Crisis Textline as Primary Nonclinical Volunteering

[StrangeDoctor]

Hi guys! Thanks for stopping by!

I've been shadowing PCP teams (mostly Family & Internal Medicine) at a major hospital every week, volunteering at a clinic serving the uninsured/uncovered in my local community, and started some pretty cool neuroscience research under a former MIT PI this semester as well at my university. The point of me sharing all this isn't to humblebrag (sorry if it came off that way), but rather to give you guys a sense of my non-numbers pre-med picture.

Anyways, I'm strongly considering becoming a crisis counselor for the Crisis Textline because it seems like a valuable way to help reach out to people. Only thing is, I could probably volunteer long-term for only one non-clinical and balance all my other responsibilities. It's totally legit and keeps track of hours, that's not an issue. What is an issue is that I've read some SDN posts that said the texting nature diminishes it somewhat for adcoms consideration. My question is do you think this would be good enough as my primary long-term nonclinical volunteering for adcoms considering the other stuff in my pre-med picture, or should I keep on looking for something else?

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[LizzyM]

Medicine is delivered face-to-face in almost all cases and you are going to be interacting in person with patients in medical school and residency. Being of service, face-to-face, with people who can't help themselves, is the highest level of non-clinical volunteering. Your clinic experience is a good one in terms of working with people who need help they can't provide on their own (not knowing how to access coverage, or being mentally disabled, illiterate, etc). With that experience, you might "get away" with the texting crisis hotline as a secondary volunteering activity. If it is of interest to you, go for it; your enthusiasm will show through and will be most valuable.

 

[mybluedog]

I have a friend that has been volunteering with a similar company and she has enjoyed learning about patients and ways to approach ppl in a crisis. I think it would be good experience and I'd list it as non-clinical, echoing LizzyM!

 

[StrangeDoctor]

Thank you guys so much for the advice! Appreciate it 🙂

 

[Microbug]

Thank you guys so much for the advice! Appreciate it 🙂

Do you mind sharing information for this. I don’t need it for my app but is interested in doing this.

 

[jtd2081]

I feel like the general rule of thumb for this is that if you feel like it is a major contributor to your growth then use it. For me, it was scribing. Showed me this is definitely what I wanted to do. Ultimately, if you can speak about it in a genuine and knowledgeable way, then use it to your advantage. If it made you go into the profession then definitely use it. One thing that I think is great about this is that you are the one providing the care. As a scribe, we are not the ones providing the service to the patient. This sounds like something where you have tangible benefits to someone's life which I really respect.

 

[Gibbward]

Do it! I did a lot of this - I did both phone and text/chat crisis lines - and I actually put this as one of my main clinical volunteering experiences because I talked with a lot of people dealing with depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, and suicidal ideations in general. Either in text or through the phone, I was still able to get a feel of the other person's struggles and try to help him/her in very sensitive and thoughtful way. I definitely got asked about this activity or was able to use stories from this activity in all my interviews, and no one questioned how useful/important the texting portion was. I mean what you can say is the text line is very helpful for reaching out to younger individuals because they are more likely to text/chat vs calling in a crisis hotline. The text line can really helpful too in that it feels more anonymous compared to hearing someone's voice on the other end of a phone line, and it's easier to talk about how much they're struggling in a more private/anonymous platform.

 

[StrangeDoctor]

Do you mind sharing information for this. I don’t need it for my app but is interested in doing this.

There are a couple of different crisis hotlines, but the specific one I was talking about is called Crisis Textline. You can google them up and go to their website, and from there you can read more about and start the application process by going to "Join Us" and then clicking Volunteer. There's a period of training involved before you start which takes a good amount of time (about 30 hours of content I believe) so just be aware of that. Hope that helps!

Also, just a quick follow-up would you all consider this clinical or non-clinical? To me, I could see it go either way, because on the one hand it's not exactly the traditional "clinical" volunteering (which I am also doing), but on the other hand like Gibbward mentioned you do deal with a lot of serious psychological/neurological issues. Not a big issue, but it'd be good to know for down the road.

 

[mybluedog]

There are a couple of different crisis hotlines, but the specific one I was talking about is called Crisis Textline. You can google them up and go to their website, and from there you can read more about and start the application process by going to "Join Us" and then clicking Volunteer. There's a period of training involved before you start which takes a good amount of time (about 30 hours of content I believe) so just be aware of that. Hope that helps!

Also, just a quick follow-up would you all consider this clinical or non-clinical? To me, I could see it go either way, because on the one hand it's not exactly the traditional "clinical" volunteering (which I am also doing), but on the other hand like Gibbward mentioned you do deal with a lot of serious psychological/neurological issues. Not a big issue, but it'd be good to know for down the road.

To be on the safe side, I would put this under non-clinical. You technically don't get to "smell" pts, referencing the godly LizzyM.
Don't sweat too much on the categorization, just focus on writing good reflections, etc.

 

[Gibbward]

There are a couple of different crisis hotlines, but the specific one I was talking about is called Crisis Textline. You can google them up and go to their website, and from there you can read more about and start the application process by going to "Join Us" and then clicking Volunteer. There's a period of training involved before you start which takes a good amount of time (about 30 hours of content I believe) so just be aware of that. Hope that helps!

Also, just a quick follow-up would you all consider this clinical or non-clinical? To me, I could see it go either way, because on the one hand it's not exactly the traditional "clinical" volunteering (which I am also doing), but on the other hand like Gibbward mentioned you do deal with a lot of serious psychological/neurological issues. Not a big issue, but it'd be good to know for down the road.

I think it's really all about how you spin it. I can argue that having in depth 15 minute phone conversations or 1 hr text conversations with someone with depression and is suicidal and trying to calm him/her down so he doesn't hurt himself or others around is a more hands on "clinical" experience than handing cups of water to patient waiting to be seen in the ER. I mean ideally, you'd want to have both right? I personally made it a clinical experience even if I couldn't "smell" the patient. I think I learned more about what it's like and how to talk to patients in the suicide prevention hotline than I did volunteering in an in patient hospital unit.