Volunteering is Overrated
My previous post on needle sticks and exposures was awarded a shiny new post over at SDN. Some questions for me were posed in the discussion, and I wanted to expand on the topic a bit more than simply posting a reply to the thread. Before I go much further, I wanna give bronx43 props for watching my back.
Druggernaught states:
I’m curious how much clinical exposure the guy who runs MedSchoolHell had before he applied to medical school. I’m guessing not nearly enough. Do any of his regular readers know, or is he willing to share that with us here? It doesn’t take long to realize that you’ll be dealing with people who aren’t willing to put in the time for a little common sense preventative care for themselves, who will simultaneously hate you for doing your job and yet demand that you give them the care they need, and that you’re going to have to put yourself at some risk from time to time.
It’s a bit off topic, but looking over that website and some of the posts here, I really wish that medical schools posted some sort of requirements as far as real clinical exposure to avoid the 4.0, 40 MCAT applicant who very quickly realizes he’s made a mistake but is too far in debt and has committed too much time to turn around now.
I had roughly 8 months of volunteer experience, ranging from shadowing in the ER during college to volunteering in private pediatric and family medicine practices in my hometown. This was across three years of college, so roughly 2.5 months out of those college years I was volunteering somewhere. I loaded my volunteer experiences during the last three years of college, and didn’t do much of anything other than school-related stuff during my freshman year. These gigs were the typical “volunteer” positions, so they were probably 1-2 days per week at 3-4 hours each day. Nothing excessive, by a long shot.
I never fully enjoyed any of my volunteer positions. I saw them as a necessary evil in order to boost my chances of getting into medical school. Everybody else was doing it, so I should too. I should have listened to my heart way back then, but I brushed it off as “not liking specialty X.” I thought I’d surely like something in medicine, just not whatever I was volunteering in at the time. Since I didn’t volunteer in every conceivable medical specialty, I rationalized that I would find something that would fit my personality.
The Volunteering Conundrum
The problem with volunteering is that you’re not really going to see what it’s all about short of becoming a full-fledged employee where you actually get to do stuff. You follow some doc around for a few hours and then go home — rinse and repeat while your pre-med mind thinks it’s going to be cool to be like that doc one day. Most volunteer gigs won’t let you do anything remotely close to what you’re going to be doing as a medical student on the wards due to insurance and litigation issues.
What volunteering won’t show you are the long hours, after-hours calls, sleeping in some crappy call room overnight, unruly patients, staying after “office hours” to complete paperwork, aggravated family members, social work involved with “patient care”, and the terrible insurance crisis and low reimbursement to physicians. The only way you’re going to learn about this stuff is to pull a regular job in a clinical setting, and even then experiencing some of these things might be iffy at best. Some of my pre-med buddies were doing stuff like phlebotomy, full-time ER nursing, or even full-time EMTs. Were these people more prepared going into medical school as far as knowing more about what they were getting themselves into? I think that without a doubt they were.
That being said, most students (myself included) have no idea what the practice of medicine is really going to be like prior to medical school matriculation. That’s the nature of the beast, especially when you do the standard volunteer gigs. By the time you get on the wards and decide that it really sucks, you’ve already thrown away two years so you might as well finish it.
That’s what I did, anyway. By the time I decided I really hated medicine, I had already taken and passed Step 1 and thrown away two years worth of tuition and time studying. I still believe this was the best decision for me, as talked about in my post about when to get out of medicine if you’re unhappy. Your mileage will vary, but had I not had student-loan debt incurred during the first two years of medical school, I would’ve probably cut my losses a lot earlier.
UberVolunteer (or Work) More
If I had one piece of advice to give, it would be that you need to really dig down and come as close as possible to finding out what medicine is really going to be like before you waste your energy applying. If this means getting a full-time job working 12-hour shifts doing blood draws, you need to do it. If you can shadow a 1st or 2nd year OB/GYN resident and work every hour that they are at the hospital including calls, that experience will give you a much better idea of what this whole medicine thing is going to be like than pushing patients to their car or bringing down food trays to the emergency room. This isn’t volunteering, this is being an UberVolunteer. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but I at least partly chalk that up to the fucked up volunteering system in place. If I had to work 12 hour shifts doing blood draws or follow some poor OB/GYN resident around the hospital while he or she got their asses burned, I would’ve given medicine the finger long before I even matriculated.
Paramediclizard states that I should “learn something from a real physician and student of life.”
Being compassionate, being concerned for your fellow man, doing everything you can to help people—that’s the kind of religion I have, and it’s a comforting religion.
Sorry DeBakey, that stuff just doesn’t float my boat. For me, medicine was just a job prospect. For you, it was a lifestyle and religion. I’m really not that concerned for the welfare of sick people I don’t know. Sorry.
Plus, I like more than 4-5 hours of sleep every night and retirement before my 90th birthday. Hey, that counts for something, right?
Great post. SDN is too full of close-minded know it all pre-meds. I appreciate your honesty towards this field. I have talked to Doctors I shadowed and when I ask them how they like medicine, they give the standard “I love it” when their face screams “Get me outta here!”
i agree with you. i am actually prepharm, not premed. but what you say is right for anyone wanting to go into a healthcare profession: you have to go beyond the shallow volunteering to truly understand what the hell you’re getting yourself into. on that note, i was lucky enough to get a pharm tech license, externing at walgreen’s and working at a small pharmacy before i realized that pharmacy work sucks balls. gotta look beyond the ridiculous prestige and average pay!!!
