Blood Donation

[MichaelRW]

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My roommate, also premed asked me my opinion on whether or not his long commitment to regular blood donation could be viewed as a form of service by adcoms. He has donated over 2 gallons over the last several years and still has about a year and a half until applying to med school. I told him that I thought it would be tacky to put something like that on your AMCAS...maybe even conceited in a way. I also told him that I would ask the SDN community for the opinions of other premeds and current medical students who have already been through the application process. So, what does everyone think??

 

[armybound]

Is he involved in donations in any other way? Running a blood drive, volunteering at the clinic.. anything other than simply giving?

It's a nice thought and I applaud him for it, but I don't think it even deserves mention in passing on the application, unless he was given some sort of award/recognition for it.

 

[Geekchick921]

I think it's kind of a weird thing to put as a service. I donate my body fluids regularly... odd.

However, maybe he should think about volunteering at some blood drives.

 

[MichaelRW]

I think it's kind of a weird thing to put as a service. I donate my body fluids regularly... odd.

this is exactly what i thought as well. it's certainly a nice gesture to be a regular donor of blood and its constituents, but i dont think it is worth addressing on the application unless having received a formal recognition of some sort.

 

[LizzyM]

Two gallons is, IIRC, 16 donations with 8 weeks between donations for a total of 128 weeks or >2 years of regular appointments. 👍

Two years ago I would have been sceptical but last year (or the year before) I saw someone with this commitment get admitted so it has been done successfully. It is altruisitic and shows an appreciation for the need for blood products that have no substitute in clinical care.

If you really want to help people and you are qualified to do so, you should consider rolling up your sleeve.

 

[tremulousNeedle]

If he is so daring as to include it in AMCAS, it should be among a couple other ways that he provides service.

 

[loveoforganic]

I donate my body fluids regularly... odd.

Me too

 

[Geekchick921]

Me too

Too bad your left sock isn't making your admission decision. 😛

 

[gmreed2]

It better be one heck of an entry because there is no commitment or possible way to check that he/she has actually completed this. First off, you can only donate one unit of blood every 2 months, but you'll only have to wait 3 days if you donate platelets.

If he/she is so determined to put this on the AMCAS I would advise setting up a couple of blood drives at the school. This is not difficult as you'll only have to help set up and take down the organization's equipment. Advertising the event and recruiting students to donate blood is usually easy with a good number of people helping and handing out flyers. This way you can hit two birds with one stone by saying that you donated a heck of a lot of blood in the past leading you to establish a blood drive (which will also give you the possibility of leaving the contact information of the organization that ran the drive).

 

[VTBuc]

Too bad your left sock isn't making your admission decision. 😛

Wait..there's a difference between left and right socks? 😱

 

[FloatOn]

I personally would not include this on AMCAS. I would hope your roommate has donated blood out of his good heart over the years rather than looking to put this on a med school application.

Too bad your left sock isn't making your admission decision. 😛

Wait..there's a difference between left and right socks? 😱

I'm going to stay out of this one. 🙂

 

[Depakote]

I was a regular platelet pheresis donor at the time of my application cycle and I opted not to put it on my app. I figured it was more of a donation than actual service and I didn't want to seem as if it was something I was doing just to pad my resume. That was just my personal preference.

 

[Geekchick921]

Wait..there's a difference between left and right socks? 😱

Supposedly...

The only time I can tell there's a difference is when my daughter's socks have a design on them that's supposed to face outward.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

I find rather odd that people who are so adamant on having some sort of "saving lives" activity in their volunteer section would be so opposed to having "regular blood donor" in their application. I can definitely see how having "ICU volunteer" (bringing water and blankets to patients and sitting behind a desk) would be so much more impressive than giving blood to someone who could possibly die without it. 🙄

I'll be putting regular blood donor on my app.

 

[Infinitydrop]

I find rather odd that people who are so adamant on having some sort of "saving lives" activity in their volunteer section would be so opposed to having "regular blood donor" in their application. I can definitely see how having "ICU volunteer" (bringing water and blankets to patients and sitting behind a desk) would be so much more impressive than giving blood to someone who could possibly die without it. 🙄

I'll be putting regular blood donor on my app.

I agree that you should mention it, maybe in your ps, but putting it in the acticities section seems a little strange to me.

 

[The Enchanter]

I've donated blood as often as I possibly can for about 4 years but it didn't occur to me to put it on my apps. It seems like this is just part of being a good citizen - might as well put "safe driver" or "regular voter" while you're at it. Listing "Blood Donor" on the AMCAS has the slight funk of desperation to pad your application. Good on your roommate for donating but I would recommend not including it on an application.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

It seems like this is just part of being a good citizen

That could be said for any volunteer (donation) activity.

