Volunteerology

These days volunteering has become a big ticket item among med student hopefuls. All the pre-meds out there are trying to one up each other in their extra curriculars. I've seen it go from helping out in a soup kitchen to volunteering in a hospital to mission trips here to medical mission trips abroad to opening clinics in africa for the poor to single handedly saving an entire village of poor babies suffering from the plague and curing all forms of cancer while maintaining a 4.0 GPA at Harvard. I mean.....come freakin on people!! All schools might as well make volunteering into a damn class--volunteerology 101: the art of kissing ADCOM ass!!

Anywho, I've noticed that volunteering has become more and more like trying to get top secret clearance in the CIA. I've gone through more bullshit trying to get a volunteer position pushing people around a small community hospital than I had to when I became an EMT in a major city. Lets analyze this, shall we!(My expert knowledge from my psych degree shwoing itself) As an EMT peoples lives will depend on my ability to know what the hell I'm doing. Now, I was working on 24 hours shifts. So even being dead tired after 22 hours of saving dying people, if I got a call I would have to be on top of my game. As a hospital volunteer I will be pushing a person in a wheelchair from one room to another 1 day a week....for 4 hours. Now, in order to land this volunteer spot I had to fill out 3 applications, do a background check, go through 2 interviews in person, and one phone interview. I also had to get a TB test (standard for working in the hospital) AND a reubella titer and a Hep B titer. On the other hand, for my EMT job I had one application and one interview. Plus that standard TB test. So.....apparently they're worried the unibomber is going to feel bad and do a little community service. Does anyone notice something wrong with this picture.......




.........Jackasses.