Volunteering with a Physiotherapist

[Turk]

Hey guys,

 

I have a quick question about volunteering. I have an opportunity of volunteering with a physiotherapist. My duties would be to apply bandages to people, put electrodes on them, and basically be the physiotherapist's assistant. I was wondering if this would be beneficial to my application for medical school. Because I haven't shadowed a doctor yet, I thought I could do this instead of that for the time being, while I find a doctor to shadow.

 

I'm asking this question because I remember reading a thread about someone having the opportunity to shadow a dentist, but was advised against it because it was not similar enough to medicine. I was just wondering if this would be the same case with volunteering with a physiotherapist, or if I should volunteer.

 

Thanks!

[Flying]

I'm a strong believer of doing ECs because you enjoy them and thus can learn from them. A medical school faculty is not going to reject you because your EC doesn't have enough to do with medicine, but rather it is going to question your intentions when doing it and what you've learnt from it. There are just so many different experiences out there that can allow you to develop qualities that are necessary to become a good physician. I'd say that maybe you can try it out - who knows? Maybe you'll find yourself developing some kind of connection with the patients you'll be assisting, and that you can definitely talk about throughout your med school application process

[NeuroPreMed]

Yeah, I'm not sure why a medical school would decline you because volunteering somewhere wasn't based on medicine. I agree with flying, if you want to volunteer with the physiotherapist because you actually want to, and can learn from it then go for it. Putting in your time to help someone else without expecting something in return is never wasted.

[Turk]

Yeah, I'm not sure why a medical school would decline you because volunteering somewhere wasn't based on medicine. I agree with flying, if you want to volunteer with the physiotherapist because you actually want to, and can learn from it then go for it. Putting in your time to help someone else without expecting something in return is never wasted.

 

I wasn't worried about medical schools declining me for volunteering here, I was just wondering if it would be beneficial to my application, because I heard shadowing a dentist was not; and I was hoping this was not a similar situation.

 

And this position seems interesting to me.

[NeuroPreMed]

I wasn't worried about medical schools declining me for volunteering here, I was just wondering if it would be beneficial to my application, because I heard shadowing a dentist was not; and I was hoping this was not a similar situation.

 

And this position seems interesting to me.

 

Once again, I'm not sure why someone would tell you shadowing a dentist is not beneficial. Volunteer hours are volunteer hours, whether it's a soup kitchen or a graveyard. Pick something you want to do and all the hours put in won't feel wasted.

[medhopeful64]

I wasn't worried about medical schools declining me for volunteering here, I was just wondering if it would be beneficial to my application, because I heard shadowing a dentist was not; and I was hoping this was not a similar situation.

 

And this position seems interesting to me.

 

Volunteering with a dentist, physiotherapist, or any other health care professional is helpful - helpful in the sense that it may help you see that you'd rather be doing medicine instead of dentistry/phsyiotherapy, etc. So if you're asked, "Why medicine, why not dentistry?" then you can probably answer the question much more confidently than if you hadn't volunteered with the dentist/physiotherapist/whatever. But, I think that any exposure to the health care environment is helpful rather than detrimental. But that's just my $0.02.

[Turk]

Thanks for the replies guys!

 

They were really helpful