Saturday, June 14, 2008  #5: Volunteer work  Volunteer work is
one of those things that you need to have on your medical school
application, for a number of reasons. First of all, every other
med school applicant will have it on their application. So if
you want to be a competitive applicant, it is one of those
things you need to have on yours as well. Secondly, not having
volunteer work on your application is like directly telling the
selection committee that you have always hated poor people and
want to deport them all to Mexico. Since this is looked down
upon for the most part, it is best to avoid the whole situation
in the first place.  You may be under the impression that
medical schools like applicants who talk about medically-related
volunteer work, but this is not necessarily the case. Medical
schools know that most people who have done "medically-related
volunteer work" have not done anything more than taking people's
heart beats or babysitting sick kids in the hospital's surgical
ward.  The easiest