Ha, I have tons of volunteer the past 13 years. That’s all my life has been as a pastor’s wife in churches that want us both completely available to them. However, now that neither of us attend church it’s hard to ask a preacher “hey you wanna vouch for me that I did indeed do XYZ”?
Besides, I’m not so sure, heading up youth groups, organizing children’s depts and being a music director are medically oriented.
I do have the 5 years I volunteered on a pregnancy website as their breastfeeding councelor, but really, there’s not much clinical there.
I can’t worry about that.
Right now, I’m working, raising 3 children and have a spouse in school as well. My grades are the utmost importance. Beyond that, what I can do for my community in random EMS runs will have to suffice.
It bears repeating because its a common misconception - volunteering does NOT have to be medically oriented. Medical schools like to see 1) volunteer and 2) some sort of medical experience (be it volunteering, shadowing, work, etc). They don’t require volunteering to be medically related. Lots of people try and make their volunteering medically related so they can kill two birds with one stone. But, your experiences as a pastor’s wife are perfectly good volunteering experiences to include on your application. If one doesn’t have a lot of medical experience, then they should try and get in some shadowing so that they can show that they have thoroughly researched the profession and that they have a good idea of what they are getting themselves into.
Volunteer in whatever excites you. Med school people can tell when they ask about your experiences if it was something you did that you truly enjoyed or if it was something you did to check off another box on the application.
- AliJ Said:
I actually didn't have that impression... what concerns me every time we have a thread like this (and in years of OPM conversations, there's a conversation along these lines at least every few months, it seems) is that people think that they are supposed to "fake it" for the AMCAS, that the volunteer "requirement" is basically forcing people to present themselves in a false light.
Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that people don't use the AMCAS application that way. But I *do* believe that med schools aren't looking for you to make yourself out as Mother Teresa if you're not. The AMCAS application should be used for what it is - a structured tool that gives you ways to provide meaningful details about your life. It is structured to be most generically applicable to the most people, and therefore it's tilted toward the "generic" volunteer experience of a college student. But you absolutely can and should use it to present your own experiences.
And if you don't have experiences that lend themselves to cataloguing via the application, then maybe your personal statement is a place to show your dedication and humanity. AliJ, despite your reticence to involve friends or family (which I appreciate), there may be a story in one of your experiences that could show your desire to help people and maybe also your appreciation for the challenges of health care for the underserved - just as an example.
The point I'm trying to drive home is: view the various pieces of the application puzzle as TOOLS. Make them work for you. Don't get all defensive and bristly about the structure of the application - look at it and say, hmmmm, how can this work to present my story positively? There will be a way.
You might consider yourself like a politician's press secretary, whose job it is to be unrelentingly positive in selling the boss. No matter what the question, no matter what the situation, there is a positive spin to be made somewhere.
Good luck, everyone!
Mary
mary - I always appreciate words from someone who has walked the road.
Incidently, I stumbled onto this today from Seth Godin’s blog. Seemed fitting, so I thought I’d share. I swear I don’t have a free minute(I type these posts at work. . .yikes), but I guess I probably do.
There’s always room for Jello (by Seth Godin)
This is one of the great cultural touchstone slogans of our era. A culture where there’s so much to eat we need to try to find a food that we can eat even if we’re stuffed.
Often, we’ll decide that something is full, stuffed, untouchable but then some Jello shows up, and suddenly there’s room.
Think about your schedule… is there room for an emergency, an SEC investigation, a server crash? If you took a day off because of the flu, is your business going to go bankrupt? Probably not.
So, if there’s time for an emergency (Jello), why isn’t there time for brilliance, generosity or learning?
Wow, Ali! Quite poignant!
Thanks again Mary for your wise words of wisdom.
And to the Jello analogy…I do like me some jello. 