Volunteering at a Hospital is a Joke... Seriously a Waste of Time!

[GallbLad]

"Volunteering at a hospital," the phrase is often embellished with unwarranted embrace, as if one is saving lives. But in reality, volunteers are spending most of their time sitting around, manning popcorn stations, the front desk, setting up beds, or escorting patients. Worst case, volunteers just get in the way of RNAs and nurses who have years of experience doing what you could do, but better. While you see it as volunteering, the hospital is a business that happily accepts volunteers for free labor, and staff happily command you around to afford some laziness in their day.

If you really wanted to help out the community and maximize your efficacy, you wouldn't join a hospital and spend the majority of your time idle, like a helpless doofus.

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[Chipster.]

It's just getting sad at this point man. Why don't you go get off the internet and make some friends?

 

[SnakeOilForSale]

Well yeah, you don't have the capacity to practice.

 

[throwawayuser]

Sounds like volunteering for the sake of volunteering. Volunteering is supposed to give you a glimpse into the healthcare world and expose you to clinical situations.

Seek out more advanced volunteering positions that may expose you to more clinical situations. If you can't find those at your hospital, seek them elsewhere. Then when you get interviews at places, you can mention how hospital volunteering at your local hospital was a poor experience due to XYZ, then mention the other oppurtunities you found and what insight and experiences you gained.

I think this a trap a lot of people fall into. 200 hours of volunteering is worthless if you were a just the receptionist and transport mule the whole time. It shows that you lacked the motivation to pursue activities and experiences that would have been more challenging/fun.

 

[mcloaf]

Based on this and your other threads I think you're going to have a killer med school application.

 

[NYCdude]

Volunteering is what you make of it. You can sit around and do nothing, or you can try to help as much as your capacity allows you to. There was a girl who I volunteered alongside with and if I was a random observer, I would have thought she was a part of the nursing staff. Her ridiculously comforting bedside manner and the manner in which she exhausted herself trying to help everyone as much as she could put me to shame really lol. I had to find a different shift.

 

[Doug Underhill]

If you want to do brain surgery without receiving the proper training or instruction, go Ph.D instead. That's a degree where you can just show up randomly one day and someone will have you injecting viruses into a mouse's hippocampus before lunch.

 

[Make Or Break]

I actually had a doctor tell me that volunteering in the hospital changing bed sheets and making copies is a worthless activity to spend your time on. I sort of agree since there are so many other ways you can give back to others and have a meaningful experience.

 

[Hospitalized]

Still pulling for the cholecystectomy. General surgery has been paged!

 

[sliceofbread136]

Too bad, you have to do it and then tell a bunch of adcoms what a meaningful experience it was. Rules are the rules.

 

[AlteredScale]

It's just getting sad at this point man. Why don't you go get off the internet and make some friends?

With what OP has posted so far, I find it far fetched that he will be able to make friends.

 

[Goro]

:troll:

 

[cryhavoc]

I changed bed pans. So many, many, many bed pans. 🙁

All it taught me was how much being a nurse sucks.

Gained a lot of respect for nurses via volunteering though.

 

[premedbrah]

Depends what you make of it.. I scrub up and get to observe surgeries during my 4-8 hour shifts. Restocking surgical supplies also helps giving with at least SOME sort of basic knowledge of what certain tools do. So is it hectic? sure. Is it boring? At times. But at least it give you some insight into what you'll be doing (by watching the docs)

 

[notbobtrustme]

of course volunteering is useless. That's why it's unpaid.

Secondly, it's not supposed to provide some deep insight into healthcare and being a doctor. It's about hitting that invisible checklist adcoms are looking for. Get in, grind out your hours and then never look back.