I seem to have covered the whole spectrum.
I began volunteering idealistically, quickly transitioned to mildly disliking it. The hospital was interesting academically speaking but in a practical sense: all the people on my floor were unconsious, no family visits during my timeslots, very few doctors, and a young surgeon hitting on me.
Me: "no I DONT want to go to the bar thanks"
On the positive side I the sole master of the juice cart --yes, for the unconsious population--so... take that as you will I guess.
I then switched to ER and Peds ER rotation and found that I really enjoyed it There was more that I could do (talk to patients/families, assist nurses and doctors etc) so where you are is everything. Just being brave and talking to patients makes it a lot more fun than just stocking towels/juice cart. In the end it was a very interesting and valuable experience.
But, I will say that I didnt learn much about the life of a doctor from volunteering and as far as the volunteering giving you greater insight into dilemas of the patient(ie extreme empathy, doctoroid avoidance)...um ... I doubt it. People either empathize or they dont (or arent at a life-stage where they can). My mom passed away from ovarian cancer junior year (almost a year ago exactly now) and I can tell you that there is NO part of volunteering that will allow you to understand what difficulties such as this mean for the patient(hey its true). Thats life experience.
HOWEVER, I can say that as a family member I appreciated all the volunteers a lot. Probably a lot more than they knew because I often forgot to say thanks. You guys do make a big difference. Furthermore contact with people having chronic illnesses gives good insight into the limits of current medicine, the need for research and the fact that not everything is fixable (whatever the surgeons in the audience might say.
) But I'll get off my interview horse and just say that whenever I volunteer now I try to remember that and just talk to people. And hey, Im a math major who wants to go into academic medicine (read socially inept by nature) so if I can like it y'all might as well give it a shot.