Look No Further. Get Started Today.

20 Minutes Free Consultation

Part V: Community Service

Community service is a very important part of a medical school application as it demonstrates a commitment to improving the lives of those who are less fortunate or your fellow community members. Community service can be virtually any experience that improves the lives of others.  Examples of community service include volunteering at a local homeless shelter, tutoring children from underserved backgrounds, and serving as a coach to children with disabilities. Here are a few important pointers about community service:

• Show a long-term commitment to community service: Participating in a soup kitchen three times or serving at your local homeless shelter on Thanksgiving and Christmas does not do much to bolster the community service aspect of your application. On the other hand, working at a local homeless shelter for an entire year and helping implement programs that improves the lives of the homeless population could make a difference in your application.

• Traveling abroad to do community service counts:  If you spend a summer in another country working as a volunteer for an organization that is trying to improve the lives and livelihoods of indigent populations in the community, this experience will be considered valuable community service and will help strengthen your application to medical school.  Students travel abroad with various organizations helping build homes, schools, clinics, etc.

• Use your community service to demonstrate leadership: One of the most impressive attributes of a good medical school applicant is their ability to take initiative and be a leader. And one of the best places to show your ability to serve as a leader is in the community. Identify an issue that you are passionate about in your community and work on finding a way to address it. In other words establish your own program in the community. This may seem daunting at first, but its quite achievable if you believe in your own idea and have to courage to execute.  Do not be afraid of failing, just the fact that you try to take initiative will be impressive. Examples of community-based programs you can implement:

I. A program to provide health education for the elderly in your local neighborhood

II. A program to deliver food to the homeless population on a consistent basis

III. A program to help the uninsured in the community navigate free health clinics

• Clinical work in the community can serve as community service:  One of the advantages of doing clinical volunteer work for the underserved is that it will help you become aware of the some of the challenges and issues that this community faces.  You can use this information to more effectively devise a program to serve those in the community.  For example, if you find that the patient population at your clinic does not comply with their medication or diet regimen as frequently, you can use this information to help develop a community-based program to promote exercise or medication compliance.