Do med schools look down on volunteering in dental?

[jhanago]

I am a pre-med finishing up my sophomore year and I am going to start volunteering in the medical field.. however, i cant find many good positions that i would find rewarding at hospitals. I did, though, find a dental volunteer position that has lots of patient contact and opportunity to shadow and all that jazz.. my question is

Would M.D./D.O. schools disregard this as medical exposure? Or would I still be in the same regard as people who did in hospitals etc. Doesn't it all come down to what I learned?

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[apumic]

Are you wanting to be a dentist or a physician?

Sure, you may learn some great things at the dentist's office or whatever but it's different from working with physicians, nurses, etc. I'd suggest looking at some free clinics for some good medical volunteer experience.

 

[AH3]

I second what apumic said. Any type of volunteer experience is good, but if you want to be a doctor you should try to get medical experience. You aren't going to learn much about being a doctor by shadowing a dentist, just like you won't learn much about dentistry by shadowing a surgeon.

 

[rom3o]

As the others mentioned, a dental volunteering position will probably not help you understand what 'medicine' is all about. However, I say go for it anyway. For all you know you may fall in love with dentistry and want to become a dentist instead. Broaden your horizons.

 

[Brown8472]

It's not that they will down on it b/c volunteering means that you don't simply sit on your hands but instead you are being engaged and getting involved in the community.

With that being said, you will be sending confusing messages to the Adcom. and with the high volume of applications they may not want to spend time trying to figure out who you really are or want to be.