 

[uhmm]

in my opinion, frequent blood donation is a much bigger service to society than playing with kids in the hospital ER and/or building 1/10 of a house for the poor somewhere in Africa, really, you are actually saving lives, I would definitely mention it somewhere on the app. If he can run a couple of blood drives, that would be a really nice way to tie into it.

 

[MBHockey]

I didn't put it on my AMCAS but I did mention it at an interview and it seemed like the interviewer liked it.

 

[2nite]

Lots of local bloodbanks will let you volunteer to be a recruiter and whatnot... but I think putting the donating itself down as a service on your application is a bit of a stretch. I personally think of it as a duty, which most people (who can donate) neglect. That being said...

I really hate the policies by which blood drives have to abide. First of all, I was technically ineligible to donate in the first place because I'm gay (and if you're a teenager and you're asked if you've had sex with another member of the same sex in the past few months, that's the exact same question). Second, I ignored that, really, and donated anyway. A month later, I got a letter in the mail saying they tested my blood and the first test came back positive for Hepatitis C, while the RIBA came back negative (which, according to the CDC means I don't have Hep C). I wasn't too worried (but still slightly freaking out) because you get Hep C from using injectable drugs, and I've never used any drugs, let alone injectable drugs. My doctor still wanted to run another test twice, and both times it came back negative. Still, according to CDC policies, I'm never allowed to donate blood again because of that one false positive. Because of ridiculous policies like this... and I'm going to bolden and make this large
only about one third of the population is eligible to donate blood.


I feel like I tell a little story in all of my posts. Half of which are made up for humor... but this is not humorous. It's true 🙁

But please tell your friend I said good job for donating, especially since so few people do. Because of your roommate, lots of lives have been saved. And the sad fact is that less than 5% of those 33% that can donate actually do 🙁 Why? Too chicken, methinks... I was only planning on doing the 2x Alyx donation once every six months (though it takes 4 months to become eligible) because it takes too much out of my exercise pattern (though that blood you donate takes 700 calories to regenerate, apparently! good diet regimen), but I was at least planning on doing it.

Luckily, though, on college campuses many more people donate blood than do in the general community. I think this is largely due to the higher level of education, as well as the competitions they have (ie., between fraternities... or the oh-so-famous who can give a pint the fastest... oh, wait, I've never seen that happening...)

 

[MT2MD]

I have volunteered in the blood bank for over 4 years and I can tell you that donating blood is truly a noble course. Often times I see parents of NICU babies coming into the blood bank to setup blood drives for their kids. We can't promise them a positive outcome, but we can guaranteed that we will not have a shortage of blood.

BTW,

500ml in 5min 21sec 😀

 

[2nite]

500ml in 5min 21sec 😀

You didn't pass out? Wow. I've never done the regular, but I know the Alyx took me like half an hour attached to the machine.

 

[SFANJUM]

why not, you are saving 3 lives for every donation. That is a very noble deed that many are too scared to do. i mean no body should brag about it, but it's still something worth mentioning.

Just put it down as a commit for life blood donor, but like any thing else, donating/volunteering just for the sake of putting it on your application and not planning to continue it after your acceptance is kind of selfish but donating for any reason is good.

 

[MT2MD]

You didn't pass out? Wow. I've never done the regular, but I know the Alyx took me like half an hour attached to the machine.

I started timing it right after the needle was in and the blood just started flowing down the tube. I have slightly high blood pressure so that is probably why I bleed pretty fast. But I have normal PT and APTT so it's all good.

 

[Practitioner]

I personally would not include this on AMCAS. I would hope your roommate has donated blood out of his good heart over the years rather than looking to put this on a med school application.

This is how I feel about all my EC activities. I don't do any of them to put them on my application, I do them because I like to make people smile and feel like I might have affected someone positively or motivated one of my students to pursue science.

None of what I do voluntarily feels worth mentioning it on the application. In fact, mentioning it almost detracts from the personal reward I feel and the selfish meaning I find in them. Using them as a selling point for med school applications makes them meaningless. I don't know if that makes sense. I can't be the only one to feel that way.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

I started timing it right after the needle was in and the blood just started flowing down the tube. I have slightly high blood pressure so that is probably why I bleed pretty fast. But I have normal PT and APTT so it's all good.

Posting an unofficial time is cheating 😛 From my experience, the phlebotomist/tech person times the donation and writes it somewhere...maybe on the actual bag? I will accept nothing less than the official time.

 

[Danae00]

.

