I had around 30 hours of clinical volunteering experience at the VA when i applied to medical school, but added a projected 100 hours because I was taking a gap year. (so 130 total—i made sure to note that it was a projection).
But a few months later, I started a paid clinical job, which was not on my application. (I did state it, later, on my secondaries and at interviews.) This job gives me a large amount of paid clinical hours, but it has been at the expense of my clinical volunteering hours—I currently have 70 clinical volunteering hours at the VA. I was planning on quitting my job by March to do some traveling, but I am wondering if I should quit a little earlier to give myself a few weeks to just volunteer and focus on trying to reach the amount of volunteer hours I projected.
I have a fair amount of shadowing hours and non-clinical volunteer hours, so maybe this is a non-issue, but since it was clinical volunteer hours i just wanted to get some feedback. i don’t want to have a situation where I matriculate, then get in trouble for not having the amount of volunteer hours i projected. especially considering i talked a fair amount about this volunteer experience at all my of interviews so far. thanks.
