What should I look for in volunteering?

[Epen]

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So this will be my first year of college, and I want to find a volunteering position somewhere to start buffering up my application. I've already done a volunteering program at a hospital for three years in high school, but it was mainly manning the gift shop and the front desk. Not really stuff related to medicine, per se.

I want to go into pathology, and I don't want to be stuck behind a register or a desk again with octogenarian retirees who comment on my youth without ever interacting with actual patients or doctors. Where/What should I look for when looking for a position?

 

[Narmerguy]

Find a position where you can smell them. It shouldn't be too hard.

 

[BurritoBandito]

Keep up the medical field volunteering but also look for opportunities elsewhere. Maybe a local children's community center or a museum or the zoo etc. They wanna see that you have other interests as well. Every pre-med volunteers at a hospital, youve gotta figure out ways to separate yourself from the pack

 

[CodeBlu]

Find a position where you can smell them. It shouldn't be too hard.

+1

Smell patients. That's important as per LizzyM's rockin' advice.

Talk to your volunteer coordinator, they should be able to help you.

And I know exactly what you mean by octogenarians commenting on your youth. It's annoying. Hahaha

 

[NeuroTyler]

Here's the bottom line: medical schools are looking for diversified applicants with a plethora of experiences to bring to the table. Do anything and everything you can get your hands on. Be sure to travel, volunteer, work in a medical setting, do research at universities, speak with doctors about their opinions regarding healthcare and it's problems, research the schools you wish to attend extensively, and most of all study and do well on the MCAT and on your studies. While EC's are important and can get you onto the other side of the fence, GPA and MCAT scores are certainly the most important. In fact, a surgeon told me not to worry so much about what I'm doing over the summer, but rather to work for high scores. He said the other stuff is too highly touted.

That being said, landing an ER tech. job is probably the best thing a premed can do, so I've been told. And as far as volunteering goes, do it all. Try Hospice, they're highly revered within the American medical school admissions committees.

 

[aSagacious]

You said that you already volunteered at the same hospital for three years? You must have someone to put in a good word for you by now. Check the hospital website / job listings / word-of-mouth for any internships or possibly research projects going on.

 

[Soulstice]

Are there exceptions to the whole "clinical experience = smelling patients" rule? Like, doing recruitments for clinical research and doing patient assessments on the phone, or volunteering with a psych/mental health hotline or something? I feel like there's almost as much interaction there with patients (if not more) than clerical work in a hospital..

 

[Doctor246853]

So this will be my first year of college, and I want to find a volunteering position somewhere to start buffering up my application. I've already done a volunteering program at a hospital for three years in high school, but it was mainly manning the gift shop and the front desk. Not really stuff related to medicine, per se.

I want to go into pathology, and I don't want to be stuck behind a register or a desk again with octogenarian retirees who comment on my youth without ever interacting with actual patients or doctors. Where/What should I look for when looking for a position?

I started out as a CNA and got a good idea of what everyone does and how everyone interacts. I learned how to handle HORRIBLE family members as well as sick patients. It was the cheapest way to get some type of licence and I would recommend it. Its not for the weak thats for sure but you will get great experience and be allowed to shadow (if you work in a hospital) because its hard for outsiders due to HIPPA.

 

[NightGod]

I started out as a CNA and got a good idea of what everyone does and how everyone interacts. I learned how to handle HORRIBLE family members as well as sick patients. It was the cheapest way to get some type of licence and I would recommend it. Its not for the weak thats for sure but you will get great experience and be allowed to shadow (if you work in a hospital) because its hard for outsiders due to HIPPA.

The hospital I am just starting to volunteer at handles the HIPAA issue by putting us through the same in-service as the rest of the employees and running us through the same background checks as everyone else. I think you might be surprised what some places are willing to do to support a strong volunteer program.

 

[Doctor246853]

The hospital I am just starting to volunteer at handles the HIPAA issue by putting us through the same in-service as the rest of the employees and running us through the same background checks as everyone else. I think you might be surprised what some places are willing to do to support a strong volunteer program.

Yeah but most hospital will have you doing lame things unless you have some type of medical training (cna, emt,...) but if you can get close to sick or dying patients you are one of the few.

 

[justdoit31]

Find something you will enjoy doing and where you can interact with patients- for me that was volunteering at a children's hospital- I did some time in Child Life where I played games and did art projects with kids in their rooms but most of my time I spent with the school program at the hospital tutoring kids- they loved that I was one of the few volunteers that could help high school students with upper level math and science.

I think the key to volunteering is to love what you do- some people want to check a box off on the app but if you can talk about it and really convince an interviewer that you enjoyed it it helps looks good.

 

[NightGod]

Yeah but most hospital will have you doing lame things unless you have some type of medical training (cna, emt,...) but if you can get close to sick or dying patients you are one of the few.

I live in a relative small city (~20K people) and I've at least gotten some good impressions from our volunteer program so far. They've already been supportive of my weird schedule desires (the best time for me to volunteer is in the middle of the night, which they've said they'll support once I finish my training) and they have a couple of very cool positions with direct patient interaction that I'm going to seriously work to fit into my schedule. One is the hospice program, which has a huge volunteer component in this hospital, and the other is one where you get paired up with a mental health patient who needs some socializing (nothing severe like psychosis or anything, just people who had social anxiety disorder and the like) with the hopes that a friendship will form and help the patient 'break out of their shell' so to speak. I'll have a better idea in a month or three, for sure, but so far things look really promising here.

 

[Epen]

Find a position where you can smell them. It shouldn't be too hard.

bahaha I'll keep this in mind

I was thinking about doing hospice work, like a lot of you have mentioned, and it's good to hear that that's a better idea than I thought it was.

 

[LizzyM]

Are there exceptions to the whole "clinical experience = smelling patients" rule? Like, doing recruitments for clinical research and doing patient assessments on the phone, or volunteering with a psych/mental health hotline or something? I feel like there's almost as much interaction there with patients (if not more) than clerical work in a hospital..

If you haven't ever smelled patients, you may in for a awful surprise when you get to M3 year. Be sure you are good with it before you sign on the dotted line to start medical school.