 

[LizzyM]

This is how I feel about all my EC activities. I don't do any of them to put them on my application, I do them because I like to make people smile and feel like I might have affected someone positively or motivated one of my students to pursue science.

None of what I do voluntarily feels worth mentioning it on the application. In fact, mention it almost detracts from the personal reward I feel and the selfish meaning I find in them. Using them as a selling point for med school applications makes them meaningless. I don't know if that makes sense. I can't be the only one to feel that way.

Humble, selfless service is noteworthy. However, some adcoms will judge your application on "altruism" or "community service" or "volunteerism". If you have been so humble that you do not report what you've done, you will get no credit in that area. This could hurt your chances of being invited for interview. Don't let your selflessness bite you in the butt.

 

[MT2MD]

Posting an unofficial time is cheating 😛 From my experience, the phlebotomist/tech person times the donation and writes it somewhere...maybe on the actual bag? I will accept nothing less than the official time.

The phlebotomist always estimate the time anyway. I had a stopwatch with me when I donated that time, my time was the time it took to fill the 500ml bag the moment the blood started flowing out of my arm.

 

[azrael87]

I've donated blood tons of times and platelets even more. I had considered putting it on my application, but that consideration lasted maybe 10 minutes. Why? Because there were better things to put down. Regular blood donations take anywhere from 5-30 minutes (if it's taking you longer due to passing out or something, you probably shouldn't be a regular donor). Altogether it's not a huge time commitment, even over the course of several years.

If I didn't have anything better to put down than regular blood donor, I'd spend the remaining time before application working on something new like volunteering somewhere, shadowing, research, etc. Donating whole blood is noble and productive, but it doesn't take as much time and effort as actively volunteering, shadowing, or doing research. As others have said, you can put it in your PS, but make including it as an EC a last resort. If you do include it, explain it well in the summary and make sure you have an accurate idea of total hours, etc.

There are, of course, some noteworthy exceptions. Firstly, if your roommate already has great EC's like 1000 hours volunteering, a few hundred hours shadowing, research for 4 years, president of 2 clubs, each under a single activity, he may have plenty of empty spots to fill on his app. despite having stellar stats otherwise. If that (or something a little less exaggerated) is the case, then adding in blood donation to show some selfless action can't hurt.

The other exception would be regular platelet donor since you can donate every 3 days. Platelet donations also take much longer. If you donate platelets very often, that might be worth putting down since the time can add up over a couple years.

 

[Practitioner]

Humble, selfless service is noteworthy. However, some adcoms will judge your application on "altruism" or "community service" or "volunteerism". If you have been so humble that you do not report what you've done, you will get no credit in that area. This could hurt your chances of being invited for interview. Don't let your selflessness bite you in the butt.

I know this now quite well, but it's not easy to get out of one mindset into another and sell yourself. I complain about it to vent out my frustration in feeling like the things I do for the sake of itself being a point of value for something entirely unrelated -- in my eyes, at least.

Yeah I arrange trips for my peers and my juniors to go to the museum. Yes I pay for refreshments or travel expenses or parking, and I'm a member of the Smithsonian. But I do that because I genuinely care to make more people appreciate the more direct exposure to history, art, or science than just reading about it through books. I do it because I love seeing people be fascinated with what they see. And I sincerely appreciate the Smithsonian keeping their museums free for public and I support that.

But as soon as I put it into the application that I do that, among other things, I begin to feel: What's the point?

Then it doesn't feel as nice anymore... but you're absolutely right, and in the next application I'll try to include these kinds of activities and shrug off the feeling that I'm desecrating something that might otherwise be sacred to me. I want to do medicine much more than maintain that imagined sanctity.

I was really just commenting on Float's reference how he hoped OP's roommate donated blood for the right reasons, or whatever his exact words were, than to put it on the medical school application. I would hope that all future doctors did all the community service out of a genuine kindness than to merely sell themselves on the application -- otherwise people like me are screwed twice over. Once in the application to pursuing our dreams and again when we're stuck with dismissive elitist physicians.

[\rant] Thanks for listening! SA

 

[FloatOn]

I know this now quite well, but it's not easy to get out of one mindset into another and sell yourself. I complain about it to vent out my frustration in feeling like the things I do for the sake of itself being a point of value for something entirely unrelated -- in my eyes, at least.

Yeah I arrange trips for my peers and my juniors to go to the museum. Yes I pay for refreshments or travel expenses or parking, and I'm a member of the Smithsonian. But I do that because I genuinely care to make more people appreciate the more direct exposure to history, art, or science than just reading about it through books. I do it because I love seeing people be fascinated with what they see. And I sincerely appreciate the Smithsonian keeping their museums free for public and I support that.

