Letter of Recommendation from Patient Volunteer Coordinator

[postbacpremed87]

Do you think a recommendation from my hospice patient volunteer coordinator would be valuable? We know each other very well and she said she would have nothing but good things to say. I think she is in a privileged position to talk about my one on one patient experience, bedside manner with patients, being able to manage a patient load, and seeing the pathophysiological effect of many terminal illnesses. What do you guys think? I have been a hospice patient volunteer for about 2 years and managed a patient load that ranged to as many as 4 patients at a time.

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[dank204]

I used a hospital volunteer coordinator's LOR for college. Get one from a doctor for med school.

Aren't you forbidden to touch patients at a volunteer level? I got yelled at once for taking poles down to central services because they were "dirty."

 

[nfo2010]

A recommendation from such a person would be extremely valuable. The volunteer coordinator at the university hospital I worked at did the same for me, and she gave me a great piece of advice: ask some of the other people I worked with while volunteering to forward her some of their recommendations that she could include in hers. Since the coordinator is just the coordinator and may not always see you perform your job duties, these pieces of input from other people you work with provide multiple recommendations within a recommendation, and all from multiple viewpoints.

 

[nowonder]

I would say it couldn't hurt. I had one from mine and the adcomm thought favorably of it. Many schools are looking for evidence of compassion and "soft skills" in addition to the book smarts.