Partook in overseas volunteering as a naive sophomore, do I include?

[TimeSpace1]

I volunteered overseas as sophomore, and I actually think the experience was very beneficial. We did not partake in any medical procedures, instead we helped set up medical clinics and did other tasks such as helping the on-site pharmacist organize drugs and run a tooth-brushing station for kids. We also helped with developmental work, such as building a water tank for a local community and helping build a staircase into a mountain for the same community to meet legal guidelines to have electricity installed. All in all, I learned quite a lot from the experience and have shown interest in global health in other spots of my application; however, I am aware many schools see overseas volunteering and automatically go to voluntourism (for good reason), which is heavily looked down upon.

My question is, should I include this in my application? I can speak very well about the experience because I genuinely learned a lot from it, but I don't want to put a sour taste in any AdComs mouths just by virtue of them seeing an experience labelled "Overseas Volunteering."

Any opinions?

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[Thefutureisbright]

Of course you should!! I wouldnt put “overseas volunteering” as the title, but I would definitely add this if I were you. It sounds like you were volunteering with an underserved population/community so describe it as that. I did a similar trip and included it in my application.

 

[Tenk]

They don’t like students going overseas and practicing medicine as a premed. Going overseas and helping do manual labor for a community is fine.

 

[gyngyn]

Do you know that your manual labor did not take a job away from a local who would clearly need the work?

 

[TimeSpace1]

Do you know that your manual labor did not take a job away from a local who would clearly need the work?

The community we worked in was rather small. We actually teamed up with the community (through a designated community leader) to employ both students and community members to complete these projects. We only worked on projects the community told us they actually needed, and we always worked alongside the community to complete the projects. To my knowledge, most everyone in the community who could have and wanted to help with the projects did so.

 

[gyngyn]

To my knowledge, most everyone in the community who could have and wanted to help with the projects did so.

This is the key element.

 

[TimeSpace1]

This is the key element.

I don't think you're being fair in evaluating this. We teamed up with a community leader who was designated by the community, so one would think that he had the interest of the community in mind. The community was also very small, as I said, so everyone in the community knew about what was going on. Furthermore, nobody was paid anything, the community worked with us based upon a mutual agreement we had to ultimately better their community, so if someone decided not to help with the project, they weren't losing out on any pay.

You can also apply the same logic you just used to just about any clinical or non-clinical experience a student may have. The "To my knowledge" bit was inconsequential and rather unrelated to the rest of the points I made in my response.

 

[gyngyn]

You can also apply the same logic you just used to just about any clinical or non-clinical experience a student may have.

My post is not an indictment of your experience. My job is to help you see how these things are viewed from the other side.
...and we do apply the same logic to all EC's.

 

[enalli]

Do you know that your manual labor did not take a job away from a local who would clearly need the work?

Is this a real concern people bring up? Sounds like both the foreigners and the locals were volunteers. Who would be paying them to work on this project?

 

[TimeSpace1]

My post is not an indictment of your experience. My job is to help you see how these things are viewed from the other side.
...and we do apply the same logic to all EC's.

I apologize, I misinterpreted your original post then. I also meant that the logic specifically pertaining to the "to my knowledge" expression could be used to indict (something you just clarified that you weren't doing) any experience. I wasn't referring to the logic applied to EC's generally. Thank you for bringing up a different view as this has actually prepared me to talk about this come interview time.

 

[gyngyn]

Is this a real concern people bring up?

Absolutely.

 

[enalli]

AAMC Executive Summary on Clinical Experiences

https://www.aamc.org/download/474346/data/clinicalexperiencesshadowingsurvey.pdf

But this wasn't a clinical experience, unless we're calling teaching how to brush teeth a clinical experience.

Maybe I'm terribly out of touch with society, but it's just saddening to think that if I partake in some volunteer activity there will be some person unironically asking if I am 100% certain that I did not take a job away from a local who would clearly need the work.

 

[lalalallala]

AAMC Executive Summary on Clinical Experiences

https://www.aamc.org/download/474346/data/clinicalexperiencesshadowingsurvey.pdf

• "In particular, 45- 50% of those schools completing the survey described applicant involvement in invasive procedures in international settings as either harmful to, or of no value to, their application. Examples of such invasive procedures include giving vaccinations, suturing an injury, pulling teeth, and delivering a baby. This concern of admissions officers persisted, albeit at lower levels (35-40% of respondents), when the students were supervised by a health professional while performing such invasive procedures in international settings."
  
  teaching someone how to brush their teeth is not equivalent to pulling someone's teeth

 

[mw18]

You should list it. Don't make it one of your most meaningful experiences. Have at least one or two very solid, longitudinal, and meaningful volunteering experiences here. Have one or two lines ready in case it gets asked in an interview about how it was very helpful for you to see a different culture and how much you appreciated the opportunity to work with community leaders in non-clinical ways to help the community. With extensive volunteering here, including it won't be necessary but won't be harmful. If you try to make it more than it was or the crux of your app/personal statement, that would be bad.

 

[Gastrapathy]

Rich kid voluntourism has left a bad taste in many people’s mouths. You enjoyed the experience so it was worth it from that perspective but if you take it further than that, you’ll get a mixed response.

Just as an aside, the same criticisms can (and should) be levied at lots of short term relief work. There are plenty of examples of doing more harm than good for a variety of motivations (religion, politics, etc). Many nations are much less willing to accept “free” care as a result than even 10 years ago.

 

[lalalallala]

Clearly some adcoms seem very concerned, but I personally think this is fine. I believe medical schools don't want to see you doing medical procedures in other countries that you wouldn't be allowed to do in the US because you are not qualified and it is disrespectful to people in other countries to treat them with lower standards then we would treat Americans.

But the important piece is that you were not doing medical procedures.

You were volunteering - I don't see how you were taking jobs from others or doing something so wrong - I just think you should be very careful with your wording because clearly some people are very doubtful

 

[ciestar]

Be sure you have volunteering here in the US. That is way more important.

 

[deleted480308]

It’s bad economics to be upset about volunteering if you are doing something you are actually qualified to do.

The worker you allegedly displaced is now freed up to work somewhere else so there is the addition of 1 person’s work to the area, the organization didn’t have to pay for your work so there is more local money to pay for other things, you brought and spent money in the area that wasn’t otherwise there. You might have problems from adcoms on this if it goes in your app but as a human you should ignore the economic criticisms

Anyone going down with no training and pretending to be a surgeon or just take a bunch lf instagram photos with poor kids is a bad person

 

[2019App]

If you read through the mission statements and admissions/application pages of your target schools, many of them specifically call out international volunteering experiences as examples of activities they're interested in hearing about. So this might not be something for your primary app (unless it was longer-term/summery type activity), but could be brought up in secondaries and/or interviews for schools that explicitly mention international experiences.

There's a funny Onion piece about international volunteering - "6-Day Visit To Rural African Village Completely Changes Woman’s Facebook Profile Picture". https://www.theonion.com/6-day-visit-to-rural-african-village-completely-changes-1819576037