OP is pre-dent.... nevertheless, this question gets asked seriously by pre-meds here all the time, so it's safe to say not all of them are trolling.
Fair enough.
It just seems like any time someone posts their ECs on this forum, people are quick to yell "NOT ENOUGH" if it's anything less than 300 hours of EMT work plus 500 hours of shadowing the head of cardiology at Mayo. While when I talk to real life people, it's often more what you post (i.e. it's more about the quality of the experience than the time, though time is important too).
I dunno. I only did like 80 hours of time at a hospital plus 30 or so at a hospice plus about 15 hours shadowing someone, but I got so much out of those three experiences that I wouldn't want to replace it with anything.
I'm not a big fan on the whole "you need to volunteer to get into medical school" shenanigans. I think the more important aspect is that you have some hobbies/activities in your life that you are passionate about and can have an interesting conversation about. No one wants a class full of 4.0 GPA 39 MCAT drones (at least I wouldn't want one!)
Survivor DO
I also agree with this completely. An older adcom at a medical school fair told me that he expects pre-meds applying to his school (which I won't name, but safe to say it's elite) to have 'touched a patient.' Where can the average undergrad, or for that matter non-trads, ever get this experience outside of literally becoming an EMT or finding some shady place that lets non-professional volunteers do this? The potential for a lawsuit is ENORMOUS. MOST people can't afford EMT training or the time commitment required (especially non-trads who have to work for a living), and if medical schools really valued it so much, they'd make it part of the pre-med requirements.
I'm sure I'm opening myself up to be ripped apart on SDN by anecdotes about pre-meds on here who've literally performed open heart surgery as freshmen, but in talking with most IRL people who've recently gotten into med school, this sort of experience is extremely hard to find (in fact, the only person I've ever known to do EMT work as part of their pre-med experience is now a med student in the Caribbean). I personally think it's RIDICULOUS that any adcom would expect UNDERGRADUATES of all people to already come in with that sort of hands on experience. It really shows how absolutely out of touch some of these people are.
I think that exposure to medicine and the clinic is really important. And there are great ways to do this, whether it's through shadowing, volunteering at a hospice and comforting patients, or volunteering at a hospital and washing stethoscopes. I did all this stuff and really enjoyed it. But expecting people to literally train for ENTIRE OTHER CAREERS like becoming an EMT (which people literally do to feed their families as a real job) is absurd.
