Volunteer Work - What Counts?

Volunteer Work- What Counts?
Dear Dr. Dale,

What sort of volunteer work/ internships count toward graduate school requirement hours?

Virtually all medical and allied health fields have a health experience or shadowing requirement. What is actually required varies remarkably from field to field. Physician assistant programs have one of the largest requirements for health care experience. Some programs require up 2000 hours of hands on health care experience. Sometimes this is gained by working In the field as an emergency medical technician or medical assistant. Many fields like occupational and physical therapy require shadowing of professionals in the chosen field. The hours required vary, but many programs have a minimum number of hours, often less than one hundred.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   However these programs often state that the average accepted applicant has 3-4 times this minimum amount. For occupational and physical therapy programs only hours shadowing in the particular  profession count towards the required number of hours which is different than physician assistant programs which aim for more of a diverse exposure to direct patient care. Another feature of the required hours for occupational therapy and physical therapy is the diversity requirement.   This requirement requires the applicant to obtain hours in several distinct areas of the discipline. In other words 300 hours of nursing home shadowing does not necessarily meet the occupational therapy diversity requirement. They require some of the hours to be in other occupational areas like school system observation or psychiatry work. Many students interested in a health care career will do volunteer work to help clarify more precisely where their interests lie. They should record those hours and experiences for future reference but these hours will likely be only a small part of what is required to meet the health care experience requirement of their chosen field. I hope this helps and thanks for the question.