Multiple hospital or go to a low income clinic

[Chelsea FC]

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Hey so I want to get a feeling for the hospital environment and start to look around at hospitals to volunteer at. There is a local hospital that is 10 minutes away from my home in which most of the doctors and nurses are Caribbean immigrant such as myself so that's a slight/minute plus. But from the interview and the feeling I get from the hospital they don't have much time for volunteers as they are working at a extremely low income area and they look overstretched/ stressed out which is understandable .It has sort of a bad rep. people call the hospital "The Morgue" as well so that might add to there annoyance. The other Hospital Is a hour and 30 minutes away and focuses only on palliative care, 90% of their patients are advance cancer patience and they only focus on palliative care (im confused why this isn't considered a hospice maybe someone can enlighten me). But they seem very happy to have me as a volunteer, the environment seem very happy and my access to patients look more possible. I am concerned if its just palliative care my exposure to doctors will be limited but maybe this is mostly because of my ignorance of the entire process of palliative care which I hope someone will help me with.

So my plan right now is to do both and made a schedule to do both. But im wondering if my time would be best spent staying in my neighborhood and volunteering at a free clinic and drop the plaintive care hospital that is also a long commute . I thin the experience from those 2 hospitals would be great since the other one focuses so much on cancer which would be great exposure to a new type of patient. But the other hospital is also ion my back yard and I also feel a sense that I should volunteer there because they serve my community so I should get a glimpse of there life....

I am not trying act like im altruistic just in a pickle and would like advice and someone to help educate me a bit .. Thank you
TL;DR im dumb

 

[ChrisMack390]

Working with advanced cancer patients is 100% of the reason I want to go into medicine. I was all set to have a long career in clinical research until I started regularly working in a cancer clinic.

Might just be me, but in my opinion it was the best experience I have had.

 

[doc05]

do both

 

[deleted480308]

I would never drive 90min to volunteer if I could do the same thing closer to home

 

[Chelsea FC]

I would never drive 90min to volunteer if I could do the same thing closer to home

Its 90 minute train ride. I live in the city so I dont own a car. But I totally understand your point ..

 

[Chelsea FC]

Also does have varying clinical exposure beneficial to your understanding of why medicine ?? would one have a more holistic view of why medicine if he volunteers at a hospital and a nursing home as opposed to two hospitals??

 

[Chelsea FC]

Working with advanced cancer patients is 100% of the reason I want to go into medicine. I was all set to have a long career in clinical research until I started regularly working in a cancer clinic.

Might just be me, but in my opinion it was the best experience I have had.

Can you please elaborate why this experience was so rich to you as opposed to working with normal patients. If personal please inbox me !

 

[Chelsea FC]

.

 

[ChrisMack390]

Can you please elaborate why this experience was so rich to you as opposed to working with normal patients. If personal please inbox me !

I don't know what constitutes a "normal" patient, but I just found working with cancer patients extremely rewarding. Might be something you have to experience to really understand, but there is something about working with such a stigmatized, often terrified/depressed population of people and helping to comfort them and maybe make the end of their lives a bit better that is quite moving.

I'm not saying you can't get good premed experience elsewhere, I'm just saying that particular experience really changed the way I think about medicine quite a lot.

 

[Chelsea FC]

bump. anymore advice on this ??

 

[panda16]

I've had experience in both a hospital setting (~130 hours over two years, direct patient contact) and a free clinic in my hometown (~500 hours over four years, direct patient contact). They've both been valuable in different ways. The hospital volunteering taught me a lot about medicine in terms of technical stuff and working with patients who have insurance and working with residents and attendings and the culture of "normal" medicine. Working in the free clinic, though, has been educational in a fundamentally different way, for it was there I learned about humanism and compassionate care in medicine.

Obviously it would be great to get the best of both worlds, but if I had to suggest one over the other I would pick the free clinic.

 

[deleted480308]

You are overthinking this...the shadowing/volunteering is a box checking item to make sure you actually have seen some medicine and want to do it so they don't waste a seat on someone who quits.

No amount of perspective you gain in shadowing is anything you won't get in medical school....none of this is going to make you better at being a doctor. Just do what you like or is convenient