Volunteer opportunities for med. school question?

Question

i have a question regarding volunteer opportunities that are helath-related
do med. schools think it is useless for you to volunteer in Gift Shops of hospitals? because albeit the fact the shop is in a hospital, all you are doing is selling goods which leans towards more to the retail area than health. is it an irrelevant volunteer job?

Answer 1

If you are looking to apply this as on-the-job training as part of your formal application, then the duties and responsibilities are probably not going to be as applicable. However, doing volunteer work within the hospital does allow you to learn about the inner workings of the organization.

I was a hospital volunteer for many years, and have worked in various areas like the print shop, administrative offices, and maintenance office. They still taught me the organization of the hospital, and helped me toward a very interesting career in health care.

I have a friend who worked at the reception desk and went through medical school afterward. I think it was the fact that he took the initiative to find volunteer work within the hospital that provided some specific experience within the environment, so I wouldn't call the experience useless.

You might want to see if you can also do some volunteer work that provides some patient care or contact, such as working in the admissions department, or helping with administrative work on the patient floors.

If you can't find the opportunities at your hospital, you can also find opportunities within other hospitals:
http://www.ahd.com/

Or you can try affiliated volunteer programs through your local volunteer center:
http://www.handsonnetwork.org/our-network/
http://www.pointsoflight.org/centers/find_center.cfm

Volunteer centers can help you find projects that match your interests, and have many one-time projects.

Good luck!

Answer 2

I think all volunteer work is relevant. It is very hard to find people these days who are a genuine, dedicated volunteer. I volunteer with St. John Ambulance volunteer medical response and I absolutely love it, I wish I knew about it earlier! I was also doing the powerpoint at my church for the Sunday services (only two people are doing it now), I hope to pick it up again in the summer.

There are the volunteer resume people, who join a volunteer group only to put it on their resume or for the prestige. There are a lot of these people!

There are also the people who are sincerely interested in what they are doing, they're harder to find.