Paid Work vs. Volunteering

[romict]

Hey Everyone,

I was wondering what your thoughts were on paid work as opposed to volunteering for premedical experience. I have read everywhere that you should volunteer, but I work at a teaching hospital and they do not allow the volunteers to have any significant patient interaction. I have now worked at this hospital for over a year now as a nursing assistant in the surgical intensive care unit, and plan on working there for the next two years. Do you think I need to volunteer in addition to my job, does it make a difference if my experience was paid, and if it does what kind of places would make a good volunteering experience? Thanks!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[g3pro]

Medical schools don't want you to volunteer for the sake of community service; rather, they want you to volunteer and try to experience the clinical aspects of medicine. It doesn't matter if it is paid or not.

With that said, I'm working as a "med student on clinical rotation/PGY-1" as a sort of shadowing gig for the past 5 weeks (6 hours a day, 5 days a week). I interact with the patient, getting vitals, doing physical examinations, presenting cases to the attendings, discuss diagnostic tests (everything from echos and ECGs to angiography and lab tests), assisting the residents in procedures, etc. All this is done while I am not paid. But I wouldn't call it volunteering either.

Either way, I'm getting some kick-ass clinical experience! Damn, I'm so lucky!

 

[Bones2008]

As you mentioned, working as an employee has some serious perks to it. The most obvious one is that you get paid. As you mentioned, employees also get a lot more involved with patient care than volunteers do. The vast majority of clinical experience I had was from working full-time in a hospital. It gave me lots of cool stuff to talk about during my interviews, and I think my application was strengthened by the added responsibility of being an employee. So go get paid if you can; you certainly won't regret it.

 

[underAchiever]

I would recommend working over volunteering, for all the reasons mentioned above. I volunteerd for a year at a hospital and other than a vague sense of satisfaction I got nothing else out of it, my entire experience consisted of taking charts and specimens here and there, and per the rules we could not even touch patients to help them out of the wheelchair and into the car. I am not advising against volunteering, it is after all the "premed" thing to do, and there are certainly a great number of people who have varied and exciting experineces volunteering in the ER, so I personally think working and volunteering should go hand in hand. Kinda like when we become doctors and volunteer our time and energy at the less-fortunate-people-clinic downtown.

 

[thackl]

get paid unless you only have a few hours once a wk to be at the clinic/hospital

 

[g3pro]

But remember, you can get even better clinical experience by shadowing. Depending on the physician, you can help him with his physical exams and he might show you a few things.