Questions about volunteer work

[Member200000]

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How important is volunteer work to adcoms? I ask because although I have a decent number of hours, most of them are pretty useless as far as actual clinical experience go. For example (I'm a 27 year old non-trad), I have about 450 hours of volunteering at the local hospital in pediatrics from 2005-2010, but most of that was just playing with kids and keeping the playroom open. It was fun at times, but I don't see it as anything that really taught me anything about medicine. I volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House for 3 hours a week for about a year and a half, but all it really was was answering phones and giving families tours of the house - I might as well have been working in a hotel.

I also was very involved with Alpha Phi Omega (service fraternity) in my last few years of school, and did a lot of community service through them, but none of it was medical.

I did some volunteer work at a free clinic from 2007-2010, which was somewhat useful, as I tested patients for HIV, but they say they won't be able to verify most of my hours since I didn't sign in until the last several months. Most people who worked there weren't signing in, so I didn't either. When putting this on my application, should I put down the entire time that I worked there, or just what they can actually verify? I don't know how often they call these places to verify, and I feel I should be able to put down all the hours I worked, since I did actually serve those hours. What should I do here?

I'm most likely going to be applying to med schools next summer. Would it be possible for me to get some useful volunteering experience in the next year that will make me attractive to adcoms? I don't want to look like I'm trying to cram it in at the last minute, but I'm hoping to start back up at the free clinic with Social Service Intake and volunteer in the ER of another hospital. I also need to shadow a doctor within the next year.

What should I do here? Do I look like I'm okay as far as volunteering goes, or that I don't have enough useful experience?

 

[TheShaker]

Most major hospitals in your area has a volunteering services for college students only and these are the ones that are designed to give you clinical experience. Alternatively, you can try to find doctors to shadow, which is think is much more useful than clinical volunteering.

 

[biomaj]

Maybe you need to have a different outlook on exactly what the idea of volunteering does for a person. It's not so much the exact actions of what you're doing that give you experience, it's more of what you're doing to help the organization by even seemingly minimal actions. Playing with children in a hospital can really create a happier environment for children & their families during vulnerable times in their lives. Volunteering for the Ronald McDonald house is a great support in their system & work. I think you need to not look at it as not receiving the wanted medical experience, but the fact that you're doing something to help out the organization & other people.