This not the application of a person who dearly wants to be a physician. It is the application of someone who wants to be a doctor as long as it is convenient.
Here's the deal: You need to show AdComs that you know what you're getting into, and show off your altruistic, humanism side. We need to know that you're going to like being around sick or injured people for the next 40 years.
Here's another way of looking at it: would you buy a new car without test driving it? Buy a new suit or dress without trying it on??
What are you going to say when asked how you know you are suited for a life of caring for the sick and suffering? “That you just know”? Imagine how that will go over!
We're also not looking for merely for good medical students, we're looking for people who will make good doctors, and 4.0 GPA robots are a dime-a-dozen.
I've seen plenty of posts here from high GPA/high MCAT candidates who were rejected because they had little patient contact experience.
Not all volunteering needs to be in a hospital. Think hospice, Planned Parenthood, Ronald McDonald House, nursing homes, rehab facilities, crisis hotlines, camps for sick children, or clinics.
Service need not be "unique". If you can alleviate suffering in your community through service to the poor, homeless, illiterate, fatherless, etc, you are meeting an otherwise unmet need and learning more about the lives of the people (or types of people) who will someday be your patients. Check out your local houses of worship for volunteer opportunities.
Examples include: Habitat for Humanity, Humane Society, crisis hotlines, soup kitchen, food pantry, homeless or women’s shelter, after-school tutoring for students or coaching a sport in a poor school district, teaching ESL to adults at a community center, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, or Meals on Wheels.
Some types of volunteer activities are more appealing than others. Volunteering in a nice suburban hospital is all very well and good and all, but doesn't show that you're willing to dig in and get your hands dirty in the same way that working with the developmentally disabled (or homeless, the dying, or Alzheimers or mentally ill or elderly or ESL or domestic, rural impoverished) does. The uncomfortable situations are the ones that really demonstrate your altruism and get you 'brownie points'. Plus, they frankly teach you more -- they develop your compassion and humanity in ways comfortable situations can't.
I have some volunteering.
30 hours in an ER (but that was end of senior year, summer before college so I do not think would apply).
I have probably 12 hours at one organization, but everything else is really sporadic so I do not know how to use it