It’s quite sad that the “compassionate” and “selfless” medical students believe that the majority of his/her classmates share the same sentiments, when in reality, most medical students realize that it’s simply not worth it to dedicate his/her livelihood for the sake of medicine. This overwhelming trend is very evident when you look at the lifestyle-friendly nature of the most competitive fields. You can’t tell me that dermatology is incredibly competitive because people love to look at vomit-inducing skin ruptures…
Volunteering in a hospital to decide that you want to be a doctor is akin to the Army setting up video games for kids to see if they want to go to Iraq.
Excellent @ Prefers to be anon
I fall into the same boat you did Hoover, I did not know what being a doctor entailed until I was in med school. I have to say SDN is a beast when it comes to thrashing on those who have nonconforming beliefs of the altruistic and self sacrificing med student. Naive. In my opinion, it’s just a job, though I thought it was a dream come true back in premed years, boy was I wrong.
“For you, it was a lifestyle and religion. I’m really not that concerned for the welfare of sick people I don’t know. Sorry.” – Awesome quote.
For SurferBoyMD: So are you practicing now or not? Give us your story!
Fucking brilliant, as usual.
Where have you been all my med years?!!!!! I needed this kind of info!
I’m med student from europe and don’t really know what the med school is like in the states but back here is six years of grueling memory fest with no real life experience and even volunteering is discouraged because noone want’s to deal with shitty med student! And when you graduate the ones who didn’t gave you the light of day are expecting perfect clinical work from you!! I should have gone into law or economics!
Thanks for listening..i really needed this after looking into harrison’s
Hi Anon,
I’m still just a 2nd year w/ very little clinical experience. When I was premed I did my volunteer work and shadowed physicians, but I never really realized the hours these physicians put in. I came in to volunteer, 4 hours a few times a week, and that was it. I was very naive, and did not realize the sheer amount of work a med student needs to take on, and the amount of hours residents and attendings had to work. My 4 hours every week made me think, “oh I can handle this.”
I’m sure there is a lot more to come 3rd and 4th year, and possibly residency, who knows. Sorry if I confused you to think I might have been out of med school and doing something else. Cheers! Rock on Hoover!
I appreciate the response. I don’t agree with a lot of the things you put out there, but this one’s spot on.
I agree that volunteering is a waste of time except for show. Shadowing is a much better way to get a glimpse at what we’re getting ourselves into. I wish I had done more of it.
I have no doubts that I’m in the right profession. I admit that I’m only MSI, but I knew the downsides before I decided on this journey.
Neumed, everybody thinks they know the downsides before starting on a journey. Anyway I have never had a single worthwhile volunteer experience. I was bored any time I shadowed too and had to work hard to feign interest…never did a very good job of it.
Really when I think back it’s hard for me to imagine how I ended up in med school. The more I think about it the more I start to believe it was due to my family. I don’t want to take Step 1 soon…but again I’ll just follow their suggestion and take it before deciding how to get out of here.
Midas, any suggestions as to what would really be a good way to gain experience if both shadowing and volunteering are ineffective?
How many of you agree with Midas regarding shadowing (assuming it’s more effective than volunteering)?
Thank you.
–Not Your Typical Premed
I think it’s same to say that you will choose to work in a high-rolling town. Which is almost fabulous. I’ll let those people die. Don’t come to my area though. I’m a credentialer and if you show up on my table, you will get kicked off the island at the CEM meetings. We’re a tight-knit bunch too. I could safely say that there are…12 hospitals that you could not apply to in this area because of this blog. You’re too much of a liability. This is like one big peer review shooting you in the face not even the foot.
Thankfully, I work with lovely doctors that actually care about their patients.
Oh, CG.
You should shadow, stripe, and interview. Shadow (for anyone caring) starting in high school. Have a kickass CV that a doctor will read and think that maybe not all 17 year olds are dumbasses. To have that CV you’ve got to stripe. You have to prove that you will actually do all sorts of painful things for nothing.You also have to show you do worthwhile non-medical activies that will actually affect your medical activies. Confusing? It is. I’ve got one 16 year old girl shadowing our senior physician right now. She is in all AP courses and on the counsel board/teen liason for the Islamic Community here plus is a leader in the Student Muslim Association. If you have any superpowers, I suggest listing those.
It’s going to be harder to shadow in college because of all the requirements as a premed, but keep striping.
Interview doctors from all different fields. Tell them to be as honest as they can about the most painful and trying parts of being a doctor – tell them you real examples.
Amber,
I think it’s safe to say that you don’t really read this blog. If you have read it, you would know that I got out of medicine just after graduation from medical school and never chose to pursue a residency.
Therefore, I have no use for your “credentialing” or the hospitals you speak of.
“You have to prove that you will actually do all sorts of painful things for nothing.”
WTF?
Why the hell would anyone want to get into a job where that is a prerequisite? Hell, bend over and invite them to fuck you in the ass with razorblades why don’t you?
Kids, don’t listen to Amber Lee, she’s crazy. Go and do jobs that give you good working hours, decent pay FROM THE START, and sick/maternity leave, and don’t EVER let anyone treat you like crap and expect you to “do a lot of painful things for nothing”. You are worth more than that.