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How much volunteer experience do the medical schools (esp. in Texas) look for. is over an year enough. 
another question about Texas schools
- Thread starter applicant2002
- Start date
Ask not what you can do for admissions committees but what you can do for yourself. [John Kennedy did not acknowledge me as the source for his inspirational speech!]
The important thing about volunteering is not the clock hours you logged but what you learned about yourself, patients, physicians, other health team members, hospitals, the system, etc. Insight is the key and the ability to discuss it, if asked at an interview, clearly and WITH FEELING.
Volunteering is not primarlily for observing techniques and learning about illness and treatment: that is what you go to medical school for. But medical school does not have courses to teach you about yourself and then, after becoming a medical student and later physician, to discover if medicine is a realistic suitable career for you, one that matches your personality, ability to communicate effectively with others, especially patients and all who are a part of the health care team, a career that will meet life style expectations and your abilities. You can be both brilliant and a disaster as a physician, in the same way that you will meet, or may have already have met, brilliant women and men who cannot teach effectively or relate on a personal level to colleagues, students, anyone.
The prime directive: know thyself.
Years ago there was a popular and moral comic strip not really about being comical and not really for children. It was Walt Kelley's Pogo, a swamp dwelling possum. One of the best remembered and penetrating lines was Pogo saying: "We has met the enemy, and he is us."
Volunteering is as much, if not more, a voyage of self-discovery than of exploration of medicine itself. The most difficult new worlds to find lie within ourselves.
The important thing about volunteering is not the clock hours you logged but what you learned about yourself, patients, physicians, other health team members, hospitals, the system, etc. Insight is the key and the ability to discuss it, if asked at an interview, clearly and WITH FEELING.
Volunteering is not primarlily for observing techniques and learning about illness and treatment: that is what you go to medical school for. But medical school does not have courses to teach you about yourself and then, after becoming a medical student and later physician, to discover if medicine is a realistic suitable career for you, one that matches your personality, ability to communicate effectively with others, especially patients and all who are a part of the health care team, a career that will meet life style expectations and your abilities. You can be both brilliant and a disaster as a physician, in the same way that you will meet, or may have already have met, brilliant women and men who cannot teach effectively or relate on a personal level to colleagues, students, anyone.
The prime directive: know thyself.
Years ago there was a popular and moral comic strip not really about being comical and not really for children. It was Walt Kelley's Pogo, a swamp dwelling possum. One of the best remembered and penetrating lines was Pogo saying: "We has met the enemy, and he is us."
Volunteering is as much, if not more, a voyage of self-discovery than of exploration of medicine itself. The most difficult new worlds to find lie within ourselves.
Amy B
I miss my son so much
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Nicely said Gower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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WOW, I learned something!!!
