I'm a 36 year old, non-traditional premed currently taking a DIY post-bacc. If all goes as planned, I should be ready to apply in 2024 with a 3.84 cumulative gpa and 3.84 BCPM gpa. I have a decent amount of non-clinical volunteering from before I decided to pursue medicine in earnest, but all of it is pretty old at this point. My non-clinical volunteering activity includes:
- 2014-2016: 120 hours of volunteer accounting tutoring as part of an academic club
- 2014-2016: 96 hours of volunteering at a homeless shelter soup kitchen
- 2019-2020: 64 hours volunteering at a food pantry
So in total, 280 hours of non-clinical volunteering, but again, it's all pretty old at this point. In order to gain clinical experience I started volunteering at a hospice inpatient unit (IPU), which has been extremely humbling and quickly become the most meaningful thing I have done in my life. I'm currently volunteering four hours per week there and should have ~400 hours by the time I'm ready to apply, but don't plan to stop volunteering until I have to move for medical school. The IPU is in desperate need of volunteers and is having difficulty finding additional help. This leads to my conundrum, there are only so many hours in a week, and I'm weighing my options on whether I should pick up more hours at the hospice IPU or focus on getting more non-clinical volunteer hours so that the experience is more recent when I apply. I can't help but feel guilty spending my time elsewhere when I know there is an organization of amazingly selfless people that could use my help.
I suppose I'm looking for some guidance on how critical non-clinical volunteer recency is during the application process. Would it harm my application to dedicate additional volunteer time exclusively to the hospice or should I focus on diversifying my experience by getting more volunteer hours outside of a clinical setting?
- 2014-2016: 120 hours of volunteer accounting tutoring as part of an academic club
- 2014-2016: 96 hours of volunteering at a homeless shelter soup kitchen
- 2019-2020: 64 hours volunteering at a food pantry
So in total, 280 hours of non-clinical volunteering, but again, it's all pretty old at this point. In order to gain clinical experience I started volunteering at a hospice inpatient unit (IPU), which has been extremely humbling and quickly become the most meaningful thing I have done in my life. I'm currently volunteering four hours per week there and should have ~400 hours by the time I'm ready to apply, but don't plan to stop volunteering until I have to move for medical school. The IPU is in desperate need of volunteers and is having difficulty finding additional help. This leads to my conundrum, there are only so many hours in a week, and I'm weighing my options on whether I should pick up more hours at the hospice IPU or focus on getting more non-clinical volunteer hours so that the experience is more recent when I apply. I can't help but feel guilty spending my time elsewhere when I know there is an organization of amazingly selfless people that could use my help.
I suppose I'm looking for some guidance on how critical non-clinical volunteer recency is during the application process. Would it harm my application to dedicate additional volunteer time exclusively to the hospice or should I focus on diversifying my experience by getting more volunteer hours outside of a clinical setting?
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