Volunteering at Planned Parenthood controversial?

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OfMiceAndWomen

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I’m interested in volunteering at Planned Parenthood (for non-clinical volunteering). I came across a thread on here that said being involved with Planned Parenthood would look bad / offend some adcoms, so it would be better to not include it in application? Is it too political or too controversial to include this activity even if it aligns with my passion for women’s health and contributes to a more coherent narrative?

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I’m interested in volunteering at Planned Parenthood (for non-clinical volunteering). I came across a thread on here that said being involved with Planned Parenthood would look bad / offend some adcoms, so it would be better to not include it in application? Is it too political or too controversial to include this activity even if it aligns with my passion for women’s health and contributes to a more coherent narrative?

I think that if this is your passion, the small fraction of schools who may be upset by it are not places you would be happy at anyway
 
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I’m interested in volunteering at Planned Parenthood (for non-clinical volunteering). I came across a thread on here that said being involved with Planned Parenthood would look bad / offend some adcoms, so it would be better to not include it in application? Is it too political or too controversial to include this activity even if it aligns with my passion for women’s health and contributes to a more coherent narrative?
Any nonclinical role you play in a family-planning clinic can be described so that it's not controversial.
 
They just fired Leana Wen, the first physician to serve as president in eons.
Yeah, what about this point? How would adcoms see this move? When I read this I thought it was a horrible move and kind of discredited Planned Parenthood's intentions as a health care organization and made them seem more as another political machine not necessarily (or fully) interested in health. I thought it would be a good talking point if it somehow came up in interviews (I think very highly of Leanna Wen and could see her coming up in some way) but I don't wanna make statements that seem misinformed.
 
If it is fundamental part of your journey to medicine I would definitely include it. These are group decisions and one adcom isn’t going to keep you out if you don’t say anything particularly offensive when describing the activity. Just talk about how both you and the community benefitted from this experience and I would think you should be fine.
 
Hi! I was the one who posted in the G-town thread about my involvement with Planned Parenthood. I am more involved on the advocacy end because that is what I am passionate about and what I hope to continue doing in the future. I will say that I have submitted about 20 secondaries so far and talked about this experience in a majority of those secondaries. I felt comfortable doing this after scouring the websites of all these schools. After thinking more about this, I have decided not to apply to G-town since my values and goals do not align with theirs
 
Hi! I was the one who posted in the G-town thread about my involvement with Planned Parenthood. I am more involved on the advocacy end because that is what I am passionate about and what I hope to continue doing in the future. I will say that I have submitted about 20 secondaries so far and talked about this experience in a majority of those secondaries. I felt comfortable doing this after scouring the websites of all these schools. After thinking more about this, I have decided not to apply to G-town since my values and goals do not align with theirs

Thanks for answering! Haha I think it was your post that initially worried me, because I didn’t realize Georgetown would have these values. It’s really good to hear your perspective and experience. I definitely will be pursuing volunteering with PP, but it was helpful for me to learn that it’s important to reflect on values and goals when considering different schools.
 
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