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Medical and Community Experiences for Undergraduates

Academic qualifications demonstrating your fitness for medical school will not sufficiently convince the admissions committee that you have the potential to be a good physician. A variety of hands-on experiences in the health care area and in the community will show your knowledge of the practice of medicine and your commitment to caring for others. It is evidence that your decision to become a health care provider is built on personal involvement. It is a good indication that you have thought through your decision.

The Health Professions Program at Wake Forest University attempts to provide you a forum for you to find out whether or not a health care career is, in fact, for you. If you take full advantage of what is offered you should be able to demonstrate unequivocally to medical schools and other health professions programs that your decision to pursue your goal is based on a variety of experiences and not some vague dream of helping others.

Health Professions Partners Program

An impressive number of alums who have entered the health care professions have subscribed to the Alumni Career Assistance Program (ACAP). The Health Professions Partners Program (HPPP) is a subset of that listing. The purpose of the program is to make available to undergraduates of all classes, and especially freshmen and sophomores, a way to inform themselves of the lifestyles of the various health care professionals. Students can then determine the compatibility of a particular profession with their own expected life style choices. This program guarantees an initial short meeting with an alum. Any further arrangement made with the alum is mutually agreed to. It may be in the form of shadowing a health care provider. It may be in having a meal, or in visiting with the alum in the office, clinic, or elsewhere, with the objective of finding out what is it like to blend work with family life. Students are encouraged to visit alums representing a selection of health care professions. Visit the Career Services Office in Reynolda Hall to review the HPPP listing.

Medical Volunteer Work

You will not know what are the difference between a hurt patient, a sick patient, and a dying patient, and, very importantly, your reaction to them, until you have been exposed to them in a medical setting. You need to learn whether or not you can, or how to, give of yourself to patients with one or more of these three human conditions. You can get experience either by watching the medical teams at work, as would happen in the Emergency Rooms and Operating Rooms. Or you can have a direct impact on the patient, albeit in a simple, human and humane way, with bedside care, as would happen on the wards or in nursing homes or terminal care facilities. The former represents an opportunity to learn about the practice of medicine. The latter represents an opportunity to learn more about yourself. The modern health care provider exercises both. It is important that you should search for experiences in both areas. North Carolina Baptist Hospital has an extensive student volunteer program with a variety of outlets. You should contact officers of our chapter of Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED), the premedical honor society. They will link you with the hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes, as well as the Human Service Alliance, Hospice, and other facilities. You may want to approach your local hospital or clinic for these activities during vacation times. Check with Dr. Lane for more information.
 

Preceptorship Program

An impressive number of clinicians at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have agreed to participate in the Preceptorship Program. The purpose of the program is to expose any undergraduate to the different disciplines in medicine. It will also show the students selected aspects of academic medicine.

Students may participate in as many of these three-week long preceptorships as they wish. The experiences may vary from watching open heart, brain, or knee surgery, to observing or even assisting physicians with their patients in family practice, pediatrics, endocrinology, gerontology, infectious diseases, etc. Students may accompany physicians and medical students as they make their rounds in the hospital wards. See Dr. Lane for how to take advantage of this program.

Community Service

Health Care providers are linked to the community. Many show their commitment to their community through volunteer work. The link to those in need, albeit not in medical need, is an important and students should forge such ties. This altruism can be expressed by working at the Homeless Shelter, or at the Soup Kitchen, Battered Women’s Shelter, as a Big Brother, Big Sister, or by tutoring middle school children, helping to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, or helping the frail by participating in Meals on Wheels for the shut-in, and so on.. A number of organizations on campus are active in helping in the community, and students should search these out through the Student Union, APO, AED, or other service organizations.

Please remember that your studies come first in this phase of your life. You need to strike a balance between the need to excel in your academic life without short changing it, and with the need to grow as a committed future health care provider and human being with the options presented above. As Rome was not built in a day, neither is your record of accomplishment. You have three years before you apply to medical school. One four-hour block of time a week during each semester should be sufficient to devote to volunteering at the hospital or the clinic. Blend in the other options so that you are satisfied that your enthusiasm and enjoyment for medical and community service experiences do not jeopardize your academic commitments.