how much shadowing/volunteering?

[Ronald Kris]

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So I'm gonna be a non-trad premed at my university as a non-degree later this year, but its a great school. I know I need to shadow, do volunteering or a job with "direct patient contact" if I wanna have PA as a backup. How many hours of these things do I need to be competitive for medicine? Dentistry? I know PA school has a certain number of hours, but the first two don't.

 

[Apollo1]

From what I've read in different threads, +/- 50 hours of shadowing can get the job done. For volunteering, a few hundred; however, as a non-trad best to rack up as much as possible over a consistent period of time.

 

[Azete]

I've spoken to a few admissions deans, and they seem to have a greater leniency for non-trads as far as clinical hours. They expect you to have shadowed for at least 30+ hours, and beyond that I got the impression that they don't really care as long as you've done some sort of consistent volunteer work. All of my volunteer hours are local community service type things, and all of the experts I've spoken to say that's totally fine.

I think people lose track of what the ultimate job of adcoms is, and that's to determine whether you 1) know what you're getting into, 2) are smart enough to do it, and 3) are the type of human being they want as a doctor. More than one way to accomplish that.