Volunteering at a hospital or clinic is MANDATORY to apply to medical school?

[Nontraddoc00081]

Can I skip the volunteer/shadowing experience and apply to med school anyway? Where do I get this experience?

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[r2med]

Can I skip the volunteer/shadowing experience and apply to med school anyway? Where do I get this experience?

Can you apply? Sure.
Is it likely to be viewed favorably? No.
Is it mandatory as in a written rule? I don't think so.
Is it kinda expected industry standard? Yes.

Look online, ask advisors, ask Seniors, cold call - many ways to locate a place or two to get this experience.

 

[Tiran145]

Never volunteered at a hospital or clinic but worked at assisted living center as a nurses aid and at a physical therapy place as a therapy aid. You should get some clinical exposure somehow.

 

[r2med]

And dear OP, looks like you have a low GPA, not done any pre-reqs, not sure what you want to do in life yet, hoping that SDN will give you all your life answers. That's real tough. Make up your mind and work for it. Med school is not easy to get in nor easy to go through.

 

[Blueprint Med School]

Given the pandemic, there is probably a moratorium on the general best practices that you should have both on your resume before applying. Now, there exist exceptions even before that. For example, if you were a deployed vet who has 5+ years as a para/medic (note, clinical experience is a must) and has a spouse and kids, you are unlikely to get squeezed over whether you did a couple of hours cleaning bedpans at your local nursing home. It also depends how stellar the rest of your resume is. But your average 20-something traditional premed in a nonpandemic should have both on their resume before applying.

I see your username, what is your background and when are you planing to apply?

David D, MD - USMLE and MCAT Tutors
Med School Tutors

 

[lacrossegirl420]

its probably not mandatory if you have a 4.0/528 + 10 pubs lol

 

[Goro]

Can I skip the volunteer/shadowing experience and apply to med school anyway? Where do I get this experience?

What are you going to say when asked how you know you are suited for a life of caring for the sick and suffering? “That you just know”? Imagine how that will go over!

From the wise LizzyM: I am always reminded of a certain frequent poster of a few years ago. He was adamant about not volunteering as he did not want to give his services for free and he was busy and helping others was inconvenient. He matriculated to a medical school and lasted less than one year. He's now in school to become an accountant.

Here's the deal: You need to show AdComs that you know what you're getting into, and show off your altruistic, humanistic side. We need to know that you're going to like being around sick or injured people for the next 40 years.

Here's another way of looking at it: would you buy a new car without test driving it? Buy a new suit or dress without trying it on??

We're also not looking for merely for good medical students, we're looking for people who will make good doctors, and 4.0 GPA robots are a dime-a-dozen.

I've seen plenty of posts here from high GPA/high MCAT candidates who were rejected because they had little patient contact experience.

Not all volunteering needs to be in a hospital. Think hospice, Planned Parenthood, nursing homes, rehab facilities, crisis hotlines, camps for sick children, or clinics.

Some types of volunteer activities are more appealing than others. Volunteering in a nice suburban hospital is all very well and good and all, but doesn't show that you're willing to dig in and get your hands dirty in the same way that working with the developmentally disabled (or homeless, the dying, or Alzheimers or mentally ill or elderly or ESL or domestic, rural impoverished) does. The uncomfortable situations are the ones that really demonstrate your altruism and get you 'brownie points'. Plus, they frankly teach you more -- they develop your compassion and humanity in ways comfortable situations can't.

NOTE: Getting a clinical job will substitute for clinical volunteering. But you still have to be able to smell the patients.

 

[Ms Procrastinator]

Can I skip the volunteer/shadowing experience and apply to med school anyway? Where do I get this experience?

Why do you want to skip volunteering/shadowing? Are you short on free time? Are you in a rush to apply? Do you not know where to volunteer or do you just not want to volunteer at all?

Do you have any sort of research at all because an app with just a GPA and an MCAT score won't get you anywhere. You'd probably get depressed after filling out the application and seeing how many things you left blank. From browsing your previous threads it seems like you're going to need some reinvention so you might as well volunteer while you're at it. Volunteering will help boost your application tremendously.

For non-clinical volunteering you can try homeless shelters, soup kitchens or something along those lines. Try googling places that need volunteers near you. That's how I found one of my volunteering gigs.

For clinical volunteering you can try volunteering at hospitals, planned parenthood, hospices etc. You could also try getting a paid clinical job. Again, google is your best friend.

 

[lumya]

If you end up getting a paid clinical job, I would still recommend non-clinical volunteering. Other than the fact that it's one of those categories that seems to be on the unofficial checklist of what pre-meds should do, I think it shows a lot about who you are as a person. I'm a docent at a space museum which has absolutely nothing to do with medicine, but my interviewers loved asking me about it and I was able to tell them that ties in with my interests in science education, especially programs that introduced topics in a digestible manner to low-income students.

During COVID it's harder to find volunteering with everything being closed but currently I tutor students online via Zoom and I help a museum transcript handwritten text into typed text to so visually-impaired visitors can have descriptions read to them. I have friends who volunteer by reading books to hospice patients online, edit videos/educational materials for schools, or run websites for organizations that didn't have them previously. There's definitely a lot of options out there that are accessible and flexible.

 

[NormalUsername42]

its probably not mandatory if you have a 4.0/528 + 10 pubs lol

But are the 10+ pubs really required at that point?

 

[r2med]

But are the 10+ pubs really required at that point?

Just 4.0/528 is not likely to land you a guaranteed acceptance. Med schools look for more than just those stats.

 

[NormalUsername42]

Just 4.0/528 is not likely to land you a guaranteed acceptance. Med schools look for more than just those stats.

Oh definitely. You'd need some exposure and demonstrated interest in medicine along with volunteering etc. My questions was more like, bare-minimums elsewhere, 4.0/528 are those pubs or any pubs/research really needed?

 

[r2med]

Oh definitely. You'd need some exposure and demonstrated interest in medicine along with volunteering etc. My questions was more like, bare-minimums elsewhere, 4.0/528 are those pubs or any pubs/research really needed?

That post said if you had 4.0/528 and 10 pubs, you probably don't need volunteering. Which again is debatable

 

[r2med]

oh lol i didn't mean 10 pubs exactly. my point was for some schools (but not all obviously) amazing stats + amazing research can override clinical experience

Possible, more likely for MD PhD than for MD, I would think.

 

[GoPenguinsGo]

found a Greys Anatomy fan

 

[Mad Jack]

You should have clinical experience or exposure, as well as volunteering. You can combine these two things or do them separately, but you had better do them