Volunteering + shadowing

[ceng2doc]

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Hi,

I've been computer engineer (along with a masters degree), and am currently studying my second bachelors in Biomedical Sciences.

I've been working for full-time as an engineer to afford the living cost for my family. I'm married.

For my med-school applications, I'd like to learn:

• What type of volunteering do I need? Is it necessarily gonna be medical volunteering?
• Do I need shadowing?
• I've heard about EMT. If I get the EMT cert, how should I use it towards my application (i.e., should I just resign from my current job, and start working as an EMT?)

 

[Catalystik]

Any form of community service is fine. If it happens to be clinical volunteering, it covers two bases.

Most schools will expect some shadowing experience.

Having an EMT certificate isn't too helpful unless you use it for a job or a volunteer position. Either way, it is an excellent way to gain clinical patient experience. You'll need clinical environment experience too, which you could get in a hospital, clinic, nursing home, or hospice, among others, as a volunteer. You don't need to do this as a full-time job. Volunteering somewhere four hours a week would be fine, if done regularly for a year or more.

If you work as a EMT in an ER (covering both patient and environment experience) then community service need not be medical.

 

[redsbear]

Volunteer in a hospital. They are set up to manage volunteer experiences like jobs, with plenty of structure to ensure you're not just sitting around. You get a unique perspective of medicine and will meet some pretty interesting people. You probably won't, however, get a great idea of "what a doctor does". Shadow a few specialties that interest you. In fact, you could ask doctors you meet while volunteering if you could shadow them a few times to see more in-depth what they do.

Volunteering proves you have a compassionate, altruistic (I hate that word) streak. It also shows you can work as the lowest rung on the ladder, because you'll be a software engineer stocking shelves, folding blankets, and pushing wheelchairs. Medical students rank higher, but not by much 😉 You'll spend a long time working your way up that ladder. Oh, and get on the volunteering right away. I'd very likely be in my first year if I had started earlier. 150 hours is a good goal, or 3-4 hours per week for a year.

Shadowing proves that you're making an informed career decision. Would you enroll in a $100k professional pilot academy without ever having flown in an airplane? Same idea here.

Bonus: Both volunteering and shadowing put you in a position to gather experiences and stories that will solidify your decision to go into medicine and will provide good stories to relate during interviews.

 

[familyaerospace]

I have a similar situation to yours (married, was working full time, but used my MS in a different field than yours, working on a post-bacc)

I've been told it's good to have both medical and non-medical volunteering. I've been volunteering at one non-profit for about 3 years (not medical) and I just started volunteering at a hospital (Emergency Dept) in October.

They would like to see some shadowing, but it seems to be a lot harder than some people make it out to be. You're going to hear a lot of nos before you hear any yes so don't get too discouraged. I hear a lot of privacy concerns even though I'm already affiliated with a hospital and am in contact with doctors. One of my doctors (a plastic surgeon) said I can shadow him, but I can only catch a few hours at a time because he only wants me with him at one hospital. He is helping me hook up with another surgeon (I just learned about this recently). My neurologist has been pestering other neurologists to let me shadow one of them (it took 4 months to get a yes and I start in March and I should get at least 16 hours). Other than that, I haven't had much success. So you are going to want to start exploring shadowing as soon as you can make the time. I've been looking for shadowing ops since Nov and so far have 2.5 hours done, 2 more to be done tomorrow, and several others coming up. My goal is to just get 50 shadowing hours by the end of this year.

If you go EMT, see if you can get put in the hospital system as a per diem employee. Then they can call you when they need you. You'll get paid and get some clinical experience. One of the EMTs at my hospital is doing this as she goes back to school for nursing. They call her when people are out sick or are on vacation. Might be something to think about.