Voluntary work/work experience advice

[ollyolly]

Hi, sorry if this has been posted before or its in the wrong category, im new here. Basically i just wanted to know if anybody had any good suggestions of types of voluntary work that would help me get into med school. If anybody knows any websites or courses or anything else it would be useful to hear what they are. Im only 16 so i might not be able to do some of the courses at the moment but would still like to hear what they are. I have already done some voluntary work in a school for children with special needs and was a young leader at cubs for one year.
Thanks

[superfish0]

I am also 16 and having similar issues. Try your local hospital because they will probably do a youth volunteering scheme like mine does. I go there every week on trauma and orthopedics but you can go any where.

If you want to try care homes then make sure you speak to the manager. Any secretaries will have been told 18+ only and will immediately reject you. Also as with most things you may have to keep trying until you find a home which has done it before as often they don't like to try it out. You may also find thta the manager mysteriously disappears when you ask about volunteering as a 16 year old so book an appointment or something.

Also try to see if there are any holiday camps for kids with learning disabilities, especially if you have done some work before in that area. Often they rely on volunteers and will have taken promising medical students before.

[crajee]

Plenty of opportunities!

If you're interested in travelling, I would really, really recommend doing volunteer work abroad. I organised mine through family contacts but I have heard for the most part awesome reviews about organisations, too. It also means you can compare and contrast how medicine works (from what little you would understand as someone in your position of course) in poorer countries, and in England - which shows the interviewers you are looking at Medicine in its larger context of how money, politics, patient attitude, etc. etc. plays a role in healthcare, as opposed to the run-of-the-mill thoughts you would get on how enlightening it was for you to serve the elderly coffee and further drove you to your passion of medicine. Not that there's anything wrong with serving coffee to the elderly, of course (especially if you use the time also to talk to them and get a feel for how they see healthcare, etc. etc.). Not to mention it's a lot easier to see damn fascinating stuff with much less 'legal hassle' and/or paperwork in third world countries, lol.

Hospitals - as superfish mentioned above - keep trying. There will be something somewhere for you to do.

Hospitals are not the only place to do volunteer work for a med school application, in my honest opinion. As it's been stressed countless number of times both on this forum and elsewhere (hell, anywhere!) - it's what you get out of the experience that counts. Try the local primary school (maybe you can help out with a health ed class or something?), working with kids is always a rewarding experience and it teaches you so damn much, which is the most important thing. They want to know how the experience shaped you, moulded you into the person sitting in front of them in an interview, and they want to see if you can apply how you gave up your own time for the benefit of others, to how it will help you to be a good doctor/help you in medical school.

The local nurseries, playschools, preschools, whatnot might be an idea, too.

Summer camps/summer-specific activities in general might have a lot of vacancies.

And again, as superfish said, try for ones with learning disabilities, etc. (or maybe even a school teaching kids with learning disabilities)

You might even want to see if there is any form of volunteering available in your own school - peer mentors or something similar?

As for work experience, try asking your GP. They may not give you a placement in a local area (or at least, that's what I was told) for confidentiality reasons, but they can certainly point you in the right direction.

Again, work experience might be worth looking into abroad.

Also, just as a side note, depending on how interested you may be of course - have you considered going to summer camps (in the UK or abroad - America has some good ones) or doing summer mini research projects with your local university? It's not exactly putting you in a hospital environment but (and especially so if you're aiming for the more traditional teaching/"academic" universities) it shows you have an interest in the subject you want to pursue as a career and are keen to learn. Also maybe try an OU course?

Keep looking, you have a month and a week ahead of you (I presume?) before school starts and that's plenty of time. Good luck!