Volunteering You Know You Can't Talk About

[medception]

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[Ismet]

All work and activities go in the Work and Activities section. If you didn't feel like you benefitted from them or if you don't wish to discuss them, then leave them out. If you do include them, you don't have to explain why you left. Just say what you did as a volunteer and a few sentences on what you got out of it.

You don't have to enjoy everything you do.

 

[kyamh]

I similarly had an awful volunteering experience at a hospital. Basically, their volunteering program not only didn't give the volunteers any sort of real clinical experience, but we (the volunteers) actively took work away from paid employees who had to log all the 'tasks' they completed in order to be in good standing. There was a limited number of tasks and every job completed by a volunteer was one that a paid employee could not get credit for (and it wasn't as though volunteers were helping out in a crazy busy situation...most volunteers did homework until a job came up).

Anyhow, to answer your question, I ended up putting this experience down on my AMCAS to check a box since most of my other volunteering wasn't so directly "medical". I wrote an honest description about what my responsibilities were but I never made a big deal out of it: I never mentioned it in my PS or in my "most meaningful" essays. It's there, I don't know if it helps, but I don't think it hurts. I have prepared a response that I might give at interviews if asked about my volunteering, but both of the interviews I have attended so far have not asked.

My prepared response is basically talking about how, since I had very little patient contact, I did not learn more about the medical profession than I had as a result of growing up with a parent physician. Then I talk about how and why some of my shadowing experiences were much more valuable as a tool to explore the medical profession.

 

[Omppu27]

Why did you even stay for 120 hours.... I left after like 20 at my s hitty experience.

 

[StephanieZ]

Just put it in your AMCAS work and activity section with a short, to-the-point description, but don't list it as one of your most meaningful and don't talk about it in your PS. Interviewer's probably won't even ask you about it, but listing it can't hurt you. If they ask why you stopped (unlikely) just say that you had limited time and you had volunteer obligations that you felt more passionately about.

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

I similarly had an awful volunteering experience at a hospital. Basically, their volunteering program not only didn't give the volunteers any sort of real clinical experience, but we (the volunteers) actively took work away from paid employees who had to log all the 'tasks' they completed in order to be in good standing. There was a limited number of tasks and every job completed by a volunteer was one that a paid employee could not get credit for (and it wasn't as though volunteers were helping out in a crazy busy situation...most volunteers did homework until a job came up).

Why is that an awful experience??? You aren't volunteering to get clinical experience... Did you think they're allow you to draw blood?

All tasks a volunteer does in any setting takes it away from a paid employee. The point of volunteering at a hospital is to help sick people, if that means you lower the hospital overhead by lowering employee wages, you are helping the patient.