I don't enjoy Volunteering at a Hospital

[CarolynM]

I hated volunteering at the hospital when I was 16...but I still knew I wanted to be a doctor, because I loved BEING in the hospital, and because I knew that I wasn't going to go into oncology (the patient care unit I was in).

 

Today, I volunteer at a hospice, which I stepped into very tentatively, thinking that I'd be totally uncomfortable there. Originally, I decided to work there because I saw it as a way to demonstrate a high comfort level with death and illness, but I've been so pleasantly surprised at my experience there...

 

You can learn SO MUCH from people - about the dying process, about bedside manner...and you really feel like you're playing an important role, rather than delivering food and pushing people around in wheelchairs (my hospital experience, pretty much). If I am fortunate enough to get an interview, I have so much more to talk about now that I have spent time in a hospice environment.

 

Of course, not all medicine is patient-care centered, and the role of the physician is so vastly different from the role of the volunteer that it's hard to really get an accurate picture of the profession from spending a few hours per week in a hospital.

 

Best of luck!!

[dr nomis]

I just finished a week of shadowing ER docs at my local hospital. Being a rural hospital, they have an actual program set up that pre-med students can sign up for - they assign you to a doctor and get you in there every day for 2 weeks, give you a meal card, parking pass, id card, a gift bag on your first day (including a DVD from the Physician search committee saying 'please come work here'), and even a bit of cash to offset the cost of not working for those two weeks. The exposure is great; you get to follow the doctor to pretty much every patient they see and they're teaching you every step of the way.

 

I know not every hospital offers something like this, but perhaps contact the education administrator of the hospital to see if they do (the person responsible for residents / med students who come through).

 

However, if you don't have a program like this, and you are volunteering in the hospital putting sheets on beds and pushing patients around, perhaps you should ask some of the docs whom you know to be on the nicer end of the spectrum if they'll let you look over their shoulder. This is really easy in the ER because the patient visits are short and usually pretty interesting; perhaps approach a doc when they're not busy and say, "I've been a volunteer here for a while, but I'm a pre-med and would really love it if you might let me watch next time you suture up a laceration or something like that."

 

The reason I say this is because I was talking to some of the docs I was working with, and I told them about the great experience I had volunteering there a few years ago following around a respiratory therapist - I told them I got a much better experience than plain volunteer pre-meds, who ended up stuffing pillowcases and spreading blankets all day. The doc's response: "Well, if I know that a volunteer is interested in seeing some stuff, I'm usually happy to show them. They just need to let me know."

 

So there's no harm in asking. The worst outcome you'll get if you ask politely might be an a$$hole doc telling you to buzz off (They're probably saying that because they're no good at what they do and are scared someone will find out, or they have no people skills and are no good with patients either). If they do, don't let it bug you and ask another doc some other time.

 

And a word to the wise: the nurses will always know which docs are the nicest and which ones are mean, so pick a kind nurse (when they're not too busy, too) and ask him/her if the doc today might be okay with you watching some procedures. In fact, there's no harm in asking a nurse if you can watch them give an IM injection or put on a bandage.

 

In summary, just be proactive about your experience. If you're not happy with what your experience is, then don't settle for it; do something about it, so that at least you won't regret not trying down the road. Good luck!

[rubberoduck]

wow that is a totally awsome place to be (free food, shadowing). city hospitals usually don't let volunteers do much because of the risk of liability, and because there's already so many staff it gets crowded and shadowers usually get in the way. The unspoken truth, sometimes, is that city doctors aren't as nice. either way, my advice for satyam is not to PLAN out how many hours you should volunteer IN ORDER to get into medschool. like the above posts said, you have to be happy where you're volunteering. don't waste your time doing something you despise because that won't get you in medschool no matter how many hours you put in.

[Satsuma]

thanks for your help guys, i'm starting to really like hospital volunteer work, but recently, i've come to realize that there is no physician-volunteer interaction, have any of you guys gone through this same thinking?

 

 

Hey Aclementine,

 

Yep, physician-volunteer interaction, can in fact be tricky in a volunteer position. I think sometimes the goals of the volunteer (to see what a doc does or to learn about medicine) are different from the goals of the people who make up the volunteer program (get x, y z done for the patients etc ...).

 

I have had a similar experience...way back in high school. I decided to volunteer at the psychiatric hospital, since I was interested in the brain and really didn`t know what psychiatrists did etc. So, they said they really needed volunteers in the schizophrenia dept. And i said..sign me up, not knowing anything about schizophrenia really, they said maybe if I was lucky I would come accross a psychiatrist who would let me in on what they were doing. I did not once see a psychiatrist during the 2 years I was there.

 

BUT, in terms of volunteer experience, it was probably the most rewarding I have had. I spent 2-3 hours a week for 2 years, hanging out and talking to people...people with schizophrenia. I learned all about what their lives were like before their diagnosis, how having schizophrenia affected them, what it was like to have it, what it was like to have to take the meds, what they thought of their psychiatrists, how they sneek their coffee in etc.. I learned how to just be with them and coordinate groups so they could work together at a goal. And since I was just thrown in on my own, alot was learned through trial and error. As a high school student it allowed for alot of personal growth.

 

Now, if I had been following a psychiatrist around for those 2 years I probably would have also learned alot...but alot of stuff I will learn in med school anyway. I really think that the stuff I learned from just spending time with the patients was alot more valuable 'cause it's stuff that isn`t in a textbook. And you won`t have time to sit an talk for hours with patients when you are a doctor!

 

If you want to shadow a doctor, maybe you can try and see if there are programs set up in your area or just ask a doctor that you know. With shadowing you are asking the physician to devote time to you to teach and what not. So it is someting different that volunteering in alot of people's eyes.

 

I do understand your frustration...I was frustrated at the time as well. But in hindsight it was a pretty good experience. So if you are enjoying the people you are meeting in your volunteer experience maybe stick to it for a bit. And see if you can arrange to shadow a doc for a day or something.

 

Or if you see something cool at the hospital go home and look it up...probably 80% of the time I had a question in my family med placement, I was told to go look it up.