Shadowing vs. Volunteering

[NonTraditional3]

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Does it look bad if your shadowing outweighs your volunteering?

I have about 200 volunteer hours (clinical, at two different hospitals) and maybe somewhere in the range of 250-300 shadowing hours. Does this look bad if I have less volunteering than physician-observing?

 

[nad7vx]

i wouldn't think so. your hours are not THAT skewed so it shouldn't matter too much. what's more important is how you articulate those experiences in your PS and interviews.

 

[kpcrew]

quantity is not as important as quality

 

[ur2l8]

That's a solid amount for both, so I wouldn't sweat it.

Sent from my iPhone

 

[NonTraditional3]

quantity is not as important as quality

I feel like I have much that I can reflect back upon, which I think is at least one permutation of quality, right? I mean, most certainly I learned more practical/objective things from shadowing, like MOA of certain medications, signs and symptoms and prognoses for a handful of diseases, the physics of behind medical imaging, but from my volunteering I learned a lot about what it means to get out of the comfort zone, to concern myself with the problems of other people (not in a nosy way or anything, but in the sense of empathy and being there for people,) and probably most important, is I learned that I have the emotional "toughness" to handle emotionally charged scenarios with a calm and professional demeanor, to deliver life-changing news to a patient, etcetera. As long as I have meaningful things to reflect upon in my PS from both shadowing and volunteering, and neither has some absence or void of "why is this meaningful to you in the context of your desire to become a doctor," I should be okay with more shadowing than volunteering, right? Like, the numbers wouldn't matter, right? It's not like I just shadowed for one day or volunteered for just one week, you know?

I'm pressing a little bit here, because I could either spend my winter break shadowing this really fantastic doc who I admire, or I could do both shadowing and volunteering (but the difference is location; this doctor is in another state, so I would sublet an apartment or something to go shadow them - but otherwise I would stay home and shadow random doctor X and double up on my weekly hours at the hospital I volunteer at during the semester). If I shadow the doc in the other state, I would probably get another 100 hours or so of shadowing, so it would make the total shadowing hours I have seriously outweigh my total volunteering hours- so I guess I'm just wondering if this could hurt my applications?

Sorry, ik this is really long!

 

[kpcrew]

actually you have enough and you probably shouldn't sublet an apartment just to shadow. it seems like you've gotten a lot out of your experiences so you're fine.

 

[gettheleadout]

Even a crazy distribution (e.g. 600 hours of shadowing to 200 volunteer) wouldn't hurt you, IMO. With significant service to the community, one should feel free to spend time on other things. If that's shadowing for you, then that's fine.

 

[Catalystik]

Even a crazy distribution (e.g. 600 hours of shadowing to 200 volunteer) wouldn't hurt you, IMO. With significant service to the community, one should feel free to spend time on other things. If that's shadowing for you, then that's fine.

What he said.

 

[NonTraditional3]

Even a crazy distribution (e.g. 600 hours of shadowing to 200 volunteer) wouldn't hurt you, IMO. With significant service to the community, one should feel free to spend time on other things. If that's shadowing for you, then that's fine.

So....are adcoms likely to consider 200 hours (spread out over, oh, I don't know - 2 months here and another 10 months there, with about a 2.5 year gap between the two, as being "significant service"? Or would it be in my best interest to try and cram in another 100 or so hours of volunteering?

 

[gettheleadout]

So....are adcoms likely to consider 200 hours (spread out over, oh, I don't know - 2 months here and another 10 months there, with about a 2.5 year gap between the two, as being "significant service"? Or would it be in my best interest to try and cram in another 100 or so hours of volunteering?

How are the hours distributed? The 2.5 year gap sounds odd but it depends on the circumstances I suppose. I'll let Catalystik take this one.

 

[NonTraditional3]

How are the hours distributed? The 2.5 year gap sounds odd but it depends on the circumstances I suppose. I'll let Catalystik take this one.