But as soon as I put it into the application that I do that, among other things, I begin to feel: What's the point?

Then it doesn't feel as nice anymore... but you're absolutely right, and in the next application I'll try to include these kinds of activities and shrug off the feeling that I'm desecrating something that might otherwise be sacred to me. I want to do medicine much more than maintain that imagined sanctity.

I was really just commenting on Float's reference how he hoped OP's roommate donated blood for the right reasons, or whatever his exact words were, than to put it on the medical school application. I would hope that all future doctors did all the community service out of a genuine kindness than to merely sell themselves on the application -- otherwise people like me are screwed twice over. Once in the application to pursuing our dreams and again when we're stuck with dismissive elitist physicians.

[\rant] Thanks for listening! SA

I admire your idealism, and I was once like this too. It's ok to think that your peers are genuinely dedicating their time to help others, but everyone doing this all the time? I don't think so. There are many, many compassionate people out there who just want to give and give, but know that sometimes you just have to play the game. I don't advocate in any way being dishonest or deceitful or stepping on people along the way, but it doesn't hurt to let people recognize you when you deserve it. Like I said, I wouldn't put the blood donation stuff on my application, but you need to fill in the spaces somehow. Just use your good judgement. Maybe in a couple of years, you'll be as cynical as I am. Maybe not.

(By the way, I'm female. Note the girly-looking avatar.)

 

[JoshUNCW]

I donate my body fluids regularly...

 

[J1515]

I held the door open for an elderly gentleman yesterday. Can I put that on my application?

For the record, I've been donating blood regularly (and holding doors open for others) since I was 18. I would never dream of listing it as a volunteer activity on an application.

 

[SFANJUM]

I held the door open for an elderly gentleman yesterday. Can I put that on my application?

holding a door open for somebody doesn't save 3 lives.

but ya i agree with what that other guy said. if you don't have anything else better to put down, then i don't think it can hurt if you do.

ideally people shouldn't brag about their altruistic acts, but i think Med school applications are different.

 

[J1515]

holding a door open for somebody doesn't save 3 lives.

Neither does wheeling patients around at a hospital volunteer job, neither does changing bed pans at a nursing home. People have no problem listing that stuff.

 

[musicsung3]

I think being a frequent blood donor should be mentioned. The whole professional school application and interview process is filled with having to shamelessly promote yourself. Mentioning it does not take away anything from the generous act. Not everyone donates blood regularly, it definitely shows the person in a better light.

 

[Practitioner]

I admire your idealism, and I was once like this too... Maybe in a couple of years, you'll be as cynical as I am. Maybe not.

There is a cynic in me, but I should hope not to loose all my naive idealism to him! Then become a prototypical example for William Blake's Songs of Experience in contrast to his Songs of Innocence.

(I am also quite callous, but I don't let that get in the way of wanting to help people.)

(By the way, I'm female. Note the girly-looking avatar.)

I'm sorry! -,-

Practitioner, don't base your whole image as a future doctor in just what you state in paper and in a 30 minute interview.

That's a good point, it might help to think of it that way.

To keep on topic: I'm part of a "buddy" program at the Children's Hospital I work at, where they match me to a kid (typically with anemia) and set up regular donations for the patient. Every couple of months I buy her a gift, some form of stuffed animal (panda, turtle, etc). Never met her due to HIPAA, but the staff let me know her age range and gender. It obviously never occurred that I mention it on the application.

I'm also on the bone marrow registry and unofficially work as a volunteer to recruit volunteers to list themselves. And I don't think that should be mentioned, unless someone is actually called on to donate to a match and goes through with it. I'd say that's an experience at least worth mentioning in an interview, if not directly on the AMCAS.

Donating blood is "involved". Donating marrow is "committed".

 

[LizzyM]

Don't confuse donating your money or spending money to help others with donating blood. Spending money to join an organization that does good or making a charitable donation or attending a gala event for a good cause is not a big deal to the adcom.

There is no substitute for human blood (even the substitutes tested in clinical trials -- none of which have succeeded btw -- were made from human blood). If you've been a 6-7 time a year donor from the age of 16 or 17 or 18 until the present and you wear the little sticker on donation day and are a walking role model for blood donation and you encourage your friends to donate, I think that it is a "legit" community service even if you've never been involved in the formal organization of a blood drive. It isn't the hours that it takes, but the commitment to do it 6 or 7 times a year (as soon as you are eligible again), year after year, that shows that you really want to help people and that you make the time and arrange your schedule to do it as often as possible.