Volunteering multiple professions?

[Snoopy92]

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Is it not beneficial to shadow an orthodontist when I am still an undecided pre-health student? When I first arrived at college, I was really ingrained to becoming a doctor but after learning more about what that truly means I've felt that I should go shadow/volunteer in different settings of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy to see what I truly want to do. Right now I've shadowed a family physician for about 50 hours, and am beginning to shadow an orthodontist in a week. I was also thinking about volunteering in a hospital a little later this summer. My question is, is it better to just volunteer in a hospital because those hours would help my resume in all three of those health professions or should I still stick with my original idea of shadowing a orthodontist then possibly volunteering in a minute clinic or hospital?

 

[Bungie]

Sounds good if you don't know exactly what you want to do. I shadowed an orthodontist and a veternarian. Not everybody has to be a physician.

 

[LizzyM]

The more avenues you explore, the better. When asked "why medicine" it can be helpful to talk about the other options you considered and why you found that medicine was the best choice for you. Some interviewers will even ask what other options you have considered and why you did not choose it/them.

 

[Snoopy92]

The more avenues you explore, the better. When asked "why medicine" it can be helpful to talk about the other options you considered and why you found that medicine was the best choice for you. Some interviewers will even ask what other options you have considered and why you did not choose it/them.

Thanks for the reply, I have the opportunity to shadow the orthodontist for the whole summer but was wondering if that was overkill and maybe I should explore other avenues after a certain amount of hours?

 

[LizzyM]

Thanks for the reply, I have the opportunity to shadow the orthodontist for the whole summer but was wondering if that was overkill and maybe I should explore other avenues after a certain amount of hours?

What do you mean by a whole summer?? Several days a week for 10 weeks would seem like too much but 3 or 4 times might not be too much, particularly if there are a variety of things going on.

 

[Snoopy92]

What do you mean by a whole summer?? Several days a week for 10 weeks would seem like too much but 3 or 4 times might not be too much, particularly if there are a variety of things going on.

What I mean by "whole summer" is that the orthodontist that I will be shadowing said that I could shadow her however long I wanted. In my case, I was thinking that I might shadow and possible volunteer with her starting next week maybe 1-2 times a week, 4 hours a day, for the rest of the summer. However, after reading some more threads about shadowing, I'm contemplating if that would be worthwhile. So far I don't really have any solidified plans but I was thinking of shadowing a compounding pharmacist as well since I'm extremely interested in that as well. I also have access to a family medicine doctor that might be willing to let me shadow and volunteer in his clinic, but I can't say he absolutely will.

I guess I'm just looking for some advice because I've always heard the longer the better but I'm not sure if that applies with shadowing. Maybe I should split my shadowing opportunities into different times during the summer? Do a few weeks with the orthodontist, a few weeks with the compounding pharmacy, and then a few with the doctor? How many shadowing hours should I aim for each profession, since I would like to put this on my resume if I can. Hope you can help, thanks.

Edit: I assume this would not be considered volunteering, but would it be clinical experience? Since I would be able to smell the patients from each setting... well maybe not pharmacy.

 

[LizzyM]

What I mean by "whole summer" is that the orthodontist that I will be shadowing said that I could shadow her however long I wanted. In my case, I was thinking that I might shadow and possible volunteer with her starting next week maybe 1-2 times a week, 4 hours a day, for the rest of the summer. However, after reading some more threads about shadowing, I'm contemplating if that would be worthwhile. So far I don't really have any solidified plans but I was thinking of shadowing a compounding pharmacist as well since I'm extremely interested in that as well. I also have access to a family medicine doctor that might be willing to let me shadow and volunteer in his clinic, but I can't say he absolutely will.

I guess I'm just looking for some advice because I've always heard the longer the better but I'm not sure if that applies with shadowing. Maybe I should split my shadowing opportunities into different times during the summer? Do a few weeks with the orthodontist, a few weeks with the compounding pharmacy, and then a few with the doctor? How many shadowing hours should I aim for each profession, since I would like to put this on my resume if I can. Hope you can help, thanks.

Shadowing often doesn't add up to more than 40 hours (e.g. 3-5 different docs @ 8-12 hours per doc) and usually means being a fly on the wall and observing what happens in the room where the physician is working. Volunteering is a different animal and I would encourage you to volunteer for as many hours as possible as "volunteer, clinical" is a different category (and one weighed more heavily than "other" which is generally how people classify the "shadowing only" activities) and one that demonstrates "altruism". I've never seen shadowing on a resume (which is usually done for job applications) but it does go on the AAMC medical school application.

 

[Snoopy92]

Shadowing often doesn't add up to more than 40 hours (e.g. 3-5 different docs @ 8-12 hours per doc) and usually means being a fly on the wall and observing what happens in the room where the physician is working. Volunteering is a different animal and I would encourage you to volunteer for as many hours as possible as "volunteer, clinical" is a different category (and one weighed more heavily than "other" which is generally how people classify the "shadowing only" activities) and one that demonstrates "altruism". I've never seen shadowing on a resume (which is usually done for job applications) but it does go on the AAMC medical school application.

Guess I'll shadow each profession for about 10 hours then move on to getting some volunteering done for the summer. Thanks for the help!

 

[Snoopy92]

Shadowing often doesn't add up to more than 40 hours (e.g. 3-5 different docs @ 8-12 hours per doc) and usually means being a fly on the wall and observing what happens in the room where the physician is working. Volunteering is a different animal and I would encourage you to volunteer for as many hours as possible as "volunteer, clinical" is a different category (and one weighed more heavily than "other" which is generally how people classify the "shadowing only" activities) and one that demonstrates "altruism". I've never seen shadowing on a resume (which is usually done for job applications) but it does go on the AAMC medical school application.

Sorry for the double post but a question just crossed my mind about volunteering. Since I don't know really what profession I would like to pursue in the future, I was wondering if I was given the opportunity to volunteer in any of the three fields I stated above (dentistry, pharmacy, and medicine) would I be able to include them all together as either volunteering hours or clinical experiences on my applications or would they all have to be related to the profession? Such as if I wanted to go into medicine then all the hours that I would have volunteered in a dental office or pharmacy would be worthless and only hours in a hospital/clinic would be worth something. I've searched past threads but really couldn't find any information since no one seemed to be in my position. Hope you can help because I don't want to start a volunteer position and then ditch after X hours and make it seem like I was just checking off a box on my pre med application.

 

[n3xa]

If you have the time and resources, try out a little bit of everything.

I would also keep a word document, private blog, whatever, and record some of the things you've seen after your shift that are important to you. That way, come time to apply, you can always look back and reflect on your experiences.

 

[deleted357625]

Anything that involves medicine is a good EC

 

[Snoopy92]

Well what I was trying to get at was whether or not I would be able to use my hours volunteering in any of the settings (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy) to put on either my med/pharm/dentistry school application as clinical experience/volunteering or would it only have to be only in the respective setting, for example a hospital for medicine or pharmacy for pharmacy. That way I can volunteer at multiple settings and find out what I truly like to do without feeling like I would be "wasting" time. For instance, if I were to volunteer in a pharmacy would that have any benefit at all to a med school or dental school as either clinical experience or volunteering? Since I would like to accumulate a lot of volunteer hours while finding and answering the question of what I really want to do with my life.

 

[LizzyM]

You can list all your shadowing on your med application. You can list all your volunteering on your med application. All of your experiences are of value to med admissions.... I don't know how dentistry & pharmacy will evaluate it but I would expect them to be happy that you tried different things and made an informed choice.

I've interviewed at least 2 applicants who have worked/volunteered in dentistry offices.