Graduated from college, no job: it was not clear that I would apply to medical school then, but I was an EMT (couldn't find a job though, no experience) - so I figured next best thing, if for nothing else than to avoid substantial time gaps on my resumé, I volunteered for ~16-25 hours on any given week for like 7 or 8 weeks until I found a full time job (which was in a lab) - at that point, very difficult to commit to volunteer the same time every week on the same day (weekends included) since my schedule was largely dictated by experiments and incubations - did make the effort to volunteer, but the scheduling never worked out. Leaving my job (after 2 years,) to do academic remediation, take more classes, up the GPA etc, so I will have the flexibility in my schedule to volunteer, about 3-4 hours a week for 10/11 months, will be submitting my applications to medical school - will obviously continue volunteering, but that is what I will have done and can rightfully include on my application - so that's the large time gap, it's not like time unaccounted for or anything, but those are the circumstances.....and this is why I am torn between leave state to shadow, or stay and do some shadowing but take on more volunteer hours during the academic winter break....

 

[Catalystik]

Graduated from college, no job: it was not clear that I would apply to medical school then, but I was an EMT (couldn't find a job though, no experience) - so I figured next best thing, if for nothing else than to avoid substantial time gaps on my resumé, I volunteered for ~16-25 hours on any given week for like 7 or 8 weeks until I found a full time job (which was in a lab) - at that point, very difficult to commit to volunteer the same time every week on the same day (weekends included) since my schedule was largely dictated by experiments and incubations - did make the effort to volunteer, but the scheduling never worked out. Leaving my job (after 2 years,) to do academic remediation, take more classes, up the GPA etc, so I will have the flexibility in my schedule to volunteer, about 3-4 hours a week for 10/11 months, will be submitting my applications to medical school - will obviously continue volunteering, but that is what I will have done and can rightfully include on my application - so that's the large time gap, it's not like time unaccounted for or anything, but those are the circumstances.....and this is why I am torn between leave state to shadow, or stay and do some shadowing but take on more volunteer hours during the academic winter break....

The average applicant lists about 1.5 years of clinical experience with a total of 150 hours. Longevity is more important than total hours, as adcomms like to see evidence that you've thoughtfully considered medicine as a career and tested it through various experiences. If you apply in a year's time with 12 months of clinical experience (10 months + 2 months), despite the gap (or maybe due to the gap), you might fulfill many adcomm's expectations, even though your true duration of involvement is below average. I don't think that one month more of clinical experience is going to make a major difference in how your application is perceived. Updating yor shadowing in a venue that you are clearly passionate about, is more likely to have an impact. So go with your heart, but hedge your bets and continue the clinical volunteering during next year's application season, as you'd planned, letting schools know via update letter.

 

[Tappinfool66]

The average applicant lists about 1.5 years of clinical experience with a total of 150 hours. Longevity is more important than total hours, as adcomms like to see evidence that you've thoughtfully considered medicine as a career and tested it through various experiences. If you apply in a year's time with 12 months of clinical experience (10 months + 2 months), despite the gap (or maybe due to the gap), you might fulfill many adcomm's expectations, even though your true duration of involvement is below average. I don't think that one month more of clinical experience is going to make a major difference in how your application is perceived. Updating yor shadowing in a venue that you are clearly passionate about, is more likely to have an impact. So go with your heart, but hedge your bets and continue the clinical volunteering during next year's application season, as you'd planned, letting schools know via update letter.

Since shadowing seems to be a less fixed thing than volunteering, I would imagine that total number of hours is more important than longevity. If that's true, how many hours of shadowing would you say the average applicant applies with?

 

[Catalystik]

Since shadowing seems to be a less fixed thing than volunteering, I would imagine that total number of hours is more important than longevity. If that's true, how many hours of shadowing would you say the average applicant applies with?

It's true that longevity is less important with shadowing, so it can be acquired intensely in a short time or done on a regular weekly basis. About 50 hours is the average listed, varying from all of it being with one doc, to a few hours spent with ten different specialties. About 2-3 types of doc seems most common, though.