Yeah, so med schools here in the US require students to have had some patient contact during their undergrad usually (for traditional students) and I was wondering if you guys had anything in mind. Maybe you know someone who is premed and is doing something interesting regarding patients, or maybe you’ve done something interesting yourself.
And don’t talk about volunteering as a volunteer in a hospital…restrictions are so intense that nothing is hands on there anymore…they make you file papers, pretty much.
hmm PCG my roomie was pre-med and she's in med school now...she did a lot of volunteer work generally with SPOON [its an org that feeds hungry people], and she was also part of this volunteer chaplaincy program at our uni hospital where for example if there is a Muslim patient in the hospital, then Muslims chaplains will go and visit that patient, so she was one of those volunteer chaplains... and she was also shadowing a doctor, i think a heart surgeoun not sure, in a hospital during one of the summers...she was generally involved in a lot of volunteer and community service [related to muslim community and overall community] type of work thruout college and was consistent with it...she also did research with some med school profs i think, not sure...she prolly did other stuff too which i'm not remembering right now but i think this was the major stuff she did...
PCG, when I was volunteering at JMH I had a fellow volunteer who volunteered in the Geriatric division, in ET I believe, and she got a lot of hands-on exoerience with the patients there. She said the nurses would even make her give shots to the patients, not to mention other activities/duties. I'm not sure that is even allowed, but I hear often that if you work with elderly patients you tend to do more hands-on work.
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*Originally posted by PyariCgudia: *
Yeah, so med schools here in the US require students to have had some patient contact during their undergrad usually (for traditional students) and I was wondering if you guys had anything in mind. Maybe you know someone who is premed and is doing something interesting regarding patients, or maybe you've done something interesting yourself.
And don't talk about volunteering as a volunteer in a hospital...restrictions are so intense that nothing is hands on there anymore...they make you file papers, pretty much.
PCG
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PCG - i think first you need to try to decide what field of medicine you want to go into. then find the closest hospital preferably a university hospital and go to their website, find a physician in the field that you are interested in and send them an email regarding your interest to volunteer with them. For the first a few days or even maybe a week, i would just shadow and pick up how things are done...then i would let the physician know that you are interested in doing more.
Family practice physicians in my opinion are more open to ppl coming and volunteering with them and even allowing them to get some hands on experience.
in the begining it will be hard, but thats the only way in that i know of.
i did it ... and made great connections. initially i just volunteered and wasnt allowed to do anything and later, was offered a job as a research assistant as i continued to see patients by myself on two days. it was a great experience and i was also able to get GREAT letters of recommendation from these physicians.
all of this was done in the US, but i am aware of ppl, some of my colleagues having done the same thing in Canada!