Volunteering vs working - EC Help

[BlueComet]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I have about 150 volunteering hours (in a hospital) at this point (i am still in the program which requires 200 hours) and i have about 40 hours of volunteering from when i was 17, also in a hospital.

I am the first one in my family to graduate from college and Ive always had to help my parents with the bills since i was about 17 years old. I have not been able to volunteer for very long but Ive worked since i was 17. Ive had the following jobs:
- 1 Year lab technician in the chemistry stock room at my CC.
- 1.5 years as main chemistry tutor at my CC.
- 2.5 years as a student researcher in the Molecular & Medical Pharmacology Lab at UCLA where we researched diabetic medicine on mice. For this job, my responsibilities included breeding the mice colony, measuring blood glucose and treatment injections, along with data entry.
- 6 months as a private chemistry tutor as I studied for the MCATs.

Are these enough ECs for medical school? I plan on applying next month and I do not want to take more time to volunteer more because I already took a GAP year for the MCAT and I dont have the luxury of spare time, I would like to take over for my parents so they dont have to work, I always have them in my back of my mind.

 

[maplecookie]

I would try to squeeze in some shadowing if you can; hospital volunteering shows the “active” parts of a doctors day but shadowing gives a more complete picture

 

[ciestar]

Shadowing and nonclinical service.

 

[BlueComet]

Any advice on how to get into a position where I could shadow? Like i mentioned, i dont know any doctors and no one in my family is a doctor so my contact with actual doctors has been very limited. During my volunteering, I am in a nursing volunteer program so most of my time is spent with patients.

 

[maplecookie]

Any advice on how to get into a position where I could shadow? Like i mentioned, i dont know any doctors and no one in my family is a doctor so my contact with actual doctors has been very limited. During my volunteering, I am in a nursing volunteer program so most of my time is spent with patients.

What I did was find a bunch of doctors emails from the hospital directory and email them with my resume explaining my interest and hope to shadow them. Main thing is to be persistent: if in a week or two there’s no response I sent a follow up email, and if no answer after that I moved on to other emails; unfortunately you will probably get a lot of rejections (flat out or no answer) so you just have to plug away at it

 

[Catalystik]

Any advice on how to get into a position where I could shadow?

Ask nurses in the program where you volunteer if they know of any docs who might allow shadowing.
Ask the physicians of your parents.
Ask the physician you had while growing up.
If you have a premed advisor at your school, they may have a list of doctors you can contact.

 

[BlueComet]

I will do those things and try my best to get some shadowing experience. I really appreciate all of your advice. Thank you!