Did anyone do TOUCH hours via COSGP? Overemphasized?

[genessis42]

My school introduced us to the Touch Hours for COSGP which is basically some commendation for volunteering.
I've done volunteering for my own fulfillment, and I just saw it as a PITA to log TOUCH points and do the process.

I can get why some med students want some recognition in a Dean's letter perhaps. But do you think it is a little bit overemphasized?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[calivianya]

Definitely overemphasized.

Volunteering is way down on the list. Only 54% of program directors overall mentioned it, and it was weighted a lot lower than just about anything else (3.8/5). So I really can’t imagine anyone cares about touch hours.

I’ve got two classmates who did >500 hours of volunteering during OMS-1 and OMS-2, and I bet that only people like them will even get asked much about their volunteering anyway.

https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/NRMP-2018-Program-Director-Survey-for-WWW.pdf

 

[Billroth_III]

Pre med mindset in med school

 

[Gen3ricDO]

I did maybe 2 weekends worth of volunteering during medical school. It was a back to school physicals thing which I thought was cool to be doctorly before third year. And then like handing out pamphlets for arthritis. I got a lot of criticism from other medical students also pursuing a surgical sub specialty early on because I didn’t volunteer. I matched ortho so it made zero difference in my application.

Do it only if you will benefit during the volunteer process or if you just enjoy doing it. Don’t do it because you think it will help you match. Because it won’t.

 

[TwistedTea]

No one cares

 

[Giovanotto]

I had maybe 1-2 interviewees (out of 11 interviews * 4-5 interviewees) ask about ECs. And for them, I didn't have the best answer honestly speaking, but it seems that they mostly understood medical school is a full time job. I'm also not sure they were referring to ECs in the premed sense vs. research/scholarly activities.

 

[DO2015CA]

1000% overestimated. DO schools think their lack of real extracurriculars can be offset by their Bs commendation of volunteer hours. No residency gives a flying F about volunteering

 

[samac]

The ONLY volunteering I listed was my work with NAMI since I was applying psych. It was brought up in one interview. I never logged a touch hour because it felt like a waste of my time. No one cares.

 

[Sardonix]

Volunteering is good.

Touch hours are stupid. NO ONE cares so long as the volunteering you do is meaningful and can be discussed during interviews without sounding fake or full of stool.

What's more, you'll probably receive like 1 billion emails about it by people who think it's a big deal. It's not.

 

[TeddyBoomBoom]

I vaguely remember my med school talking about “Touch” hours. It sounded idiotic at the time, and I can confidently say that my number of hours was zero... bc at no point did I, or any of my friends, learn what it was or how to report it.

We matched just fine.

 

[UnoMas]

If you want to waste precious time in med school, that's one way to do it.

Anything that is 'encouraged' by the osteopathic leadership, the good rule of thumb is to NOT do it.

Besides research, ECs are irrelevant to residency application. I told interviewers I binge watch Netflix, cook and travel in my free time. Those would spark better conversations than pretending to care about useless volunteerism.

Outside of the rare few that are really into volunteering for the right reasons, the vast majority of pre-meds/med students who do these things are annoying, socially ill-equipped, holier-than-thou gunners, who more than likely end up in some random primary care programs in the middle of nowhere because they should have spent those hours studying or something.

 

[TwistedTea]

If you want to waste precious time in med school, that's one way to do it.

Anything that is 'encouraged' by the osteopathic leadership, the good rule of thumb is to NOT do it.

Besides research, ECs are irrelevant to residency application. I told interviewers I binge watch Netflix, cook and travel in my free time. Those would spark better conversations than pretending to care about useless volunteerism.

Outside of the rare few that are really into volunteering for the right reasons, the vast majority of pre-meds/med students who do these things are annoying, socially ill-equipped, holier-than-thou gunners, who more than likely end up in some random primary care programs in the middle of nowhere because they should have spent those hours studying or something.

I got asked why I didn't volunteer at my med school interview. I just said, um because I work and have responsibility. Still got in.

Never, ever, ever would i spend my precious time for anything that I do not want to use it for volunteer wise. It is the stupidest thing that they actually care about it in med school. They DO NOT care about it in residency luckily.

The absolute worst time to volunteer is when you are several hundred K in debt, busy with med school, and trying to pan out things in your own life. Let people who are less busy than you spend their time volunteering, your time is precious. Schools and organizations just want to milk you for your minutes of free labor. Screw them.

Also never work for your school for free giving tours and being lap monkeys. They make crap tons of money do nothing for free



Don't be a sucker.
don't volunteer at a lame fire department (like people at my school do)
don't volunteer at elementary schools (we pay tax dollars for teachers to WORK)
don't clean up litter (prisoners who dug their own grave do that)
don't volunteer helping the school do things for FREE (we pay tuition)
don't volunteer at the hospital unless they MAKE you (they tried to make us I never did it, hospitals are cash loaded they can go to hell before I work for free)


The only exception to the above is if you REALLY WANT TO. DO NOT let people guilt you into wasting your time.

Med students are bred to be suckers and probably why we are sucked dry by hospital systems. The taming begins young.

 

[genessis42]

Yeah, I learned early on to not believe every single thing your school tells you.

You could take apply advice for any med school, but TBH I think osteopathic schools have more of this