quantity?

That's the problem with the process. Volunteering isn't an actual requirement, which means there's no oversight. Therefore, volunteering is kind of like Vegas, minus 99.99% of the fun. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Same with volunteering. What happens in the hospital, stays in the hospital (for reasons like HIPAA among others).

Because of this, I'm assuming that most applicants will embellish their experiences. No one wants to say that they were a glorified janitor that worked for free 95% of the time. But honestly, all you really need is a couple of good experiences, and those aren't too hard to get if you'll be volunteering for an extended period of time. Therefore, you can have applicants ranging from being almost a part of the hospital team, all the way to those who sign in and ditch. Then due to the lack of oversight, the pre-meds from both ends of the spectrum will both write about their "amazing" experience volunteering.

That's the way it is. There isn't much oversight. If an ADCOM is suspicious, they might call to verify hours, but that's as far as it goes. Even though you may have many verifiable hours, whatever you have done during those hours is only bounded by your imagination.

And ladies and gentlemen... That's where the problem lies with the process.